Animating Civic Education: Developing a Knowledge Navigation System using Blogging and Topic Map Technology

With the advent of Web 2.0 technology, message transmission has become increasingly convenient, and the rising amount of information has become gradually diverse. A question must be asked of this trend, on whether informal learning resources can be integrated into formal learning knowledge. This study attempts to integrate educational blog articles and use the wealth of information inherent in the development of a blogging system with knowledge navigation demand for both formal and informal learning in civic education. In the system, Topic Maps (TM) technology was implemented to represent informal learning content in a formal curriculum structure. To develop a framework adapted to formal and informal learning contexts, this study proposes a seamless model for teachers and system developers to represent informal learning content that adheres to the formal knowledge structure. Analytical results indicate that students approved the effectiveness of combining the blogging system and individual Topic Maps (iTM) function. In other words, the system derived from the design framework helps students learn citizenship courses in an innovative manner. The outcome further supports the proposed seamless model in providing an appropriate viewpoint for integrating formal and informal learning.