Blogs: Ideas for practice

Models for blogging in education

1. Class management (teacher-only site): communication tool, announcements, links, lecture notes and powerpoints, advice to students, resource repository. See the Media Cultures 2 blog by Cathie Summerhayes for an example of this type of use.

2. Educational, teacher as blogger: Teacher writes posts and students comment on what the teacher has blogged. Ruth Lee Martin's Australian Music blog uses this model.

3. Educational, whole-of-class as bloggers: Anyone in the class can write posts and comment. Both PopMusicology (Alistair Noble) and The Art and Politics of Collecting (Charlotte Galloway) work on this model.

ANU class blog examples

The Art and Politics of Collecting (Teacher: Charlotte Galloway)
Australian Music (Teacher: Ruth Lee Martin)
Bachelor of Science Advanced (Teacher: Susan Howitt)
Introduction to Australian Literature (Teacher: Julieanne Lamond)
Introduction to Longitudinal Methods (Teacher: Edith Gray)
Media Cultures 2 (Teacher: Cathie Summerhayes)
Music in Eighteenth and Ninteenth Century Europe (Teacher: Alistair Noble)
PopMusicology (Teacher: Alistair Noble)
Textiles@ANU (Teachers: Valerie Kirk, Annie Trevillian, Jennifer Robertson)
Visualising Contemporary Asian and Pacific Art (Teacher: Michelle Antoinette)

What could you blog?

Here are some ideas for blogging.

NOTE:

Blogs are their own beastie: don’t use them as email lists, discussion groups, or listservs.
Don’t use blogs to get students to post mini-essays or the like. If you want students to write a mini-essay, then ask them to write a mini-essay.

Class management blogs: teachers blogging for students

Communicate the latest class info
Provide links
Provide advice on how to complete assignments
Provide assignment info
Post lecture slides and notes
Assignment review
Assignment submission
Post prompts for reflection on class topics

Cathie Summerhayes' Media Cultures blog is an example of a blog being used as a class management tool.

Educational blogs: blogging by students

Comment on new items, current affairs, course themes and topics
Discuss the ‘learning journey’
Discuss workshop/class activities
Writing journals
E-portfolios
Blogs by individual students or by groups of student

Academic and research blogs

Pre-publish research findings and get feedback
Share latest research literature
Raise important research questions

Check out the New Mandala blog from ANU academics Andrew Walker and Nicholas Farrelly, as well as the East Asia Forum blog to see this model in practice.

Professional blogs: teachers blogging for teachers