General help

My two cents: I very much like the blog this and discuss this blog ideas. Nice, tight, seamless integration with the forums will be key.

-- Art

I agree with Art that the links will be critical.  I also know it will be a bit messy until we figure out what we all want to do with it, and I'm okay with that.  Right now, it looks as if the new blog will be a handy way to answer the question raised elsewhere in forums by others: where can students log thoughts for themselves that may or may not be graded?

I think that what makes this option different from the journal or assignment is that it is so easy now for them to decide whether they want to share their thoughts with just the teacher or with a wider audience. I definitely like that option as it will save the copy/paste steps my students are now doing to post their thoughts in a forum after I have told them that they should share their thoughts with their peers.  (Incidentally, because this copy/paste workaround seems like so many extra steps to teenagers--yes, I know it's not that big a deal, but to them, anything extra is a big deal--I've found that it's difficult to get them to share unless I offer the carrot of "extra credit."   I like that with this new blog they can choose to publish from the very beginning if they would like to do so.) 

At first, I was disappointed that they aren't linked at all to the scale feedback system, but now I see why.  And I think that could actually be a good thing because it forces us to recognize that we, as teachers, don't necessarily have to assess every little thing that students do in preparation for our courses.  Not everything should be tied to a grade--but this might prove a difficult paradigm as grading programs are having the insidious effect of causing all of our assignments to be assessed down to the 1/2 percent/1/2 point, which means that students are now more focused on points/percentages than ever.  But that's a conversation for a different thread.  Sorry for the digression.

One brief scenario that might work well with the current blogs as they are: I recently had my students do short 10 minute in-class writings related to their novel.  Some of the topics were quite personal, so I told them straight up that I wouldn't be reading them, that they were to be used as material for later.  I had them keep them all together, and then for the final exam on the novel, I had them use at least one of those journals as source material to expand into a longer, more formal essay that was more directly linked to the novel.  So here's how it could look with the blogs:

1) They write a number of reflections on the subject--none graded.
2) They choose the best one to expand for a graded assignment and copy it into that assignment.

• I have no problem forcing them to go through the aforementioned extra copy/paste steps for a grade.  They should have to work for a grade.  It was the non-graded idea of sharing their thoughts with others just for the sake of interaction that was problematic before.

I'm writing all of this in a very short prep time that just ran out, so I hope it makes sense.  Have to go to class.

Thanks for all the possibilities!
Lesli

I've always thought that comments were just very low-feature discussion boards.  Some blogs have ways to quote other comments, maybe, but I have always thought that it would be better to use forums for commenting.

I look at it this way: blogging is for writing a log - making a list of something (sites you like, restaurants that make you sick, etc), or logging personal thoughts, or your reaction to something, etc.  Discussions are for, well, discussing something.  If you make comments on a blog, you are really discussing it.  So, the real confusion only comes when you use the word "comments" - it really should be "discussion" in my opinion.

When I did the Simple Blogs thing, I based it on my theory above.  (anyone reading about this that hasn't read the forum on Simple Blogs - they were created to hold me over until 1.6 is officially released, not as a competition or something for the blogs in 1.6).  So, I gave these options:

 - The teacher can choose an existing forum for comments for the blog, if they want to allow it (forum has to be created before hand).  The program creates all cross-links needed.
 - Teachers can edit posts directly, inserting comments needed.  But this can be viewed by all.  That would need to change in some situations.

I think, also, there are really two types of blogs that people think of - teachers want more of a reflective journal for a specific assignment, and bloggers want something that allows them to tell all about themselves and their favorite links, favorite TV shows, etc (in the lists that you see at the side of a lot of blogs) for any topic that comes to their mind.  That's what I like about the blog in 1.6 is that you can post the blog to different levels - the world, specific courses, etc.  I think that the desires of bloggers can possibly be met by maybe expanding the Profile section to have a part that looks like a public blog - complete with all of the lists of favorites and ramblings on whatever the person wants to talk about.

I do think that the Assignment activity does almost meet the parameters of the blog that teachers want, except for the fact that it does not seem to allow for multiple, dated entries, with a list of archives to browse through.  Maybe it does; I just haven't dug into it much.  I've also dug some into how to keep list of archives in Simple Blog, so feel free to dig into that code to see one idea of how to do it.

