OU Blog tool allows for the creation of blogs within Moodle course (which are separate to the core Moodle blog system). There can be course-wide blogs (everyone in the course posts to the same blog), group blogs, or individual blogs. The blog activity can be renamed to reflect its purpose e.g. Learning Log or similar.
OU Blog can be used to prompt discussion and/or reflection among students. Students need to be given clear guidelines on what is expected of them, and choose a level of privacy that is appropriate to the specific blogging exercise.
To help decide whether to use a blog, a wiki or a discussion forum, visit the page Blog, wiki or forum—which should you use?
Benefits of OU Blog activity
You can use the OU blog facility to create user blogs (one for each individual user) and course blogs (shared by all students in a course, or in a group). These offer the following advantages:
- Comments can be turned off for a particular blog or post, but otherwise people can leave comments in both user and course blogs. Instructors can edit or delete posts and delete comments, but deleted or previous text remains available to administrator users.
- Blog-specific tags can be added, which are not connected to the Moodle tag system. Click on a tag to see all posts in the current blog with that tag. Full text search of blog posts is also possible.
- Students can change the name of their blog, and personalise it with a description.
- OU blogs can be made assessable.
- Individual OU blogs can be used, accessible only by the individual student and the instructor, to encourage student reflection.
Create an OU Blog
To create a course-specific OU blog as usual make sure to turn the editing mode on and select OU blog activity from the activity picker. When creating the activity make sure to give it a name and the Intro field is a good place to give instructions and describe the blog requirements to students.
Click 'Get Started' to view the step-by-step guide.
OU Blog Settings
OU Blog Settings can be adjusted to suit different needs of teaching. It can be set as a gradable activity as well.
The main difference on how the blog looks like is determined by who should view and edit posts.
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No (blog together or in groups) - enables students to view all posts.
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Separate individual blogs - only allow students to view their own posts.
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Visible individual blogs - students can only post on their own blog but can view other’s posts.
Click 'Get Started' to view the step-by-step guide.
Add an OU Blog entry
Blog posts can be added following a few simple steps. Once the blog post is added, there is an option to edit or delete it, as well as add a comment to it. Once the comment is added to the blog post, it cannot be edited, only deleted. Only the author of the blog post can delete the comments added to the post.
Click 'Get Started' to view the step-by-step guide.
View and grade participation in an OU blog
Students participation in OU blog can be graded. If teaching staff decide to add grades to the OU blog, the grade setting needs to be adjusted. Then, grades can be assigned and viewed.
Click 'Get Started' to view the step-by-step guide.
Are there activity start and end dates in OU Blog?
OU Blog has the option to determine Contribution time period. The dates can be determined when to allow students to post in a blog and leave comments. The "Enable" boxes can be ticked on to select specific dates. By defaug the boxes are unselected and students can comment and post for the duration they have access to the course.
Can I edit my own comment on a blog post?
Once you have added a comment to an OU blog post, you cannot edit it; you can only delete it. You can delete your own comments from any OU blog post, and the author of a blog post can delete any comments added to it.
What does the blog option in a student's profile page do?
The blog option available on each students profile page is used to create "user blog" posts. These are blog format comments that can be added to the profile. At UNSW these comments are generally not used and cannot be published for other people to see.