Moodle® For Dummies®

Adding Moodle Blogs to Your Course

Moodle blogs provide yet another way to enable you to creatively engage your learners in self expression. The term blog comes from what now is an ancient term Web log coined in the late '90s. Moodle blogs — which can be written and read by instructors and students alike — have replaced the Moodle journal, which is still available but is no longer a default application. (If you want to use Moodle journals, you have to ask your administrator to enable the feature. I recommend sticking with blogs, which your learners are likely to think are a lot cooler than old-fashioned journals.)

Don't worry that the Moodle blog will be available to the whole world. Moodle developers are very clever and have installed tools that enable you to choose who views your blog entries. Also of note, each Moodle user can have only one blog.

Effectively using blogs with your learners

As with all other projects and activities that you use with your learners, Moodle blogs need to have a clearly defined learning goal, and you must convey that to your class. Here are a few examples of how instructors and teachers have found versatile uses for blogs:

• Encouraging creativity: Writing about their personal experiences or interests can be related to a project or left open-ended.
• Enhancing reviewing and critical analysis: You can set up reviewing and analysis around a lecture or presentation, and ask your learners to briefly blog about the presentation. Present the class with a film ...