Blogs and Journals

Blogs and Journals serve a similar purpose in Blackboard - so they are addressed together.

Blogs are a form of online journal in which you, the blogger, make posts and your readers enjoy, and sometimes comment on, the content. You may have a personal blog, or enjoy the blogs of online friends on: Blogger, Wordpress, Tumblr etc. or, as movies, on YouTube.

Blackboard Blogs: an academic individual or course journal which can include links to resources, multimedia and text in its entries. Individual student blogs are public and can be viewed and commented on by other course members.
Blackboard Journals: A private blog for communication between course instructors and individual students (or groups). Journals cannot be seen or commented on by other students in the course.

YouTube resources:

An Overview of Blogging by the University of East Anglia
Blogs in Plain English

Course Blogs
Blogging Guidelines
Commenting guidelines
Citation
Tips

Your lecturers may ask you to use your blogs to:

Share impressions of live lectures and events
Reflect on learning experiences
Maintain a diary of course related thoughts
Post content in multiple formats including: text, audio recordings and video clips
Continue course-related discussions outside class
Share responses to course readings
Collect, organise and share web materials
Post works-in-progress for review by lecturers or tutors
Post comments and critiques of classmates' blog entries
Receive notifications about updates to other blogs through RSS feeds

1. Only post things that you would want everyone (at uni, at home, in other countries) to know.

Ask yourself: Is this something I want everyone to see?

2. Do not share personal information.

Ask yourself: Could someone find me (in real life) based on this information?

3. Think before you post.

Ask yourself: What could be the consequences of this post?

4. Know who you're communicating with.

Ask yourself: Who is going to look at this, and how are they going to interpret my words?

5. Consider your audience and that you're representing UQ.

Ask yourself: Do I have a good reason/purpose to do this?

6. Know how to give constructive feedback.

Ask yourself: What will I cause by writing this post?

7. Treat other people the way you want to be treated.

Ask yourself: Would I want someone to say this to me?

8. Use appropriate language and proper grammar and spelling.

Ask yourself: Would I want this post to be marked for proper grammar and spelling?

9. Only post information that you can verify is true (no gossiping).

Ask yourself: Is this inappropriate, immature or bullying?

10. Anytime you use media from another source, be sure to properly cite the creator of the original work.

Ask yourself: Who is the original creator of this work?

You may be commenting on people's work regularly. Good comments:

are constructive, but not hurtful
consider the author and the purpose of the post
are always related to the content of the post
include personal connections to what the author wrote
answer a question, or add meaningful information to the content topic
follow the writing process. Comments are a published piece of writing

Give credit where credit is due

Your course may have specific citation requirements, for instance:

If you use the direct words or lists of another blogger/writer, you MUST put the words in quotation marks.
Cite the source by including the name and URL of the source; hyperlink to the source. OR use APA style.
If you paraphrase another blogger/writer, you MUST indicate where you found the information.
Cite the source by including the name and URL of the source; hyperlink to the source. OR use APA style.
When using images in your blog posts, indicate where the images come from, either by linking back to the image source or providing a photo credit on the page. A great source for images is Flickr, especially when searched using CompFight.

Ultimately you want people to enjoy reading your blog, so: