using blogs for learning

Whilst it is common to see academic staff with self-promoting blogs (example: here) I had a fair degree of difficulty locating blogs that support students, or courses. Clearly many of them will be embedded in non-public areas of the web.

Ways in which blogs are used by tutors:

1. Blogs can be used by tutors to make course-related announcements - much the same as a calendar, or regular announcements page with posts made at whatever interval desired. Content of such posts might be things such as reading, assessment, agenda.
An example can be found: here.

2. Though less common, blogs may be used by tutors for facilitating short, subject-specific discussions. Students enter their contributions in the 'comments' field. The advantage of this type of discussion is that they are very contained - the comments do not impact on the layout of the blog and are accessed solely by clicking the 'comments' link.
An example can be found: here and another example is: here

3. A tutor can set up a group blog which becomes an environment used for student-student support and tutor-student support. A lovely example is the Let's Learn Korean blog: "A group blog about learning Korean. We write about our experiences in the classroom, self-study, resources to use, advice and encouragement. Writing in English or in Korean to reflect on the difficulties and successes each of us encounters"

Ways in which blogs are used by students:

[Note: The following list has been lifted from: here. However I found the blogs to illustrate them.]

1. Each student could have their own blog (example: here)
2. Facilitator could have a blog and a class blog aggregator (example: here)
3. Students could make reflective journal entries (private) and summarise these in a weekly post (public)
- Peer review and facilitator feedback could be via the comment facility (specific feedback) or trackback (general review)
- Public posts could be notified to the class aggregator page (ping) so that only one site needed to be checked