I just found this post at I Know What I Know. Scott asks some really good questions about assessing blogging and also links to Clancy’s post on assessing weblogs.

His statement, “perhaps my students’ tendency not to take blogging as seriously as I’d hoped is a reflection of my not taking their blogs as seriously as I should or could have.” connects with the research that I am doing on blogging assignments and assessments. The studies I’m reading shows that students do need feedback on their ideas. I think that feedback could come from multiple sources and not just the instructor.

The above post also linked to a post at cyberdash on forced blogging, which linked to Dennis Jerz’s post, and to capture just one bit of that discussion by Anthony that emphasized involvement, “I do feel that his involvment with our blogs shows a degree of commitment to us as students. Not as college students, but as students.” Here again, it’s the response to students’ posts that really matter. Not that the initial posts don’t matter, but feedback is important.

Also I wanted to capture Scott’s comment about assignments: “Without regular prompts, my students felt like they were trying to nail Jell-o to a wall.”