What is the Blog Tool?
A Blog Tool is a tool which provides an online forum, diary, or journal. An entire class or selected individuals can access, add new entries and comments, if these settings are enabled by instructorsWhy might I want to use the tool?
With the Blog Tool in Blackboard, the Blog can be shared only between members of the class or it can be configured to be shared only between the individual student and instructor or between specific student groups and the instructor.
Blogs in courses can be used for.
- Reflective journals
- Peer review and feedback
- Critical thinking and creativity
Using group or course-wide Blogs fosters lively discussion of course topics and concepts. When engaged in written debate, students are motivated to sharpen their critical thinking and rhetorical skills.
View the blog tool demo movie (Flash required)
Types of Blogs within Bb
The Central Course Blog
The Central Course Blog site is found within the Tools area of your course. As the instructor, you need to configure and make it available. This Blog can be used for entries shared with the entire class and the instructor. You can access the Central Course Blog site by selecting Tools from the main course menu and then choosing Blog from the menu.
- Users can create a new entry that includes text formatting, external links and embedded images.
- Entries are shown in chronological order, with the newest entries appearing first on the list. Participants can use a calendar to examine older posts.
- When viewing an entry, participants in the course can leave a comment on a post.
Group or individual Blog
Each course has one Central Course Blog but can have many individual or group Blog sites. To create, configure and access individual or group Blogs are from any the content area (Course Documents, Assignments, etc.).
Advanced options
When instructors create a blog in a content area of the course, an entry in the gradebook can be automatically generated so that participation in the blog can be included in the student grades.
Access to a blog can be controlled by the instructor. For example, the instructor can limit access to groups already created in the Blackboard control panel or to selected users.
Other options for blogs include allowing students to delete blog entries, controlling who can comment on entries, limiting access to the blog for a specific time period, and allowing a public RSS feed that can be viewed outside of the course.
) with the URL in the bottom right corner of the blog. Be sure that you do not turn this feature on if there is sensitive information in the blog. If you don't know exactly what this option means, then please leave the option off.More help
You can get more ideas about designing class activities with blogs and other Blackboard tools by talking with a consultant with the Center for Instructional Technology; email cit@duke.edu to set up an appointment.
For more information on setting up and using the Blog Tool in your Blackboard course,
- see the step-by-step online documentation at http://www.learningobjects.com/training.jsp--looking for Journal LX , or
- click on the help
icon at the upper right corner of each blog page shown below, which will take you to an online documentation.