Assignment Options for Blogging

Instructors from different colleges, schools, departments, and classes utilize many different blogging assignments.   Some instructors use a blog to facilitate all assignments in the course; others use blogs as part of an assignment.

Regardless of how an instructor shapes his or her assignments, however, the biggest challenge instructors face is to construct effective assignments that encourage students to move beyond summarizing course materials.

Once the voluntary nature of posting and commenting at will becomes required, students may try to merely meet the requirements rather than facilitating processing of information and learning. 

The following includes several diverse opportunities that blogs offer for classroom use:

• Individual student projects where students can reflect on data, related topics, or demonstrate mastery of lectures
• One class blog for community learning
• Blog authored by the instructor to extend course material
• Weekly summaries of research, data, analysis, etc...
• Record new vocabulary
• A student/instructor blog that nurtures discourse
• Explore hyperlinks in other blogs
• Post on cultural topics, products, practices, and perspectives
• Record travels or/and read travel blogs
• Journal keeping
• Student portfolios
• Argumentative, Persuasive, Call to Action
• Read and review academic blogs
• Various collaboration Project
• Reporting and Critical Analysis
• Language, ESL idea sharing 
• Academic Blogs for publishing individual texts
• Publishing larger texts (memoirs, etc...)
• Professional sources for sharing opinions research, and discourse

Blogging Models for the Classroom

Even though blogs are not suitable for all courses nor all course objectives, they do offer most courses an array of assignment choices, learning outcomes, and structural options. The list below is only the tip of the iceberg as far as how you can incorporate different blogging assignments into your classroom:

• Reflection
• Critical Reading and Thinking Skills
• Political and Social Awareness and Engagement
• Essay Writing

  

To facilitate learning, two common blogging models exist for incorporating these types of skill building discussions, reflections, or assignments. 

Multiple Individual Blogs: Because students create their own blogs, they take ownership of their blogs and often continue to post once the course ends. For example, Halfway to Somewhere a blog from created by a student from my Winter 2010 course has decided to keep blogging.  She notes the following to distinguish the transition from her personal blog from her classroom blog:

Writer's Note: 

Originally, this blog was created for a college class. Posts later than this point were written specifically for class and may or may not translate to a wider audience (and, may or may not contain a little bullshit).

A few disadvantages, however, exists for this model. The first is that because the blogs are dispersed virtually, the followers are required to follow multiple blogs. As a result, the blogs are individual pieces rather than a unified discussion.

Common Course Blog: By making students administrators or authors of blogs, they can post, add pictures and links, and even alter the template. English 200 Community Blog offers an example of a common course blog. As a collective, students cultivate a community by building a comprehensive virtual structure that allows for more interaction in a quicker format. Dr. Christopher Long, a long-time user of blogs in the classroom, has experimented with both models and sees the Common Course Blog as the better choice. Because he relies solely on blogging posts for assignments, etc..., Long designed a blogging rubric for student blogging participation.

Collaborative Blogs: Another model is to have students groups collaboratively work on developing, writing, and editing blogs.  As part of the assignment, student can present their information and support and defend their choices of template, text, sources, images, and links.  Blogs at Penn State is another example of constructivism where faculty, staff, and students are building knowledge structures by creating blogs that cover research, professional insight, and an array of other topics.


 Blog Combo: You also have the option of combining different blog models to give students exposure to the medium in a variety of ways.   Don't Waste Your Precious represents an individual response to a service learning project she participated in.   Major Initiative reflects her contribution to a group blog of 4-5 students who collaborated on a blog calling for student action to participate in service learning.  You can read more about their experiences by reading "Students Blog About Service Work."

The Pedagogy Behind Blogs

In "Content Delivery in the 'Blogosphere," the authors contend that blogging can enhance many different pedagogies, but also that there is a pedagogy behind blogging itself. The authors reference Vygotsky's educational theory (1978), in that educators emphasize "knowledge construction" processes of the learner and suggest that "meaning making develops through the social process of language use over time."

Because this knowledge construction is discursive, relational and conversational in nature, as students gain and transform knowledge, they must have real outlets for publication of knowledge. This publication scaffolds learning in that it allows instructors to see the students' connections between ideas. In turn, students receive feedback on published works that allow them to understand the relationship and context basis of "knowledge, knowledge construction, and meaning making."

To read more about the pedagogy behind blogging, consult "Blogging Pedagogy."

(Source: www.thejournal.com/articles/16626)

Evolution of Blogs

A blog is different things to different people.  Some bloggers use blogs for personal reasons and post daily insights or opinions.  Other bloggers use blogs to share research, links, commentary, and help for followers.  

Media outlets have started to use blogs to complement editorials and articles, and corporations are now blogging to give customers access to the inner workings of companies and products.  A blog can really be anything you want it to be.  Most often, however, blogs are characterized by the following criteria:

• Frequent Postings
• Reverse Chronological Order of Posts
• Real Simple Syndication 
• Publishing Platform

Here are some other generalized features of blogging:

1. Blogs do not require software or knowledge of computer programming (may need to edit html a times).
2. Many free, accessible blogging programs and hosts.
3. Blogs do offer different security options such as limiting access for reading and posting.
4. Blogs disregard the status of the user; blogger can use real name or remain anonymous.
5. Blogs can consist of text, audio, images, pictures, and hyperlinks.
6. Blogs have auto-archiving features, which means that all posts are archived and available for searches.
7. Blog content can be distributed via subscriptions.

Because blogging has evolved beyond that of an online journal, the complexity of blogging has changed as well.  As a result, new methods and options are constantly emerging.  Here are two good resources to visit to familiarize yourself with blogging terminology:

Blogging Terms Glossary

Blogware Terminology

History of Blogging

In 1998, a handful of blogs existed in the form on online, diary-like forums.  Most blogs were personal in nature creating a voyeuristic like community - "I'll write about ME, and you READ it!!!"

A slow trickle of blogs were created in the next few years, but the opinion of many changed when presidential candidates in the 2008 election created blogs to attract readers.  Now, most media outlets and corporations have blogs; even The White House has a  blog.

With the availability of new hosts, such Blogger.com, blog nation has exploded. Experts report that every second, someone creates a blog.  However, many have stopped counting as the numbers, to some degree, don't matter anymore since most people now see the medium as a legitimate source for information.

If you want to read more about the history and evolution of blogging, Rebecca Blood's books and her blog Rebecca's Pocket are good sources to explore.  She offers an insider's view of blogging since she was on the blogosphere frontier back in the 90s.  You could incorporate some of Blood's articles and her blog itself into a classroom in a number of different ways.

However, if you are contemplating starting a classroom blog or a blog of your own, Will's ThoughtStream: Seven Ways to Find Time to Blog is another good resource for motivating you to create and post.