This slide presentation presents the process used for grading class discussions conducted through a public blog, such as Wordpress.

1. Why Your Discussion Settings
Matter.
•For this online class, comments on
fellow student’s blogs are like class
discussions.
•You will be graded on your comments.
•Your fellow students will be graded on
the comments they make on your blog.
•Comments on fellow student’s blogs
are worth 8% of the total grade

2. A Typical
Example of
Student
Comments

3. Getting your grade!
Comment on several blogs.
Keep track of the URLs of the blogs you
commented on.

4. Turn your work in!
• Submit those URLs through Blackboard.
• Your instructor will review your comments by going to
the blog URL and reading your comments.
• A grade and feedback will be given through the
Blackboard Grade Center.
Student submits
URLs
Instructor gets
URLS
Instructor goes
To the URL
Reads
comments
Grade is posted
On Blackboard
Grade Center

5. That’s the way it is supposed to
work….
• If your blog allows comments to go
through freely, then the system works
great.
• But what if your blog is
not allowing comments
to go through?

6. Imagine this
• A student comments on your blog.
• Your blog comment settings require your
approval.

7. Oh, oh!
• You don’t approve the comment right away.
• Your fellow classmates can’t see comments.
• Your instructor can’t see the comments to
grade them.
Aaaargh!!!

8. But what if…..
Someone makes offensive remarks?
• Don’t worry, as we go through the
module on getting your settings right,
you’ll see that there are some
safeguards in place.
• Remember – your fellow classmates
are being graded on what they say.

9. Won’t there be a lot of “spam”
comments?
• Spam happens.
• Wordpress has anti-spam measures
http://wordpress.org/plugins/akismet/
Ready to get started? View the next presentation on how to
get those Discussion Settings right the first time.