Getting Started with Blogs in Blackboard

Students using computersWeb Logs, known as Blogs, provide a journal style format where course users may add date-based entries made up of text, which may also include pictures, or other files. Blogs have grown in popularity over recent years and are used for a variety of purposes, such as providing news and comment on niche areas, as a personal diary, or as a means of informing readers about progress on a project.

Through their reflective nature, blogs are a useful technology for use within education.

Blogs within Blackboard

There are two types of blog available in Blackboard courses, either or both may be used by instructors in their Blackboard courses.

Course Blogs

One of these is available per course, and these are accessed from the Blackboard course menu. The course wide blog can be used by the all instructors and students. This type of blog is best suited for work relevant to the entire cohort.

For example:

  • Keep a blog about the course. It could be used as a replacement for the announcements screen, by changing the course entry point to the course wide blog, so that your course opens up with course blog when entered. Whether you allow students to post entries or only comments is up to you.

Group Blogs

Any number of group blogs can be added to a Blackboard course’s content area, such as Course Documents. Group blogs are for use by groups of students. This type of blog is best used for collaborative group work.

For example

  • A place for a group to reflect on their progress as they work on a project together. Students may comment on each others entries.
  • If groups can see each other groups blogs then they may add comments as a type of peer review.

Personal / Private Blogs

Personal blogs are set up in the same way as group blogs, but an important option may be set to prevent students from reading each other’s entries. Provided this is carefully set the blog may be used for students to record their personal reflections on a theme:

For example:

  • A course based journal or reflective log, to which instructors may add comments.

More ideas about using Blogs

There’s a great deal of information and ideas about using blogs in an educational context available on line and through academic journals. Using a search engine such as Google is a good way to start.