With the increased interest in introducing digital literacy skills in the classroom as a means of preparing students for the 21st century marketplace, our teaching and learning center has had more questions from faculty about using blogs as a teaching tool. The Innovative Instructor doesn’t advocate using technology for technology’s sake, but student blogging can be a way to achieve several learning outcomes for your course.
CC Jeff Utecht: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jutecht/
For example, blogs can be used to improve student writing, especially for developing skill in analysis and critique. The blog format is particularly useful for shorter, less formal, assignments. Blog platforms allow for inclusion and display of multimedia, which may offer an advantage over paper submissions. Blogs provide a means for student response to or discussion of outside-of-class readings that are not adequately covered during class. They can be useful as a forum for group projects, or act as a collaborative authoring tool for students to develop and present a group assignment or project. Blogs can be a place where students reflect on readings, much as analog journaling was used as a pedagogical tool in the past.
In order to achieve your curricular goals you could use individual student blogs (each student has his or her own blog), group blogs for team projects, or a class blog to which everyone contributes.
The Innovative Instructor gathered some tips for ensuring that implementing blogs in your class will be a success.
The most comprehensive advice comes from the Chronicle of Higher Education’s Professor Hacker blog columnist Mark Sample (assistant professor of literature and new media at George Mason University) in a somewhat tongue in cheek commentary entitled A Better Blogging Assignment. Sample claims to be sick of student blogging, but then goes on to provide very useful guidelines for different ways of using blogs as a pedagogical tool. In fact, Sample is looking “for ways to re-invigorate [his] blogging assignments.” He outlines methods for structuring blog assignments using all of the course blog types (individual, group, class), and recommends having a schedule or assignments for posting and commenting. He advises being detailed in your expectations and provides this example of student guidelines:
Each student will contribute to the weekly class blog, posting an approximately 200-300 word response to the week’s readings. There are a number of ways to approach these open-ended posts: consider the reading in relation to its historical or theoretical context; write about an aspect of the day’s reading that you don’t understand, or something that jars you; formulate an insightful question or two about the reading and then attempt to answer your own questions; or respond to another student’s post, building upon it, disagreeing with it, or re-thinking it.
Read the post and the comments and don’t be disheartened by Sample’s momentary discouragement with ways in which he is using blogging assignments.
From the Georgetown University blog Initiative on Technology-Enhanced Learning – Engaging Students through Blogs in Large Classes comes this idea.
For his introductory course on the U.S. political system, which enrolls nearly 150 students, Mark Rom turned to a course blog to help stimulate class discussion and personal interaction among students. Because class discussion can be intimidating in such a large course, Rom decided to integrate a course blog into his curriculum in order to ensure that all students had the opportunity to engage in meaningful discussion about American politics.
As a side note, instructors should consider making blog participation a percentage of the grade to encourage student use.
Course blogs are often thought of as a way to provide an authentic learning experience. And yet the product often falls short of the promise. Read Using Blogs in a College Classroom: What’s Authenticity Got To Do With It? by Sarah Lohnes, a doctoral candidate at the Teachers College of Columbia University. She cites the following “necessary ingredients” for creating effective class blogs:
- Blog posts should be original, “well-crafted,” “well- informed”.
- [There should be] an authentic purpose for maintaining the blog.
- A blog should offer a window into the author’s identity and community affiliations.
- A blog should take advantage of the medium to offer a sense of immediacy and intimacy.
Faculty have shared some lessons learned from experience with course blogs. Hillary Miller, Baruch College of CUNY, in her post Lessons from a First-Time Course Blogger talks about the “out of sight, out of mind syndrome” noting that “the blog can feel like that side dish you ordered but weren’t quite hungry for. It’s easy to lose track of the blog, and its implementation should be planned with an eye towards avoiding this. “… I had good intentions – I wanted to comment on posts frequently, but commenting is time-consuming…. From the student side, they were assigned a date for one post; once students posted, they didn’t have a strong incentive to return, which would leave me begging them to “visit the blog!” when I myself was embarrassingly behind on reading their old posts.” In other words, set specific expectations for students’ blog assignments and for how often you will grade or comment on their posts.
Miller writes that students not always comfortable with new-to-them instructional technologies and methodologies. She suggests “[m]aking some class time available to teach students the rhyme and reason behind some aspects of the blog is arguably essential, and yet somehow easy to overlook.” Letting students know why you are having them blog is a key to successful implementation.
Finally, what platform should you use? Here at Johns Hopkins, we have Blackboard, which has a built in blogging tool that can be customized for individual or group work and can be made private (between instructor and individual or group) or public – in the sense of being available for the entire class – not to the outside world. Course blogs, where all students contribute to a shared blog, are also an option. Other Learning Management Systems (LMS) offer similar tools. If you are looking for a more “authentic” experience or don’t have an LMS or blogging application at your institution, there are free, public options available. WordPress and Google’s Blogger are two popular ones. WordPress, in particular, offers the ability to easily create a full-fledged website. For facilitating multimedia assignments, tumblr might be a good choice. If you want more options, Six Revisions ( a website with useful information for web developers and designers) offers a list and descriptions of the Top Ten Free Online Blogging Platforms.
