The weblog or “blog” takes many forms.  Recently, we have seen the rise of the news blog as a partial challenge to print journalism. The blog is also an online journal or personal reflective space, a place to share opinions about specific topics, and more.

What role, if any, might it play in education?

• Blogs@Baruch – At the Schwartz Communication Institute, faculty are actively using blogs in all sorts of classes.  Take a look at how they’re being used in art, composition, and elsewhere.
• Macaulay Honors College – At Macaulay, students are blogging as part of an e-portfolio project, independent of course assignments. Taking some time to learn what students are doing in their blogs/e-portfolios might give you some ideas for including blogs in your own classes.
• ePortfolios@York – In 2009, York College joined Macaulay, Baruch, and the CUNY Academic Commons in the use of WordPress as a blog/eportfolio platform. In just 8 months more than 900 York students have created blogs and/or eportfolios. Students control their privacy for their projects, so not all blogs are accessible to the general public. Take a few minutes to look at some of the showcase blogs in the platform.

Some years ago Scott Leslie put together a matrix of blog uses for educational purposes. Scott talks about the matrix in his 2003 blog post on the topic. I’ve reproduced his matrix (also available via his blog post) below.

Scott Lester's 2003 Matrix on Blogs for Educational Purposes

Post a comment on the uses of blogs you find here, including concerns you might have.