I would agree that integration is key, especially with podcasts, vodcasts, etc.

OK, I see your point. I'm still glad, though, that you are thinking about something like "blog this" or "discuss this blog". I totally agree that the appropriate place for discussions is the forum. In fact, I think the forums are central to Moodle and one of its greatest features. This is bad in a way because when I participate in discussions in other communities I find the other forums as very clumsy and inappropriate tools in comparison to the Moodle forums. I'm a bit spoiled.

Having said this, however, I still think in many cases those who blog also like to have some feedback and love to see that they are read and that people react to their thoughts (also those who read the blogs sometimes might have reactions that they would like to express). Not having a space for that is a bit limiting, I think.

The truth is that I don't really feel very strongly about whether it is done exactly in the same way as in the traditional blogs and I certainly like all the alternatives that you propose to the blog "comments" feature. The point I was trying to make is that I found the blog module as it was implemented as lacking something and I was looking for answers as to why it was that way.

After reading your answer, I am coming to think that perhaps it is a good idea after all to eliminate the comment functionality so as to discourage people from using blogs as forums. Let's see what you people come up with to solve this problem.

As I said, I think that the LINKING TO/FROM BLOGS and 'blog this' buttons look like promissing solutions for the current "blog isolation". I'm thinking that another possible alternative could be to allow comments but to limit them greatly in space (limit on the number of words) so that feedback/reaction is possible but the comments cannot develop into a full fledged discussion. Perhaps also only allow one comment per user or something similar.

As for ways to implement a journals, I don't think the assignment as it is now is the best alternative. The advantage of the blog format is that it is structured around different, independent entries. That would allow a student to write her thoughts/reflections/observations for the day, week or whatever as different entries that could be commented on independently. An on-line assignment could become too long and unwieldy for that purpose. Perhaps an assignment plugin that allowed one to create different entries (that could be commented on) would be the right tool for the job.

Josep M.

I've been playing around with Blogs in 1.6 now (thanks to Julian and the Playpen), and I have some more ideas about blogs.

Maybe we should look at blogs as two seperate possibilities that can be created from the same place.  There are social blog entries for the whole world (or all users of a site), and then a blog entries for a specific class.  A particualr blog entry could be posted to several areas.  Instead of having a drop down that only lets you pick one place where the entry goes, we give the user check buttons, so that they can select every place they want the entry to go.  That way, if a person creates a really good post for a class, they can also check to have it published to the world.

1. Blog entries for the world - This could be set-up as a more traditional blog.  Specific blocks could even be created for this area, so that users can add lists of favorite stuff, or whatever.  The whole profile could become some kind of MySpace type of thing, to help increase the social factor of online learning.  I know, I know - MySpace has problems.  Let individual institutions deal with how they want to keep this thing safe.  If all of these options are created as blocks, then individual schools can choose which ones to allow and which not to. 
   
   Comments could even be added for this area like they are on a normal blog.  Use to php to determine if a post is also published in class, and if the commenter is enrolled in that class.  If so, a note would pop-up that says "This comment will not appear with the post in the class.  Only comments in the discussion forum in the class will be attached with this entry in the class."  Leave that part in the learners court - if you want the grade for feedback, put the feedback in the right place.
   
   
2. Blog entries for specific classes - This is where you just get the specific blog posts that the students submit for the grade or class requirement.  No need for any of the fancy extra stuff - just a place for each student's blog entries for that class assignment to be read.  This may mean that an activity will need to be created to pull the needed information out of the database and put this together.  Discussion forums can be set-up like the Simple Blog thing that I was talking about earlier, or whatever better idea comes along.  In fact, Simple blog could just become Class Blog and be designed to show blog entries sent to that specific course, without having to go to the profile.
   
   Something can be designed to detect if the blog post is also published to the world, and the commenter can choose to make their comment also be attached to the blog entry for the world to see.  One of the forum database tables would probably need to be updated to have a "blog forum" tag attached to it, and then php inserts the extra stuff needed.

I don't know if this makes sense, but I do have a clear picture in my head of what this could look like.  If I get some free time, I can try to put something together to show what I mean.

