The development of a community of researchers through the activity of blogging

Abstract

This article discusses the educational opportunities of a blog on the development of a community of researchers, within the framework of a doctoral program in educational leadership, in online environment, at the Open University, Portugal. The program focuses on advanced research and development of reflective processes required for consideration, decision making in professional complex contexts, critical reflection on the practices and the sense of self-efficacy in order to create solutions to problems.

This study is based on investigations carried out on blogs for the academic development of higher-order skills. In this line, the authors argue about the relevance of blogging, both in its individual dimension of support and self-reflection and self-expression in the Community dimension as reflective dialogue support.

The starting point in this exploratory study was to cause the interaction between two communities of researchers aiming to constitute a wider community around a central theme – the action research – to doctoral candidates who are both supervisors and leaders in school contexts. Blog interactions resulting from previous reflections produced in the forums as well as various productions written by the professionals constitute the empirical support for this study and were analyzed qualitatively, with the critical discourse analysis.
The results of this study show that the blogs are a good tool for learning and sharing reflections focused on professional practice contributing to the formation of a community of researchers. Are important contributions to the research on the use of blogs in contexts of advanced training