Blogging in the CWRL

The CWRL has switched to Drupal-powered blogs. Staffers can keep a blog on the main website (details here), but if you want to use blogs in your classes, you may want to set up your own installation of Drupal at instructors.cwrl.utexas.edu. Refer to the Guide for Drupal Administrators for the technical ins and outs.

Another option is to pick one of the top blogging sites—Blogger, Wordpress, Vox, Typepad—, and set up your own account. Then, invite all your students to be contributors by finding the setting option that allows you to add contributors, and you have an instant window on the learning process for each of your students.

Use a blog as a class homepage

If you update your page frequently, blogs might be a good option. Blogs allow you to make updates on the web (bypassing standard ftp) and arrange posts chronologically. A blog homepage is a fluid text, reacting to and recording classroom events. Because a blog is much more interactive than a traditional class website, the class page is transformed from a mere tool to an integral aspect of the discourse of the class.

The class webpage can be used not only as an administrative aid, but also as a reflective space for instructors and students alike. Instructors can elaborate on course content, reflect on events in class, and solicit reactions from students. Students can use the commenting function to ask questions or add comments. New questions or directions for the class can arise from this interchange. Comments aren't as flexible as discussion forums, but can achieve many of the same effects, right there on the homepage. Adventurous instructors can add students as authors of the class blog, creating a group writing community in cyberspace.

Have students keep blogs

Blogs could be a sort of electronic notebook accessible from any connected computer. Individual blogs could replace some sorts of journals (though remember they are by nature public) or be a place for recording and evaluating on-line sources. As a side-effect of keeping a blog, students may find themselves engaged in an on-line discourse community, because bloggers tend to read and link to one another.

Study blogs as a rhetorical form

If you are interested in blogs but are wary about committing to them, consider designing a unit that looks at blogs as rhetorical entities. Depending on the goals of a particular course, the blogosphere could become the focus of class conversation. For instance, the concept "blog" begs a definitional question--"What is one? How do you know? What are the criteria which differentiate them from other web pages?" Evaluative arguments might also be made (What makes a blog "good"? or Is this a reliable source?), and also causal arguments that look at the implications of self-publishing, instant communications, etc.

Once you've become familiar with the capabilities of our blogware and explored the blogosphere a little, you will no doubt come up with ideas of your own. For further reading on blogs, see "Welcome to the Blogosphere: Using Weblogs to Create Classroom Community," by CWRL instructors Tom Nelson and Jan Fernheimer.