An Evaluation of Google Plus Communities as an Active Learning Journal Alternative to Improve Learning Efficacy

Learning journals are a very beneficial learning tool for students across a range of disciplines. The requirement of frequent entries to a journal encourages students to start achieving the learning objectives from the first week of a module. The completed journal serves as a useful revision resource for students preparing for a final exam or even long after the module’s completion. The downside to learning journals is that they are passive and the class as a whole does not benefit from the variety of opinions, articles and personal experiences logged in their classmates' journals. If the journal is only handed in at the end a semester, there is no room for feedback for the students on their entries until after the module has completed. In this paper, guidelines for the deployment of an active learning journal alternative, using Google Plus Communities, are presented. A literature review is also included for alternative case studies in using learning journals, weblogs, and wikis for recording and encouraging student learning throughout a module.