Creating a Writing Course Utilizing Class and Student Blogs
Andrew Johnson Ritsumeikan University (Tokyo, Japan)
Weblogs, or blogs for short, were created as a tool for people to create online journals without the need of any programming experience or knowledge.  Although not originally intended for use in EFL classes, blogs have immense potential as an extremely valuable tool for the teaching of second language writing.  By utilizing free blogging services on the Internet, teachers are capable of creating and storing online supplemental materials for students, post class notes for student review, and give general feedback to the class as a whole and individually.  Additionally, students are able to submit assignments online.  Taught in a computer room with Internet access, a writing class utilizing blogs that allows students to actually write in class on a computer can be created.  The objectives of this paper are 1) to show other teachers how to set up a course using blogs at ‘Blogger` (a free blogging service) and 2) to discuss the advantages of blogs for both teachers and students.  The ideas presented are based on a graduate level science writing course taught in the spring of 2003.
Introduction
Weblogs (or blogs) are electronic journals that allow the user to keep records of their writing on a website (Figure 1).  In recent years, the use of these electronic journals in education is on the rise, especially in the United States.   A good example is the Bay Area Writing Project which has organized the Educational Blogger Network (edBlogNet) with the purpose of helping kindergarten through university teachers “use weblog technology for the teaching of writing and reading across the disciplines” (eBn, 2003).  Blogs have been successfully implemented into journalism, political science, and various junior high to university English writing courses for native English speakers.  However, the use of blogs in teaching EFL appears to still be in its infancy but has much potential, especially in teaching written communication skills.  Campbell (2003) goes into various ways blogs can be used by teachers and students to communicate in an EFL environment.  He suggests using class blogs as a forum for students to express opinions, ideas, and interesting information.  Additionally, the use of a ‘tutor blog` is a way for teachers to share with students and point them to other interesting links.  Duber (2002) also discusses the background of blogs and gives links to several teachers` ‘tutor blogs.` Although the number of articles discussing blogs in an EFL teaching setting has increased recently, few of them discuss group or team blogs that keep student submissions private between the individual student and the teacher.
Figure 1: An example of a student`s blog. The best way to illustrate the use of blogs in the classroom is by showing how to set up and administer a collection of class and student blogs.  Since there are several articles that describe various blogging services with their various functions (Hiler, 2000), this article will not get into that topic but rather discuss creating blogs at ‘Blogger` (located at www.blogger.com) in order to give a concrete example.
Setting up a Blog-Based Writing Class
The majority of the ideas presented in this paper were implemented in a graduate level scientific writing course taught in the spring of 2003.  The ideas that were not implemented are from verbal student feedback pertaining to methods of improving the class structure.
Intended Audience for this Section
Blogs are a versatile tool with numerous applications.  The ideas presented in this paper are intended for teachers that meet two conditions.  First, the teacher can obtain a computer lab with Internet access and each student will have a computer to use.  Secondly, the description presented is intended for teachers who have a) limited or no HTML experience and b) no access to Internet server space.  If one has HTML experience and server space, a few more options for creating the class are available that fall beyond the scope of this paper.
Features of the Blog-Based Class
Before choosing a blogging service, one must know what will be required of it.  The following is a list containing the features this author felt would be necessary for a successful blog-based class:
It must be possible for a teacher to create as many “class blogs” as deemed necessary to organize class materials.  For example, it must be possible for a teacher to create a blog for class notes and another for posting group feedback (Figure 2).
The class blogs must be viewable by all students.  Furthermore, only the teacher should have administrative privileges to modify these blogs.
Students must all have their own individual blog for posting assignments.  Only two people, the teacher and the student, can view the student`s individual blog.  Students can edit their own writing and the teacher can add comments to the students` submissions. However, students cannot edit the teacher`s comments.
For the sake of organization, it must be simple for the teacher to change between students` blogs.
The blogging service must provide server space on the Internet to store class and student blogs.
The blogging service must be free.
Although there are numerous blogging services available, not all of them fit the