Hi Martin,
I share your concern about "finding a rigth place for blogs" in moodle 's model.
But we have to consider that lots of users will have allready an idea abolut what blogging is.
I like the idea of NOT making blogs course contextual... One of the things missing in moodle are  tools for  binding  courses. Adn Blogs can be a way to it.
Here are some suggestions
- latest blog entries block
. by keyword , user, user preferences or course interests
. blog reading feedback ratio, entry voting or rating
. readings suggetions/bookmark block
. discussions can take place in a forum or wy not in a wiki page.
. a teacher could create a (course scope)activity consiting in debating a blog entry (within  or not  the site )
Do you want me to program some of these blocs? Last entries specially!
Regards
Ludo

Firstly, there is a big conceptual overlap between a blog and a forum. See this listing of all the discussions you've started - it looks suspiciously like a blog. I am convinced that if we allow blogs to effectively be like user-centered forums that a lot of important discussion will float out the blogs (which are not course-based) and make "keeping up" with a particular course very difficult.

If you think keeping up with forums is hard now, imagine if every user has their own.

Not sure I get the reason this should be limited by Moodle? If a teacher wants to restrict course discussion to the course forum, surely she/he could just inform his/her students that only discussions in the course forum(s) will count toward participation.

If students want to have their own discussion of a course's topic outside of the course, why should the program make that more difficult? It seems to me that the face to face analogy of students discussing a course in the halls or the cafeteria can only be a good thing. Perhaps is more difficult to have a spontaneous group discussion (away from the teacher's view) in the online environment than in the face-to-face environment, if blogs could help fill this 'social networking' gap in the LMS, then why not let them?

Playing the devil's advocate for a moment, if blogs and forums are so functionally similar, why must they be different tools? . I can take a non-threaded discussion board and turn it into a blog in three steps. First, I make the body of the first post in each thread appear along with the subject line in the topmost view of the discussion board. Next, I set the rule so that the posts always display in reverse chronological order of the first post. What I have at this point is a group blog. Anyone can post and the bodies of the post are displayed on one page in reverse chronological order. If I want to turn it into a traditional single-author blog, I need only take the last set of setting the permissions so that only I can start a new thread. With three changes, I have transformed a discussion board into a blog with commenting capabilities. The interesting aspect of this transformation is that highlights the choices we are ignoring by thinking about discussion boards and blogs as fundamentally different beasts. For example, are there situations in which I would want to take only the first step, making the body of the first post appear in the thread list but leaving all other features untouched?

I would argue that what is really needed is one conversation tool with a number of configurable options. You can certainly have a few presets, such as "blog" and "forum", but advanced users should be able to tweak the parameters to suit their needs.

I think some of it goes to the growth of Web 2.0 "theology."  People are getting used to being able to comment on everything online.  I think, in the future, we may see that students will want to comment on EVERYTHING in Moodle - quizzes, resources, etc.  I know some teachers are already wanting that, too.  That's just the way the web is going.  "Blog this" really is a good way to achieve that, as long as there is a link in the activity, quiz, whatever that is being blogged about that says "3 blog entries on this quiz" etc.  Personally, I like the idea of forcing all commenting into a forum.

I'm also seeing more interest in growing the social side of Moodle.  In online classes, you lose a social element of F2F learning.  My manager actually commented that is would be great to see a social network, like MySpace, grow inside of Moodle.  He has a point.  MySpace is really a crazy, mutated blog.  So, someday, there may be a need for the blogger to have the ability to create multiple blogs, and their entries go to the blog that they designate (social blog, academic blog, my online fraternity blog, etc).  I know that initially that sounds like a headache to keep track of - but just look at MySpace.  People keep multiple accounts on there, and many of these accounts have links to eternal blogs that they also keep, and to a Facebook account, etc, etc.

I just finished a course that used blogs and forums effectively, and once you have seen that, you can see a difference between blogs and forums on a class level.  There is a degree of learning that can happen when students can read each other's thoughts.  As long as it is a small class, that is   (or groups are used effectively).  Once in use, you can see a difference between class discussions and class blogs.  It's subtle, but it does end up making a difference to the student.  A blog, even a class blog, is still your turf.  You are the one that controls it.  A discussion forum is the teacher's turf.  They control it.  An assignment is still too academic.  You can call the assignment a reflective journal, and it is still hard to actually reflect in it the way that you do in a blog.

