A blog is a web log or online diary that has a very simple structure: the owner of the blog writes ‘posts’ that are dated and displayed with the most recent first, and archived by month. Blogs can be multimedia by incorporating images, audio or video. They can also be interactive through the use of a ‘comments’ facility whereby other people can post a reaction to a blog post. Most blogs can also be made private, making them visible only to the blog owner and invited guests. A blog will normally have a web feed available, which means other people can ‘subscribe’ to your blog using an RSS reader – new blog posts will be delivered to the learner without them having to check the blog every day. The simplicity of a blog means that it can be used in many ways, either by the teacher or learner.

There are many websites where you can create a blog, some of which are free and offer good functionality, including Blogger (owned by Google, www.blogger.com) and WordPress (www.wordpress.com). Blog sites vary in the features that they offer and some sites require payment.

Ask learners to use a blog to record their research strategies for a particular project. Encourage reflection on why particular sources were used and ask for links to any online sources to be embedded into the blog. For example, ask what information was found at those sources. What strategies did learners use to find the information? Is the source considered to be a reliable source with good-quality information?

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