Additional Examples of Blogs

Blogs are a multipurpose tool that can be used for sharing information with others. Their reverse-chronological display of content, easily embedded hyperlinks, and RSS feeds make them highly flexible. By adding passwords and incorporating other media, blogs can quickly evolve into an all-purpose utility.

Perhaps because blogs are easy to set up, you can find blogs on almost every conceivable topic, using a variety of media types. For example, there are dozens of blogs about education known as edublogs. Blog genres include education, politics, travel, fashion, and law (blawgs). Blogs can also be categorized by the type of media used, such as vlogs (video), photoblogs (photos), and linklogs (list of links). Some are as specific as sketchlogs and artlogs, focusing on art work rather than text. If a blog is written and posted via a mobile device (phone or PDA), it is a moblog.

Common Categories of Blogs

Slice of Life

Blogs often present an authentic, unfiltered perspective on the life of the author. Many institutions use such blogs to provide a perspective on life within the institution. Snapshots of campus life are often orchestrated by the recruitment office to share the experience of being part of the campus community.

• University of Regina encourages visitors to read student journal blogs and ask the students questions about life at the institution: http://www.uregina.ca/newstudent/connect.html.
• The MIT admissions office publishes blogs where student and staff talk about specific services, courses, and programs: http://www.mitadmissions.org/blogs.shtml.

Topic Blogs

Covering a topic of interest—football, gardening, history—is another popular use of blogs. Linking to and commenting on others’ blog posts is a good way to find an audience of like-minded enthusiasts. Some popular blog themes include politics, library issues, and even parties.

• The Learning Technology Centre at the University of Manitoba maintains a good example of a blog that reviews current trends in learning technology: http://www.umanitoba.ca/academic_support/ltc/.
• It's Getting Hot in Here is a student-run blog about social issues around climate change: http://itsgettinghotinhere.org/.

Marketing Blogs

While most blogs promote something (a point of view, for example), some blogs are specifically designed to market a product. Marketing blogs go beyond advertisements, providing extra material that explores, enriches, and enhances the topic or product. Often these blogs are sponsored by a business with a vested interest.

• The legendary Portland bookstore Powells has a literary blog covering reviews of books, authors, and readings: http://www.powells.com/blog/.
• Virgin Radio (U.K.) uses blogs as a way of reinforcing community and personalization of material. They encourage users to spread the word about Virgin Radio through their own Web sites or MySpace accounts: http://www.virginradio.co.uk/about_us/tech_blog/.

Event Blogs

Using blogs to cover events can be a good way to share what happens at a conference or meeting. With a set beginning and end, event blogs can serve both to archive the formal presentations as well as to capture the essence of hallway conversations. Adequate coverage of the sessions at an event often requires prior coordination to ensure that bloggers cover separate sessions.

• University of Toronto students provided timely coverage of a G8 summit in the G8 Live blogs: http://g8live.ca/G8-Blogs.
• Using the EDUCAUSE Connect site, ELI hosts a student blog from the Spring 2007 Focus Session, “Immersive Learning Environments: New Paths to Interaction and Engagement”: http://connect.educause.edu/taxonomy/term/4289/0.

Learning Journals

Learning journals—blogs that gather student reflections—help students become aware of their learning as it is happening. Learning journals may be tied to a specific topic in a course, relate to a discipline, or discuss learning in general.

• Access to Osteopathy is a record of one student’s progress in a specific course: http://davidosteopath.blogspot.com/.
• Catherine Kurkjian assigns learning journals in her course Technology in Reading and Language Arts Instruction at the University of Reading: http://www.reading.ccsu.edu/Kurkjian/RDG579_04/blog.htm.

Scholarly Blogs

Scholars use blogs to share ideas related to their field. Very rich blog communities have emerged in several disciplines. Blogs cover issues related to research, careers, and the profession. Others serve as modern seminars or journal clubs, often taking a collaborative approach to solving problems.

• Economics scholars share their thoughts about economics: http://www.delong.typepad.com/.
• Mathematics and physics scholars have a healthy community of well-developed blogs used for working through problems and surveying the field: http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/.

How-To or Best-Practice Blogs

While it may be trivial to set up a blog, learning how to tweak it and use it effectively can be tricky. The unlimited degrees of freedom permitted by blogs can yield unfortunate results in the hands of the inexperienced. Best practices, style guides, and codes of conduct are starting to emerge to guide appropriate use of blogs to avoid legal or other complications.

• Richard Bailey advises on how to enhance public relations using blogs, including listing blogger’s codes of behavior: http://prstudies.typepad.com/weblog/2006/07/guidelines_for_.html.
• Tom Johnson on the I’d Rather Be Writing blog shares 20 usability tips for bloggers (along with references): http://tinyurl.com/29z4vk.

As blogs become ubiquitous, a Google search is likely to uncover blogs on almost any topic. If you are thinking of using a blog in your class, an example likely already exists as a model.

Share Your Own Blogging Examples

If your institution is using blogging, please consider posting examples, best practices, lessons learned, instructional and assessment strategies, or additional resources in the guide’s Community Contributions Blog. Instructions for accessing and posting to this open forum are located in the “How can I contribute?” section.