UBC Blogs
Encourage student sharing, collaboration, and reflection while developing their writing and communication skills.
UBC Blogs, offered through WordPress, is a user-friendly website authoring platform that allows individuals or groups to post, create and manage content on the web. Because blog posts can include text, images and other media, they are an ideal tool to publish a wide range of web content and resources.
UBC Blogs is available to all facutly, student and staff with an active CWL account.
Features
Ideas for using blogs
- Journaling for self or as part of an assignment
- Peer review where students view and make comments on eachother’s work
- Collaborative group project
- Community resource
- Course showcase of student projects
- Course blog containing weekly blogging question prompt assignments
Key features and functions
- Unlimited blog site creation for any user with an active CWL
- Can be integrated with Canvas through course settings
- Site domains prepend with blogs.ubc.ca (example: blogs.ubc.ca/engl112journals/)
- Choose from 25+ template/themes to suit your content requirements
- Customization tools to encourage orginality and creativity
- Multiple site visibility options (private, public, CWL users only, etc.)
- 500MB of storage per site
Arts ISIT Resources
Be prepared when using UBC Blogs for your class by viewing Arts ISIT’s tips and considerations for maintaining student privacy.
- Do not assume students are familiar with blogging. Providing a technical orientation session at the beginning of class may improve student comfort-level with the tool and ensure that the system works smoothly for assignments.
- Consider the goals of your blogging activity and choose an appropriate blogging platform for your students to use (ie. UBC Blogs, Blogger, WordPress).
- Before setting up a blog, decide whether it should be private, open or accessible to specific groups.
- Communicate to students the reason and purpose for the decision to use blogs. Many students are resistant to having anyone other than the instructor read their writing. Contextualize the use of blogs so that students are more likely to see the sharing aspect as beneficial to their learning process.
- Clarify expectations for student contributions to discussions (e.g., specify the number of blog posts or comments that should be made each week). Students may view blogging as an additional workload. It may be helpful to articulate how blogging will enhance their academic experience.
Although UBC Blogs is hosted on UBC servers, any content that is uploaded to a site (private or public) will be searchable through a search engine and associated with the author’s display name on UBC Blogs.
- Ensure that students are not uploading any images or files that contain any personal identifiable information (student ID, address, email address, etc.)
- Name files without the use of popular key words
- Have students consider changing their UBC Blogs display names (instructions)
Additional Resources
Consultations
If you would like further support on UBC Blogs, please connect with us to learn more about the tool and its capabilities.
