Reflection Activity: (2min)

Use the Zoom Chat function, to answer the following question:

• In your opinion what important aspects should you consider before implementing a student blogging activity? 

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  A blog can make an interesting learning diary, with students keeping a journal of what they have learnt, and what they would like to find out more about. Some students find that this can offer a useful opportunity to reflect on their own learning. If they choose, students can restrict individual blog entries so that they are only visible to teaching staff and themselves. Blog entries can also be made visible to all the other students in the site, or to the public.

Blogs can be particularly useful if students are working on individual projects, and you want them to be able to follow what the other students in their group are doing. Students can be asked to blog regularly, and to read each other’s blogs.

Resources:

Getting started with eFundi Blogs.

Getting Started

You’ll need to decide what you’d like your students to accomplish by blogging:

How does blogging support one or more of your courses’ learning outcomes?
What type of writing will they do here?
Will students respond to your own prompts, or will they have freer reign?
Do they need their own blogs or will they collaborate using just one?
How often will you require students to post, and will you expect them to comment on one another’s work?

Consider whether you want your students to create individual blogs or work on a shared course blog.
Students who create their own blogs can customize them as they wish; however, if you go this route consider sharing a list of all students’ blogs and encourage them to visit one another’s sites and post comments. Example: Avogrado Salad - A Chemistry Blog by Sarah Almeda
With a course blog, all students post entries to the same blog, and in that way sharing one another’s writing and comments is easier.

After you consider the above, you’ll need to choose a blogging platform. Two of the best free options are WordPress and Blogger. In both tools, students can create their own blogs, customize templates and layouts, and embed multimedia.
​​Blogger is developed by Google and many find it easier to use than WordPress. Users will need their own Google accounts to use this service.
WordPress is an open-source blogging application that can either be hosted independently or on WordPress.com’s servers. Its features are more advanced than Blogger but some find it complicated to use; learn more about WordPress.com vs WordPress.org.
Other options you may want to consider are Tumblr, a free microblogging app, and Edublogs, a fee-based service powered by WordPress.