News Archive

Dr. Andrzej (pronounced “And-Jey”) Gwizdalski, a research fellow in the School of Social Sciences, loves to talk blogging, technology and teaching.

Andrzej was born in Gdansk, ‘the city of freedom’, near the Polish Baltic coast. He says his childhood experiences strongly influenced his decision to study and teach as an adult.

“When you grow up seeing people change the world – seeing the events leading to the end of Cold War, when you learn about your own family roots spanning across continents, and when you are addicted to movies and travel documentaries from different cultures then this may well shape your childhood dreams,” said Andrzej.

“I wanted to see the world, know and understand its diverse people and communicate this to others. After years of learning from some of the best in the field I turned my dreams into a profession. I get excited any time I explore socio-cultural phenomena in the world and are then able to communicate these in their full richness of detail to others. Multimedia technology comes in very handy here.”

Last semester, Andrzej set up a professional blogging platform at UWA to use as a teaching tool.

He began using the platform, UWA Blogs, in his Semester 1 unit Globalisation and Work.  Teams of three or four students had to set up, design and run a blog on a topic of their choice.

“I have long been using multimedia technology in world-wide education settings. I knew from research that blogging in the classroom had great benefits for students and teachers,” said Andrzej. “But I never expected such impressive outcomes!”

“I expected the students to post several pieces each and comment on each other’s blogs,” said Andrzej, “but half way through the semester the quality and quantity of their contributions exceeded all expectations.”

“I have never seen such exemplary team collaboration and engagement. The quality of the blog and the emerging class discussions were exceptional: squarely comparable to Master’s or PhD student work. The SURF and SPOT results rocketed!” he said.

Andrzej is quick to point out the project was only made possible with funding  from a 2015 Improving Student Learning Grant, the support of Business School academics, Dr. Michael Gillan and Prof. Phil Hancock, and the UWA Web Office led by Mr Grant Malcolm.

He also acknowledges that while technology in the classroom can make a real difference to teaching outcomes, it will never be the whole story.

“Blogging and other technologies will continue to change traditional teaching but I doubt that they will ever replace great educators and the need for face-to-face engagement that many of my students view as critical,” said Andrzej.

“You need to be passionate about the content taught and the medium used to do so. I believe there will be room for both traditional and new technologies, especially at leading universities.”

If you would like to attend a workshop to learn how to effectively use UWA Blogs for teaching or personal communication, email Andrzej on [email protected] to express you interest of start your own blog directly at https://blogs.uwa.edu.au .