The most critical aspect of blogging that I learned was the fact that blogs can be designed to engage students and encourage collaborative learning. Therefore, the assessment of the blog postings must enhance such a cooperative environment. As blogs are typically used as Web-journals, the writing skills must be connected to the course learning outcomes. Formative progress may be assessed as students regularly write comments. Such comments may be assessed by the instructor or students’ peers.
Through consistent and meaningful assessment of blog posting, students grow in their communication and become a part of a learning community in which they share ideas and their reflections on content information. Individual blogs provide students with an opportunity to create content on various topics. The instructor must, therefore, determine whether to assess the blog on the content, number of blog posts, or reflection. Each of these requires different criteria for assessment.