Macie Hall, Senior Instructional Designer
Center for Educational Resources
Image Source: CC Jeff Utecht, http://www.flickr.com/photos/jutecht/
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Blogging is really a great tool for learning new things. Thanks for writing this article about it.
i agree with you, a lot of the knowledge gained from the writing blog
Actually it is effective on both ends – teaching and learning.
Thanks for recommending us at your great post about free blogging platform.
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Thanks for sharing your views about blogging!!!
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This was a very interesting article! People don’t realize how influential blogs can be and what an effective solution they serve!
http://www.gpspublicrelations.com/Inspiration_Harvest/simple-facts-why-blogging-will-boost-your-business/
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Good post. I try to use tumblr ( http://world-shaker.tumblr.com )
and to put my own online ressources for my students : http://www.electropublication.net
Appreciate this post. Will try it out.
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One of the great article shared. Appreciate the effort. Blogging is really very interesting things on this world.
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Blogging can help students feel less shy with giving their opinion on a fact. And as you said, it will help improve collaboration.
How can blogging be beneficial for the lower grade levels?
The Innovative Instructor blog addresses higher ed concerns, but I am guessing there is literature out there on this. Some of the benefits mentioned in the article will be true for students at any level as they practice writing skills.
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Thanks for sharing
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Fascinating, very well written. you are such a great author.
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Great article,I appreciate the valuable time you have used to share this.Thanks
Nice article and I follow your articles.
Would it not be nice if blogging services were armed with the technology to inform students of their possible writing mistakes like draft writing?
Blogging as a learning tool have been an effective tool for students in publish important articles, valuable information.
It’s hard to find educated people on this subject, but you sound like you know
what you’re talking about! Thanks
The image make it very easy to understand blogging connections,
and post is very useful.
Thanks for sharing nice list of tools…
Great article! I also have a great source for people who are ready to use blogging as a learning tool.
https://kevinocasio.com/how-to-start-a-blog
A complete step-by-step guide for beginners. Hope you’ll find it useful 🙂
It is generally said about education that more you share, better you learn.
This one sentence conveys the most important feature of blogging. It is always good to share your knowledge with the world and let yourself dive deep in the ocean of knowledge.
It is generally said about education that more you share, better you learn.
This one sentence conveys the most important feature of blogging. It is always good to share your knowledge with the world and let yourself dive deep in the ocean of knowledge.
Keep it up..
I was totally sold on the idea of blogging after reading of its potential in promoting the writing and analytical skills of students. I have not set up a class blog as yet but do appreciate your article which verbalized some of my deep seated concerns. I paid particular keen attention to your advice stating to give students detailed instructions and guidelines. I will definitely sell the idea of blogging to them and be clear of my expectations. Very appreciative of your list of free blogging sites as well. Your caution lights have definitely helped me troubleshoot on the way to setting up my classroom blog. Thanks!
A great post on blogging. We get many ideas on various topics through a blog thereby learning more and more.
Nice post for the beginners who want to start blog. The tools listed are amazing!
Great read! This is what I was looking for, Blogging helps teaching and learning both. Thank you for posting.
The best part of blogging is, one can learn through interaction with influencers and experts.
A great post on blogging. We get many ideas on various topics through a blog thereby learning more and more.
very informative and nice, I am waiting for the next educational article.
Thank you for writing such an informative an insightful article on using blogging as a learning tool. I have never written a blog before, but I am currently being introduced to the Web 2.0 tool and your article has helped me to recognize the benefits of blogging as an instructional tool. As a result of your article, I have begun doing more research on it and found the article below to be quite interesting. https://www.edweek.org/tm/articles/2012/11/28/tln_curran.html
Thank you for the link.
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This is a great reminder for us to get friendly with internet and explore our learning experience. I never thought that we can use blogs area a learning platform. I have started using this technique in my classes, students are getting more and more interested in using blogs for learning and are now aware of the technology trends, news. I have also taken an initiative to lessen their stress here http://www.eklavyaschooljal.net/blog-post/stress-exam-day
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Really very helpful your site is for academics
The blog format is particularly useful for shorter, less formal, assignments. Blog platforms allow for inclusion and display of multimedia, which may offer an advantage over paper submissions. Blogs provide a means for student response to or discussion of outside-of-class readings that are not adequately covered during class. They can be useful as a forum for group projects, or act as a collaborative authoring tool for students to develop and present a group assignment or project.
This article is very useful, thank you
Hey, great post Macie!
A good friend of mine is a dean at a private university here in town (Rome, GA), and he and I were just discussing some of the interesting benefits he has seen running a blog for his department.
(He uses the school’s platform, though I was trying to get him to create a separate personal blog as well)(I teach digital marketing btw, and run my own blog!)
I’ll share this with him 🙂
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Well written content like this restores my faith in quality writing.The points are presented with intelligent thought and consideration. It’s very well-written and engaging. I agree with many of your views and respect your attention to detail.
Nice post, thanks for sharing
good content and my idea is creating a useful blog for people.
Thank you!
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Interesting write up on blogging. Quite educative and inspiring. Have not tried it out before but I will. From every indication, blogging is a useful online tool for teaching and learning if used appropriately.
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I was totally sold on the idea of blogging after reading of its potential in promoting the writing and analytical skills of students. I have not set up a class blog as yet but do appreciate your article which verbalized some of my deep seated concerns.