Blogs are a great way to get students writing and reflecting about course topics. While Canvas does not have a distinct tool for blogging, it does offer several options for related functions. The Assignment, Pages and Discussion tools all provide a rich content editor to facilitate easy content formatting and the integration of media.
Assignments
The Assignment tool can be used to prompt private student journal submissions. This is ideal if you want students to submit their blog posts only to you. By setting the Allowed Attempts to Unlimited, a student can submit to the same assignment multiple times. These submissions will show up in the SpeedGrader with time and date stamps in a dropdown menu, so you can flip between blog posts. This would be ideal for a blog assignment that will have one overall grade for the whole semester. Alternatively, you can set up multiple assignments if you want to give a grade for each individual blog post.
More information about setting assignment parameters can be found at the Canvas Community page on Assignment Settings.
Pages
Pages can be created and configured for class-wide viewing. As an instructor, you can choose when creating pages to allow them to be edited by students. This is done by choosing Teachers and Students from the Users allowed to edit this page dropdown menu. Students can then add their blog posts to the page and all enrolled users in the class will be able to see them. Depending upon the desired structure, Pages can be used as spaces for either individual students or topics.
As a note, Pages are not gradable, so using Pages for blog posts would be better as a participation or ungraded activity.
More information about editing page permissions can be found at the Canvas Community page on Editing Pages.
Discussions
Discussions can be created and configured for class-wide viewing and commenting on individual student contributions. Instructors can create discussion board topics which students then respond to. Choosing Allow threaded replies in the Options section will allow for replies to specific posts, creating a more conversational atmosphere. Discussions can be graded or ungraded, and depending upon the desired structure, they can be used as spaces for either individual students or topics.
More information about creating discussions can be found at the Canvas Community page on Creating Discussions.
Need additional help? Contact the HWS IT Services Digital Learning Team.