Want a blog for your program, department, classes, or anything else? Just email Rory Wallwork, and he’ll take care of it. Just tell him what your blog is going to represent (program, department, class, etc).

Need help getting started with your new blog?

If you need help, it’s available! At the very top of this page, there’s a link that says “Blog Help.” Just click on it for a page full of helpful information. OR, if you’d like a more hands-on approach, contact Wendy Willis in the marketing department and she’ll be able to help you out!

What is a blog?

The word “blog” is actually an abridgment of the phrase “web log.” Simply defined, blogs are usually maintained by individuals who post regular entries of commentary, announcements, descriptions of events, or other content, such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in reverse chronological order. Blogs have become very popular in the last few years. Estimations show that there are around 100 million blogs maintained today.

If you spend even a small amount of time each day on the internet, chances are you’ve run across a blog or two. Perhaps your son, daughter, or even grandchild has one?

So why should you have a blog?

First and foremost, the OWATC is a technology college. It is one of our responsibilities to keep up with the rest of the world in all fields of technology and its advances. Blogging is simply part of the world’s advancing community “networking” technology, and it should therefore be an integral part of the OWATC.

Your programs, classes, or department has never had an effective way to reach today’s ever-growing internet audience. Currently, the amount of information you can display on your website (if you even have one of your own) is extremely limited. There is really no way to show what students really do in your class, or what’s actually going on in the program or department. If prospective students were able to see or read more about a program – how “cool” it is to be a machinist or how creative you can be in the Media Design program – your enrollment numbers could grow even more. While some current/prospective students may not have access to the internet in their homes, chances are, they have reasonable and regular access to it somewhere else.

This new blog system allows the creation and simple management of an unlimited number of blogs. For example, you could make blogs for Culinary Arts, Media Design, Machining, Welding, Marketing, a main college blog, and more! If you want one (and if you have a reason for one), you can have one!

Should you be scared of managing your blog?

The back-end interface for writing and managing your blog posts (entries) is extremely simple!! The system we use is probably the easiest out there. Don’t let it stop you from having a blog. Do not be afraid of it!

Blogs can also be updated from anywhere, any time. You can post new information at your convenience – even from home. It’s also up to you to decide how often and how much content you post to your blog. While many people post multiple entries every day, the average “blogger” posts new content at least once a week.

What can you post on your blog?

1. News, announcements, and events could be posted for individual programs or classes, without having to try to get the announcement or content posted on the OWATC home page, program page, digital billboard, or marquee, where information and options are extremely limited.
2. Event follow-up – there is always a multitude of pictures and everything else after any event you have, but there is usually no way to show it all to other OWATC employees, students, or the community. However, on a blog you can have as many pictures or other things as you want (let’s not go overboard though…). This would give the rest of the college or community (parents, sponsors, etc.) the chance to explore how it went during the event and find out more about what was going on. Your new blog would be the perfect way to show pictures or even video from, for example, this year’s SkillsUSA competition in Kansas!
3. Program/class/department promotion – Do you need a way to show what students actually do in your program? It’s difficult for others to understand exactly what goes on in many programs/departments when all they have is a very short description on the website. If you could show what you do in your program, it might be even more successful. You could do this using both pictures and video.
4. Blogs can impact others on a much more personal level. Because all the content on your blog can be very specific, you will be able to connect with other at a more personal, customized level. This may help current or prospective students feel more of a connection to the College, while at the same time get information that is meant specifically for them.
5. Each blog will have a “Who’s Blogging” list of all the other blogs for the whole College, just as you can see above and to the right. This would allow your “readers” to  easily discover other programs and areas of the College that also have blogs.

1. Post materials and resources

The web is a fantastic tool when it comes to distributing resources – all you have to do on your blog is upload, or copy and paste, your materials to your blog and they’ll be instantly accessible by your student from school and from home. What’s more, you can easily manage who gets to access them through password and plugin safety measures.

2. Host online discussions

If you’ve ever struggled to create an online discussion space – you’re going to love what blogs will do for you. Students can simply respond to blog posts and discuss topics you’ve set them through comments of through our simple forum functionality – commentators can also sign up to receive emails when their comments are replied to and you can easily manage and edit all responses through your blog’s administrative panel.

3. Create a class publication

Do you remember the good old days of class newspapers? Well, they just got a lot easier with your blog – you can add students as contributors, authors and even editors in order to produce a custom designed, finely tuned and engaging collaborative online publication by your class.

4. Replace your newsletter

Always enjoyed photocopying and stapling pages and pages of newsletters on a Friday afternoon? Though not! It’s ridiculously simple to post class information, news, events and more on your edublog

5. Get your students blogging

It’s all very good sending your students off to blog sites, or even creating them for them, but you need to operate as a hub for their work and a place where they can easily visit each others blogs from. Your blog can be used to glue together your students blogs, and besides which, if you’re asking your students to blog… you should certainly be doing it yourself.

6. Share your lesson plans

We all love planning and admin, right? Well, using an blog can turn planning and reflection on classes into a genuinely productive – and even collaborative – experience. Sharing your plans, your reflections, your ideas and your fears with other educators both at your school and around the world using an blog is a great way to develop as a teacher, and a brilliant use of a blog.

7. Integrate multimedia of all descriptions

With a couple of clicks you can embed online video, multimedia presentations, slideshows and more into your blog and mix it up with your text and static resources. No cds required, no coding necessary – just select the video, podcasts or slidecast you’d like to use and whack it in your blog to illustrate, engage and improve your teaching toolbox.

8. Organize, organize, organize

You don’t only have to use your blog as a pedagogue… you can equally easily use the tools to organise everything from sports teams in your school, to rehearsals for the upcoming production. You can set up as many blogs as you like, so don’t be afraid to use a dedicated one for a dedicated event – your can even use it as a record to look back on down the line.

9. Get feedback

There’s nothing that says you can’t allow anonymous commenting on a blog (although you’re also entirely within your rights to put all comments through moderation!) but why not think about using a blog as a place for students – and even parents, to air issues, leave feedback or generally tell you how great you are.

10. Create a fully functional website

One of the great things about blogs are that they are much, much more than just blogging tools. In fact, you can use your blog to create a multi-layered, in-depth, multimedia rich website – that hardly looks like a blog at all. So, if you’d rather create a set of static content, archive of important information or even index for your library – you can bend an blog to suit your needs.

The above information was originally posted on edublogs.org