why use blogs in your course?

What is a course blog and why should I start one?

Nov 27, 2013 · The blog format is particularly useful for shorter, less formal, assignments. Blog platforms allow for inclusion and display of multimedia, which may offer an advantage over paper submissions. Blogs provide a means for student response to or discussion of outside-of-class readings that are not adequately covered during class.

Why create a blog for students?

Promoting your online course with your blog. As we mentioned, you’ve got a unique advantage as a blogger. You already have an audience, and your blog can serve as a powerful promotion tool. Once you’ve launched your online course, you can start selling on autopilot by optimizing your blog to drive sales. Add your sales page to your navigation bar

What are the benefits of blogs?

Dec 07, 2019 · Starting a course blog is a simple way to provide an enhanced learning environment for you and your students. An effective course blog can increase transparency and engagement, facilitate collaboration and creativity, and …

Can blogs be used as a teaching tool?

Jan 25, 2016 · In essence, a blog in eLearning allows them to reflect upon the online learning process and personalize their eLearning experience, as well as paraphrase what they have learned to improve retention and recall. Focus on one key topic at a time. Ideally, your blog should not be all over the eLearning map.

Why are blogs useful in education?

What is the benefit of using a blog in an online course?

What is the purpose of using blogs?

What are the benefits of using blog?

Why blogging is trending to the students?

Are blogs important?

Why is blogging important for students?

The Innovative Instructor doesn’t advocate using technology for technology’s sake, but student blogging can be a way to achieve several learning outcomes for your course. For example, blogs can be used to improve student writing, especially for developing skill in analysis and critique. The blog format is particularly useful for shorter, ...

How can blogs be used in writing?

For example, blogs can be used to improve student writing , especially for developing skill in analysis and critique. The blog format is particularly useful for shorter, less formal, assignments. Blog platforms allow for inclusion and display of multimedia, which may offer an advantage over paper submissions. Blogs provide a means for student response to or discussion of outside-of-class readings that are not adequately covered during class. They can be useful as a forum for group projects, or act as a collaborative authoring tool for students to develop and present a group assignment or project. Blogs can be a place where students reflect on readings, much as analog journaling was used as a pedagogical tool in the past.

Why are blogs useful?

They can be useful as a forum for group projects, or act as a collaborative authoring tool for students to develop and present a group assignment or project. Blogs can be a place where students reflect on readings, much as analog journaling was used as a pedagogical tool in the past.

How many students does Mark Rom have?

For his introductory course on the U.S. political system, which enrolls nearly 150 students, Mark Rom turned to a course blog to help stimulate class discussion and personal interaction among students.

Why should a blog take advantage of the medium?

A blog should take advantage of the medium to offer a sense of immediacy and intimacy.

What should a blog post be?

Blog posts should be original , “well-crafted,” “well- informed”. [There should be] an authentic purpose for maintaining the blog. A blog should offer a window into the author’s identity and community affiliations. A blog should take advantage of the medium to offer a sense of immediacy and intimacy.

What is course blogging?

Course blogs, where all students contribute to a shared blog, are also an option. Other Learning Management Systems (LMS) offer similar tools. If you are looking for a more “authentic” experience or don’t have an LMS or blogging application at your institution, there are free, public options available.

Why is blogging important for students?

As the traditional classroom is changing nationwide and current and future careers are dependent on strong computer skills, blogging helps your students develop necessary skills for their continuing education and gainful employment.

How to get more readers for your blog?

If any of the blogs related to your classroom are made public, then you’ll want to get more readership by connecting your blog with social media sites, such as Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest. Word of mouth is always the best advertising. Hang in there.

What is a blog?

Blog is short for web log. It’s a bit like an online diary or journal, except blogs aren’t necessarily private, instead they’re created for an audience. And just like a diary or journal, a blog is relaxed, making it an easy and comfortable way for students to get writing.

What is blog writing?

Blog writing is informal, unlike academic writing, which may be intimidating to some, if not all, of your students. Blog writing takes the pressure off of writing and gives your students a voice in a safe environment, even if you or your students stepping out of your comfort zone.

Why is Homebase important?

Make work easier. Running a small business has never been harder. Homebase helps with free tools to track time and manage your team.

How much time do you need to write for a blog?

Even if you’re using blogging in a math or science class, you should set some time aside to teach a bit of writing and grammar. Just 5 or 10 minutes a class to go over one or two key points will make you and your students better writers.

Why do students use blogs?

