Docent - Teacher

How do I create a blog for students?

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Brightspace does not have a blog feature on a course level. To give the students the opportunity to keep a blog regardless, you can create a group with one participant for each student using Groups. If you link a discussion topic to this group, students will have a personal topic they can use as a blog.

  • Navigate to Administration in the navbar of your course.
  • Click Groups.
  • Click New Category.
  1. Give the category a name (for example Blogs).
  2. Select the option Single user, member-specific groups under Enrolment Type.
  3. Select Set up discussion areas.
  4. Select within which discussion forum the discussion topics have to appear.
  5. Make sure Create new topic is selected.
  6. Click Save. You will now navigate to the page where you created the topics.

It can be useful to create a new discussion forum for the topics, which is also called Blogs. This allows you and your students to find the blogs easily in Discussions. You can do this by clicking New Forum and then entering a title.

  1. Select Create one topic per group if you want to create a separate topic for each student. Select Create one topic with threads separated by group to create one topic in which students can start their own thread.
    • When you use this second option you have to enter a title for the discussion topic and possibly a description.
  2. Click Create and Next. Then click Done. You will navigate back to the Edit Category page. Click Save to return to Manage Groups.
  • Students are not able to see each other's topics/threads. If you have created a topic for each student, you can add other students to the topic of a specific student. This allows them to give peer feedback to each others blogs. You can do this in three ways:
  1. Use Groups to add members to the group of another student.
  2. Use Discussions to add the group of another student in the restrictions of the group.
  3. Use Discussions to life the restrictions of the topic, allowing all students to see the group.
  • Because the blog is actually a discussion topic, students will be able to find their own blog under Discussions. They can create threads and posts like in a normal discussion topic.
  • Because the blog is actually a discussion topic, posts can be rated and/or assessed in the same way as any other discussion topic. For separate topics you will have to set up how you want to do this and possibly create a grade item for each topic. If you have chosen for threads within one topic, you only have to set up the method of rating and/or assessing one time. To learn more, read the following articles:
  • How do I assess a discussion topic (grade item, rubric)?
  • How do I rate a discussion post? 

View blogs

You can view the blogs under Discussions.

  • Navigate to Activities in the navbar of your course.
  • Click Discussions.

A topic for each student

You will see the new topic on the Discussions homepage. If you have selected the option where each student gets their own topic, you will see the topics under the forum (in this case Blogs): each student has their own topic named Blogs-NAME STUDENT. Click on a topic to see what the student has written in the topic and assess this if necessary. 

A topic with a thread for each student

You will see the new forum on the Discussions homepage. When you have chosen one topic in which students can create their own thread, you will see the one topic with the title you gave it under the forum (in this case, Blog). Click on the topic to see the threads of the students. Click on a thread to read a new post and assess it if necessary. 

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