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Avoiding the 5 Most Common Mistakes in Using Blogs with Students

10/1/2008

By Ruth Reynard

I've used blogs in my classes for five years with university graduate students. I've found them to be extremely helpful in certain circumstances but only when there is clarity for students in their use. Students who object to the inclusion of blogs in a course are usually objecting to what they perceive will be just one more task on top of a myriad of others or simply some busy work that will not benefit their learning. Older students can also reject the notion of "publication" that is inherent with blogging. Each of these objections can be addressed by an effective and innovative instructor by careful planning and skillful management. There are, however, several common mistakes that should be avoided when using blogs in instruction. I have made all of these mistakes and have learned how to address each one proactively.

1. Ineffective Contextualization
As with any instructional tool or learning support, without a clear context within which the tool is to be used, students will not understand the benefit to their learning and will, ultimately, reject the use of the tool. In order to effectively contextualize the use of an instructional tool, instructors must think carefully exactly where the tool will be used in the flow of the course, how often the tool will or might be used, and how necessary the tool is to the learning process. In the case of blogging, the most effective use of this tool is in the area of self reflection or thought processing. As such, there must be concepts for students to think through, various resources and content segments to process, or ideas to construct. To simply ask students to blog without this level of planning will lead to frustration for the students. In other words, there must be a certain amount of content preparation already covered or made accessible for students before blogging will really support the learning process. While a blog can also provide social placement of students or academic placement of students within a group, blogs are fundamentally individual in their purpose and essence. That is, while comments can be added or ideas posted following a blog entry, these sit outside the initial posting--blogs are not wikis or online discussion forums, therefore, if individual self-reflection is the central benefit to the learning process, instructors must plan carefully as to when in the course self-reflection will enhance the learning process for each student. Please note: there are additional benefits that instructors can glean from blogs in terms of helping access student voice and understanding student progress in their idea or concept construction, but the instructional use of the blog tool is mostly about the individual benefit to students first in deciding when and how to use blogs in instruction.

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