Students can use blogs to publish their writing and educate others on a particular topic. Students can also create blogs for the chess club or the yearbook club, the football team or the upcoming prom. This YouTube video from Palm Breeze Cafe gives an overview of a blog’s place in the educational process. YouTube.

What to do after you have your blog set up?

After you have your blog set up, it’s important to make sure students can easily access and connect to it. You might consider adding a link to it in your email signature as well as on the school website directory.

How to create a blog page?

To create a page, you can go to Pages > Add New: The main elements to fill out are the page title and the page content. In the content box, you can add images, videos, text, links, etc. When you’re done, click on the Publish button in the right sidebar. Step 6: Configure Your Blog’s Post Settings.

What to do when you are in the back end of WordPress?

Once you’re in the back end of WordPress, the first thing you’ll want to do is configure your privacy and user settings. This is important because it influences who will be able to access and view the blog.

Why is blogging important in a course?

The blogging platform you choose is important because it influences usability.

How to start a blog for a course?

Step 1: Decide the Purpose of Your Course Blog. The first thing you’ll want to do is spend some time thinking about what you want to use the course blog for.

What is a blog in education?

Plus, a blog can be more engaging and interactive than traditional, text-based learning materials. Students can play with multimedia forms such as video, images, and links. While enhancing your students’ education may be reward enough, there are other ways a course blog can benefit you as well.

Why do we need a course blog?

An effective course blog can increase transparency and engagement , facilitate collaboration and creativity, and help improve communication and development. In this post, we’ll discuss what course blogs are and explain the benefits ...

What is a blog in eLearning?

Blogs in eLearning give you the power to use an eLearning forum for your online learners where they can discuss key ideas and address their concerns. For example, you can post a video directly on the blog and then ask them to leave comments about any questions they have or opinions they would like to share.

Why do people blog in eLearning?

In essence, a blog in eLearning allows them to reflect upon the online learning process and personalize their eLearning experience, as well as paraphrase what they have learned to improve retention and recall.

Should a blog be all over the eLearning map?

Ideally, your blog should not be all over the eLearning map. You should focus on one key topic or subject and explore all of the ideas, concepts, and tips that it entails. By narrowing the scope you have the ability to delve into the subject matter and avoid cognitive overload.

Do you have to link your blog to social media?

It’s important to tie your blog into social media identity. By this I mean that you should use your other social networking pages, such as Facebook and Twitter, to link to blog posts. Likewise, you must include links to your social media pages on the blog, itself, so that online learners know where to find you.

Can you use blogs in eLearning?

However, there is a single asset that can take care of all of the above; using blogs in eLearning. A free blogging platform gives you the opportunity to reach out to your online learners and provide them with an eLearning forum to share their thoughts and opinions. Here are some tips to help you integrate blogs in eLearning course design.

Why is WordPress called a hosted website?

It’s called “hosted” WordPress because the WordPress servers host your website’s files. You don’t have to pay for third-party hosting services, as WordPress stores all of your site’s files.

Why is WordPress so popular?

WordPress offers a range of options so that your site doesn’t have to look the same as anyone else’s. Content management systems with a large user base often struggle to facilitate individuality and creativity in their sites, but WordPress combats this problem by offering a practically infinite number of customization options.

How many plugins are there on WordPress?

It’s also worth mentioning that self-hosted WordPress offers unrestricted access to plugins. Currently, there are more than 30,000 plugins available from third-party developers. Using these plugins, you can easily add new features and functionality to your site, such as CAPTCHAs for comments, spam detection, browser caching, PHP contact forms and more. You can also use plugins on hosted WordPress, though it’s a far more limited selection.

How many different WordPress hosting plans are there?

There are five different hosted WordPress plans from which to choose, including:

How does blogging help you?

Blogging can also help build up your confidence! Producing content on a schedule and building an audience can do wonders for you – as you build up your knowledge and become more comfortable in your writing voice, you settle into your authority over your topic. This self-assured quality translates into your writing, inspiring even more confidence in your readers that you really do know your stuff. It’s a positive feedback loop that can win you friends, followers, and even additional professional and money-making opportunities.

What is a security plugin?

A security plugin to protect your blog from online attacks, malware, and spam comments.

What is hosted WordPress?

Also, hosted WordPress gives you limited control over customization. It allows you to make small changes to your site’s theme, such as changing the background color or menu locations. For more options, such as using your own CSS, you’ll need to upgrade to a premium or business account.

Why do we use discussion boards?

