The blog tool in FLO (OU blog) is intuitive for users. However, you may want to prompt users (ie students) what to blog about, either in the Introduction or somewhere else in the FLO site.

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1. Plan

In order to get the most out of your blog you can:

• Create a blog
  
• View participation
• Grade
  

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2. Build

Now you have planned your blog you can now create your blog: 

1. Click
2. In the week/module where you want to add the blog, click
   
   
3. Select OU blogand click Add
   
   
4. You will be taken to the Adding a new OU blog screen where you can set the parameters of your blog
   
   
5. Give the blog a Name  and Introduction
   
   
6. If desired, use the Individual blogs drop-down menu to select individual blogs. If individual blogs are not required, leave this menu at the default no (blog together or in groups)
   
   
   
7. Click
   
   

The blog tool in FLO (OU blog) is intuitive for users (there is a 'New blog post' button. Once clicked, the user can use the HTML editor to add/edit their post entry).

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3. Administer

To administer the blog you can view how users are participating, as well as set up a grade for the blog.

View the participation of a user

1. Click into the module from the topic homepage
   
   
2. Click Participation by user
   
3. To limit participation by date, click enable and select dates.  Click Update.
   
   
4. Results will display below.  
   Click details beside user name to view that user's posts and comments.
   
5. Use tabs to toggle view between posts and comments
   
   

Grade a blog activity

1. Open the blog and click on the Click Participation by user button
   
   
   
2. Select a grade from the drop-down menu in one of the following two locations
   
   In the display all users view, select a grade for each student from the drop-down menu. Click Save changes
   
   
   OR
   
   Click on the details link beside the user name.  Select the User grade tab, select grade then click Save changes
   
   

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4. Review

Having used the blog activity in your topic, you can now ask these questions:

• Was it an effective activity (did it achieve what you wanted it to?)
  
• Did students benefit from using the blog
• Did students give you feedback about blog use (eg using the feedback activity)? Did they have problems with it?

The answers to these and other questions may help you refine the activity in the next iteration of your topic, or you may decide to use another tool.

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Training and support	Troubleshooting
Training/Support Contact you local eLearning support team	No known issues with this tool