Blogs

A Blog is a personal online journal that is frequently updated and intended for general public consumption. In Blackboard, only enrolled users can view and author Blogs. Blogs encourage students to clearly express their ideas and addresses the need to expand various aspects of social learning. Blogs are an effective way to gain insight into students' activities and provide a way to share the knowledge and materials collected.

In Blackboard, Blogs consist of two elements:

  • Blog entries: Text, images, links, multimedia, Mashups, and attachments added by students open for comments.
  • Comments: Remarks or responses to Blog entries made by other students, including the faculty member.

A faculty member can choose to allow students to participate in Blogs in three ways:

  • Course Blogs: Only the faculty member can create a course Blog and determines the topic to be addressed. All course members can add Blog entries and add comments to Blog entries.
  • Individual Blogs: Only the faculty member can create a Blog for individual course members to use. Only the owner of the Blog is able to add Blog entries. All other course members can view and add comments.
  • Group Blogs: If the faculty member enables the Blogs tool for the group, all group members can add Blog entries and make comments on Blog entries, building upon one another. Any course member can view Group Blogs, but can only add comments. A Group Blog is different from a threaded discussion as each entry does not need to continue the discussion of the previous entry, but can be a complete thought on its own.

The faculty member can edit and delete entries in any of the three Blog types and delete user comments.

Screenshot showing the process to access or create a blog

To create a new Blog: From the Control Panel click Course Tools, click Blog, then click Create Blog in the adjacent content frame.

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