Blogs are becoming popular in education for many reasons. The reasons that I am seeing (working at a university) are that they allow the teacher to look into a students learning process to see how they are learning.  And then, you can allow students to benefit from each other process.  The results just aren't the same once you call it an assignment.  It becomes too formal.  And there is a need for a formal assignemnt - but you call that a paper.  And there's no way to see the process - just the final product.  The same also holds true for forums.  They are still the teacher's domain, and students don't feel as free to open up their thought process in them.  i don't know how to explain that, but that's the results I have seen (and now experienced myself).  There just is a difference between a forum and blog.  Sometimes it's hard to put in words.  But my replies to a discussion question were totally different to my blog posts on the same subject.  And the comments were different from the replies.  It's hard to explain, but I think it comes down to the fact that somewhere in our mental wiring, a reply is different than a comment, and reflection is different than discussing.  Many people cross the line, and that's perfectly okay.  But there also seems to be something different in the wiring of our brains that makes it to where we can't just force ourselves to use a discussion interface to blog.

But I think it all come down to the fact that blogs are your "turf" and forums are the teacher's "turf."  I'm not a psycologist, so I can't explain it more than that.

Here's a blog post about blog comments (and a bunch of comments on that). While not the same as an educational blog, it still gives some idea about the general population's feelings about blogs and commenting that I think offers a wider perspective.

If you use a "Blog this" on all pages, PLEASE provide a way to turn off blogs completely.  This has the potential of becoming very distracting in a public classroom and unfortunately, will prevent many teaches from using the other wonderful tools of Moodle.  Teachers must have a choice of whether to enable or disable the blog feature across their courses.

I love freedom of information.

I think the teacher should  be free to see every bit of information written while the students are in her class under her guidance.

In our district blogs seem to be a medium where the children do not understand they are being watched and graded on their comments.

I want more control to insure that they blogging is limited to on topic, teacher generated, discussions that are appropriate for the classroom.

 

This has been a very interesting discussion. One solution I thought of is, to allow the blogger to decide if their blog post is classroom material. There should be a drop down menu with the default being "not course related" and then a list of the bloggers courses. If a course is chosen then comments can only be made in the course "blog forum" which has is a list (forum index) of all "relevant blog posts".  As mentioned above this could also be done with tags but it might get messy.

Really the whole thing is silly but  blogging allows us to be more personal because we feel we are in control so its important to allow an outlet for this. As mentioned above a blog post is in the members "domain" . The advantage of what I suggested is that people get to have a personal blog inside moodle but keep relevant course material in the course. The down side is that only course members can comment on a course related post.

One thing for sure is, that a blog without comments is not a blog. If we are looking to attract members to a nitch learning community by offering them blogs it cant be done without also offering comments on the blogs.

I also feel their should be a general "course member's blog entries block" for new blog entries and comments of all course members to create cohesiveness in the class.

Whatever is decided I hope some sort of commenting is going to be offered soon. Other "social networking" software solutions are developing rapidly with similar features and moodle does not want to get left in the dust. I also wish the blogs had more cutting edge functions and looks. These kind of things are very important to younger members. (and me )

Can I put in a quiet vote for comments on Moodle blogs?

I'm not concerned about the overlap between blogs and forums. It's about ownership and location more than whether the communication is possible.

It'd be nice to have a way to read other blogs from the same installation within Moodle too (like Elgg or LiveJournal friends pages I guess).

Having waded through this entire discussion (and making a few comments on specific posts along the way), I thought I'd offer my 2-bits. Nothing terribly new here, but a summary of what I found most intriguing:

1) I have been using the blog feature myself to see how it could be used pedagogically. I have been posting musings about the teaching and learning process - (things often discussed in the hall or over coffee, and then lost). It is very valuable that students from ALL my courses can access and follow my blog. However, several students (and several of my collegues who discovered my blog) have said they so wanted to make a comment on what I'd said that week.
Key points:

• Having an online conversation (well, monologue in this case) outside any course, but within the context of the LMS has been useful.
• Some mechanism for adding comments is essential.

