Center for Instructional Technology and Training
Many companies, brands, and individuals publish blogs online. In general, they are short articles or journal-type posts that are shared on a website by an individual or group of individuals, and many times they allow audience/reader engagement
Blogger is an approved blogging tool available to UF students. There is no cost to use this tool, but it is accessed outside of Canvas, so students must create accounts. Canvas Discussions and Assignments are a solution available within eLearning.
Assigning regular writing in a blog or journal encourages students to gather and synthesize their learning throughout the semester. Students can then pull from their writing for an end-of-semester project or presentation.
Students will continue to build their written communication skills through repeated practice and can potentially learn a new form of writing. These low stakes assessments can also be an opportunity to educate and reinforce to students what constitutes plagiarism.
Longitudinal writing assignments allow students to focus more attention on a particular topic, while being exposed to variety through their peers.
Grade individual posts on completion and assign a culminating activity that builds from the blog posts to show mastery. Assign peer reviews to provide feedback. Stagger due dates to spread out the grading load.
Dr. Jane Southworth, GEO2242 Extreme Weather, Enrollment: 100-150
Students write a weekly weather blog in which they explain the weather forecast for one U.S. and one international location throughout the semester. Students must include maps, imagery, and citations. Grading responsibility was shared with teaching assistant. One summary comment was left on each post in the first week, and feedback was typically minimal unless correction was needed after that.
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