The University of Helsinki has its own weblog service utilizing the multi user version of WordPress. It is a versatile yet simple publication tool that can be used for traditional blogging or creating static homepages, and has a couple of helpful extensions included for podcasting, tracking user activity with Google Analytics etc. Using blogs for educative purposes is a possibility as well, even if blogs are heavily associated as a means of expressing personal opinions. Blogs normally feature an option for the public to comment your posts, and this core functionality of blogs is a large part of their attraction as possible instruments of education as well (read more from the reference section at the bottom of this page).
Using the blog system is a good, cost effective way to create a personal homepage for an individual teacher/researcher
/student or even a small research group. You can focus more on creating the actual content than trying to get the technical or visual side working – the layout is provided by a couple of pre-configured templates. As the blog automatically creates RSS-feeds from your posts, people can follow your updates with feed readers or you can publish your feeds on other pages (on the Alma intranet, for example). Of course the university blog system is meant for blogs that somehow connect with what you do at the university, and the bad thing is that you’ll lose it once your university user account expires so for better continuity or purely private/commercial blogs it’s better to create the blogs using some other service – luckily there are some good free ones available like edublogs (for education) or blogger, wordpress.com… take your pick, you can read more recommendations from the blogipalvelut page here.
Advantages:
+ powerful yet simple web publishing platform
+ creates RSS-feeds from posts; can also display RSS-feeds in side column
+ can create either blog posts or normal static webpages
+ many users can update a single blog, with different access rights
Disadvantages:
– editing of layouts perhaps too limited for advanced use as a homepage
– only 10 Mb storage space for pictures/files means it cannot be used as a replacement for Moodle as a course environment or a content heavy web page.
Cases at the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine:
»» Eläinten hyvinvointikeskus
»» Koiran mieli
(both created with edublogs, not the university system!)
References:
Blogien opetuskäyttö [Wiki page, University of Helsinki]
Wikis, blogs and podcasts: a new generation of Web-based tools for virtual collaborative clinical practice and education, BMC Medical Education 2006, 6:41 [http://www.biomedcentral.com/1472-6920/6/41/]