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University of Saskatchewan (USask) Sites offers students a WordPress blog to build and create an online space for their learning, with a set of tools that supports social, interactive, and collaborative learning. Connect with others by sharing and collaborating in this open and creative space. Over one-third of the web is built on the WordPress platform (W3Tech, 2021) making it an ideal tool to help build digital literacy and web design skills for student blogging.

Student Sites

With Sites students can create a blog that reflects and shares their learning at USask. It is a great way to showcase both current skill as well as learning throughout a program. By blogging, students will develop skills in planning, writing, digital design, communication, and research.

Student typing on a laptop with classmate sitting next to them.

Teaching with USask Sites

When students become web authors they engage in active and social learning. When you incorporate blogging, portfolios, and other web authoring activities with your class, you encourage students to develop and apply skills in inquiry, knowledge creation, and translation; communicate with different academic, professional, and cultural audiences; and apply critical and creative thinking to problems.

Sites is a learning technology tool that supports digital communication

Writing for the web is different than writing a paper. Not only does it offer unique opportunities for media enrichment and connection with other parts of the web by including hyperlinks, images, videos, emotive GIFs, and more, it is reflective of how much of the world communicates online, and expands the potential audience almost infinitely.

  • DESIGNED FOR REFLECTION AND GROWTH

    A blog, by its very nature, is focused on reflective learning practices. The feed, presented in reverse chronological order, presents both an up-to-date standpoint as well as a portal to previous works. Students can refine and extend their work through prompted and supported opportunities to focus on understanding, discovery, and next steps.

  • STUDENT CONTROL AND OWNERSHIP OF LEARNING

    Students maintain ownership and control of their website, managing all aspects of their site upon its creation. They can choose its purpose and form, draft, publish, and revise work on their terms, and purposefully choose how and when they share their work.

  • DESIGNED TO ENABLE CONNECTION

    Blogs were the original social media. Students and faculty engage in local, national, and international networks; using WordPress enables them to connect experiences, concepts, people, and ideas across these various levels. Using WordPress’s ability to follow and engage with a range of authors and content, new connections can form, and old connections can flourish.

  • INCLUSIVE OF LEARNER-CENTERED ASSESSMENT

    Websites are a flexible method of sharing work, allowing works-in-progress to be shared in order to receive feedback and revise iterations of work, as well as sharing final products. WordPress enables feedback from multiple sources, including self, peers, teachers, and outside experts.

Reflections on teaching with USask Sites

Dr. Carrie Prefontaine Women’s and Gender Studies

I have found that blogging provides students with a forum for deeper exploration of topics. The process of blogging and linking to their classmates’ work and to external sources helps them reflect more deeply on course concepts. As a result, students show a deeper comprehension of the course content and a greater ability to apply course concepts to the world around them. The blogging assignment also enables them to share their knowledge, in turn, inspiring their classmates. Feedback on their blogs fosters the growth of digital citizenship and encourages creative ways of thinking about the themes and concepts of the course.

Students are responsible for the initial setup of the blogs at the beginning of the course, and, using the current process, this step requires a time investment. Once students have their blogs set up, they have demonstrated enthusiasm for and engagement in the assignment. Many students have used the blogging assignment as a foundation for developing research questions that they have explored in their major assignments for the course.

 

 

Dr. Daryl Janzen Physics & Engineering Physics

WordPress is an excellent way for students to share their coursework through a medium that can be read by fellow students, family members, or anyone accessing the website. I’ve used it as a way for students to publish their research projects since 2016, and find that they take great pride in designing a page that is visually appealing and presents their own work to the world. From an instructional standpoint, I find that this motivates a higher quality of work than I would typically receive if the work were not published.

 

 

Featured Sites

WGST 210 Syndicated Student Blogs

Every student in this course has their own blog, and writing assignments are syndicated into this central WGST 201 site. The course is titled Gendered Perspectives on Current Events and blogs are an excellent way to have students incorporate media from around the web (videos, hyperlinks, tweets, etc.) into their analytical writing.

GEOL 109 Student-Curated Videos

Students contribute and categorize videos to this GEOL 109 site, along with a summary, key terms, loose ends, and key questions. This work forms a collection of resources available to current and future students in Geology 109.

ASTR 104 Astronomy of Planets

A showcase of research done by Astronomy 104 students on various topics in planetary astronomy. Reading about the latest discoveries in astronomy, you may often find yourself wondering how we know these things that we know. This ASTR 104 site goes beyond reporting what we’ve learned about various solar system objects and explains how we know.

Support

Contact the Flexible Learning & Technology (FLT) team at the Gwenna Moss Centre for Teaching and Learning (GMCTL). FLT has extensive experience using WordPress and can discuss your project and goals.

For questions and a guide to help your students get started with WordPress visit the following:

Sites FAQ

WordPress Guide

To request a student site or sites for your class complete the Student Blogging-Sites form (NSID login required)

 

 

We acknowledge that the University of Saskatchewan's main campus is situated on Treaty 6 Territory and the Homeland of the Métis. We pay our respect to the First Nations and Métis ancestors of this place and reaffirm our relationship with one another.

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