Most commonly, discussion boards are used in courses as a supplement to in-class activities. An instructor might ask the students to post comments on a reading and use those discussion board posts as a starting point for “in person” class debate. Faculty might also use discussion boards for peer review – students post their work and peers in the course can “reply” to their thread, offering their suggestions and comments.

What services does Blackboard use?

Blackboard includes a blog tool or faculty can use non-Duke services such as WordPress or Blogger for public course blogs.

How do faculty use blogs?

The most current posts are displayed first, allowing the class to add comments to posts or discuss in class the latest material. Faculty also use blogs as an ongoing course journal for themselves to follow up class discussions with summaries of material or to answer followup questions after class sessions. In some courses, blogs are used by students for personal journals to reflect on assistantships or research work in the community.

Why do we use wikis?

Wikis are typically used by faculty to have students assembling an online resource, such as a textbook or series of “white papers” on a topic. Students can add comments to wiki pages, but wikis also include the ability to show a history of how and when pages were changed and by which author.

What is a blog compared to a discussion board?

Blogs are relatively new when compared to discussion boards. Blogs or “web logs” originally emerged as a way on the Web for individuals or groups to post a kind of ongoing journal. So, blogs, unlike discussion boards, are more focused on a chronology of information, displaying the most current “posts” first.

Can you use a wiki in Blackboard?

There is a wiki tool in Blackboard and faculty can use DukeWiki to create pages visible to the public that are edited by Duke authors. If you are collaborating with non-Duke authors, you can sign up with services such as PBWorks and WikiSpaces to create your own wiki.

What is business blogging?

Business blogging is a marketing tactic that uses blogging to get your business more online visibility. A business blog is a marketing channel (just like social media, direct mail, email marketing, etc.) that helps support business growth.

What is affiliate marketing?

Business models such as affiliate marketing mean you can generate an income from blogging on just about any topic — from makeup and beauty to camping and motorcycles. There’s a wide variety of affiliate programs out there where you can generate an income from referring people to relevant products and services.

Why is blogging important?

Blog content also helps keep your social media presence going. Instead of asking your social media manager always to create brand new content for social media (or creating that content yourself), your blog can serve as that repository of content.

What does it mean when a blog post is indexed?

Every time you create and publish a blog post, it's one more indexed page on your website, which means one more opportunity for you to show up on the search engine results page (SERP) and drive traffic to your website in organic search.

What does it mean when prospects read your blog?

Prospects that have been reading your blog posts will typically enter the sales funnel with more knowledge of your products and services, your place in the market, and your industry. That makes for a far more productive sales conversation than one held between two relative strangers.

Why do people blog?

Blogging for your business also helps you get discovered via social media. Every time you create a new article, you're creating content that people can share on social networks — Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Pinterest — which helps expose your business to a new audience that may not know you yet.

What can a blog contain?

Blogs can contain not only articles but also news that highlight what a company is up to.

What to do after reading a blog post about inbound marketing?

If they do, they can find the call-to-action at the end of the blog post that offers a free ebook about inbound marketing, and fill out a form to receive it. That person is now a lead, and they might end up becoming a customer one day.

Why is blogging important?

That's why we don't blog about dog grooming and home loans. We blog about inbound marketing -- because we have something to sell to people that are interested in doing inbound marketing. Blogging helps you tailor the audience you bring in to your website, so they're people that would conceivably purchase your product or service.

What is a blog post?

Blogging is the gift that keeps on giving. Once you publish a blog post, it's out there on the internet working to bring in new traffic and leads forever. So even if we published a post several years ago about inbound marketing, people can still find that post in search engines like Google, or on social media if people still share it after reading it themselves.

Why do we need a blog?

Blogging -- as a format -- provides those chances like no other part of your website allows, because every blog post you publish is a brand new URL. Think about how many new page URLs you can add to your website without a blog. Hmmm ... an About page. A Jobs page. A Product/Service page. What else? After a while, you're gonna start scraping the bottom of the barrel. But if you have a blog, you have endless opportunities to create new page URLs that can be ranked in search and discovered by people that didn't know about your business yet. A blog gives you endless opportunities to get found online.

What does Google read?

For example, Google reads our website, so it knows it can return this blog post if someone searches "Why does blogging work?"

Why do people blog?

Blogging helps put you in that camp. People buy from people they know and trust. (And hopefully, like.) By investing in creating content that helps answer questions for your target customer, you're establishing a trusting relationship that makes them more comfortable investing in you as a business partner or solution provider.

What to do when you feel guilty about taking a vacation?

So if you ever feel guilty about taking a vacation, just tell people not to worry -- your blog posts will take care of things while you're gone.