blogs! tools for teaching

about this site

“blogs! tools for learning” is a website meant for educators interested in implementing blogs in their teaching. There is lots of information out there (see references), but most instructors have to compile information on their own or rely on anecdotal advice from colleagues. In this website, I seek to provide teachers with a systematic survey of the anecdotal information out there on blogs (no formal studies have been published on blogs in teaching, to my knowledge) so that they can implement them in their own teaching. If you're not very familiar with blogs, start with "what is a blog?". If you're not convinced blogs are a good idea, go to "why use blogs?". If you already know you want to teach with blogs, look at "how to use blogs". No matter where you are in the process, please consider the ethical issues in using blogs; students can gain from the publishing of their writing on the web, but only if you're conscientious of protecting their privacy within this public space. Further reading can be found in the links page as well as the references page.

Through class and personal blog sites of teachers and students, publications, interviews with people at the University of Wisconsin-Madison (my institution), and survey results, I’ve collected and sorted through a lot of others’ experiences about using blogs in teaching. As with any sorting of information, my compilation reflects my own biases about how blogs should be used, although I try to present many successful ways they can be and are used to teach. Several biases are present here simply from a dearth of information; for instance, most of the experiences are from teachers of college-level classes in the humanities because they seem most willing to publish their experiences, either in professional journals or in blogs. I’d be interested in hearing about your experiences or adding a link to your course blog to this site (especially if you’re from the UW or from the sciences!), so please contact me with your information.

about the author

I’m Annette Vee, a PhD student in the Composition and Rhetoric program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Department of English. I’ve taught in many contexts both within and outside of the university, and I’ve used blogs for four semesters, in both first-year and intermediate composition at the UW-Madison. My research interests include technology’s impact on writing and communication, computer literacy, and the “digital divide.”





blogs! tools for teaching
last updated May 31, 2006
web page by annette vee (avee[at]wisc.edu)
University of Wisconsin-Madison