THE BLOG AS A TOOL TO INCREASE KNOWLEDGE AMONG UNIVERSITY STUDENTS

Current college students are digital natives or also called millennials because they are very familiar with new technologies and in particular with Web 2.0 applications like social networks, such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube , Blog, .... In addition, these students are multitasking and prefer to learn in a flexible class environment that respects them as individuals, receives feedback from their performances and the learning applying theoretical content to the real world. Therefore, the use of teaching methodologies that achieve this type of learning using the new technologies will be more likely to increase the enjoyment motivation, the involvement, the acquired specific or not competences and the students' satisfaction.

Taking into account that these are the characteristics of our students and, on the other hand, that the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) proposes the autonomous and cooperative learning in which the student is the protagonist of the teaching process we proposed a collaborative learning methodology based on new technologies. We chose as a tool to support that methodology the blog because it is one of the most popular, in fact studies in the literature have verified the role it develops in student learning.

We apply this collaborative learning methodology based on the elaboration of blog in an elective subject of last course of Business Administration Degree in a Spanish public University. The aim for this study is to know how the student’s involvement with the elaboration of blog and the student’s enjoyment with that elaboration influences the learning measured by specific and not specific competences.

Finally, we analysed how the learning increase the student’s satisfaction with the subject. Data from usable questionnaires, collected in Spain, were tested. The results provide support to the model and reveal a good model fit. In light of these findings, implications for theory and practice are highlighted.