If you require that students create and maintain a blog, you are probably obligated to evaluate it some way. I don’t much like the idea of just “counting” them–i.e., giving points for creating a blog to satisfy a requirement regardless of the content (much for the same reasons that I dislike giving points for participating in a discussion thread). So I have been looking around to see how other educators evaluate student blogs.

Being a fan of using rubrics to both outline and evaluate student projects, I looked there first and found several examples that are worth considering. The 2-Cents Worth blog has a very good discussion of evaluating blogs, pointing out the essential difference between evaluating blogging as an activity and the content of a blog as writing. Both are important aspects of what I might be looking for in a student blog–I want them to understand the concept of blogging but also to consider the quality of their writing. The Comments section of 2-Cents worth is worth reading as well–lots of good ideas and links, a few of which I’ll reproduce here. For example, check out this blog reflection rubric.

Bud’s Blog Experiment has some interesting insights on blogging as a student activity. Don’t forget to read the comments.

Do you have any thoughts to share about evaluating student blogging?

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