2) This term I am having my students keep a weekly journal to reflect on their experiences in my course. I am using the blog (as opposed to a forum) for the following reasons:

• It is their own personal space - they control it, they own it - so I think the feel more comfortable posting their personal reflections there.
• The forums become part of the course content - students are supposed to keep up on all the postings. The blogs are not - they are between myself and individual students.
  
• Although students can see each other's postings, they are less likely to scan everyone else's before making their own, encouraging better self-reflection. (BTW, blog posting options should include "only to participants in course X" and "only to instructor for course X").
• The blog allows a write-reflect-edit-post cycle, because you can post an entry for private viewing only, then edit it and make public later - that's not possible with forums.
• I find it easier to follow the progression for a particular student through their blog. In the forums, student postings would be mixed together, and I can look at one participants forum postings, but this jumbles all their forum posts together. The blog let's me follow their individual "train of thought" through time.

3) The blog is currently a bit isolated - it should be able to be integrated into a course, at an instructors discretion. Some items I saw discussed here that would be tremendous:

• An option to turn on "blog this" and "X blog posts on this" links in a course or resource / activity
  
• An option to submit a blog post (or series of posts?) to an assignment for a particular course for grading
  
• An option to submit a blog post (and its comments?) as a discussion topic to a particular forum in a particular course.
  

4) Finally, I read a lot of comments about limiting the functionality of blogs to ensure they didn't turn into forums. I think these are largely "short-cut" solutions to deal with perceived problems. I would encourage Moodle developers to continue this disucssion and create a solid model that integrates well with the rest of Moodle and provide more options and flexability, rather than an artificially limited environment - let the instructors have the option to impose restrictions for pedagogic reasons, but do not impose those restrictions on us.

Those are my thoughts, I am happy with the Moodle blog - it has actually made my pedagogic toolbox a little bigger - but I'm even happier to hear all this great discussion about how to make it even better!!!

Um ... I have to whole-heartedly disagree with this move to not include comments. I think you have good intentions but ...

To me, it makes more sense to notice how people use something and add functionality to enhance that, not restrict functionality to force your viewpoints of how people should be using something.

Today, someone posted their diffuculties with their homework assignment to their blog. Now, there is no way for anyone else to express they had similar difficulties or suggest a solution for that person. Currently, they have to leave the page and enter a discussion or forum. They can also post a seperate blog entry that can end up several posts away and gives no indication without reading the entire entry that the two are related. The current approach is so disconnecting and it cripples the entire social flow.

Besides, what makes a Blog different from a Forum is not commenting. Their difference is conceptual. Blogs are a place to publish and share personal thoughts, ideas and experiences. A Forum is a place for people to post content or topics of interest to start discussions. The technology behind them is exactly the same. They are both basically CMS. Commenting is just an added funtionality that lets other users interact with other users who read that post, making it SOCIAL SOFTWARE. Removing that functionality from either one decreases the value of each one equally.

If your idea is to integrate chatting or forums with blog entries to create a social outlet, I think you need to do that today or just get rid of the Blog all together. I really see no value in a GROUP blog that restricts social interaction.

... Or maybe everyone should just use WordPress. Thanks for the suggestion!

I would also like to support the call to add commenting to blogs, without it they just seem to be a bit broken.

my opinion is quite simple: if you can't comment, don't call it a blog. call it personal news, everything else is confusing.

when i hear blog, my first thought is: "oh, sounds like wordpress"...but then it turns out, that moodle blogs are just personal news with rss feeds and tags.

Just browsing the blog tags in Moodle again, and saw some folks talking about development, I would have liked to comment on their blogs,--but we still can't do that.

So I'd like to ask again for comments on blogs, please, please, please.

By the way, this is http://tracker.moodle.org/browse/MDL-8776, folks could go vote on it if they have time.

The content of this forum post has been removed and can no longer be accessed.

Hi,

Are blog comments coming in version 1.9, or not? I could have sworn I saw that on the site somewhere a while back, and now it's gone.

Thanks,

ck

Is there any chance for implementation of the short/long post system (like in the News forum on the Front Page) for the blogs' index pages (global an user specific)?

Some of the posts may be very long and it will be much better if they are collapsed in this way especially with comment ability enabled.

"comments in system/personal blogs"patch:
http://tracker.moodle.org/browse/MDL-21206