There is now increasing interest among educators in schools and universities in engaging learners through the use of web logs (blogs). Learners can easily articulate questions and also publish their learning experiences and reflections. Moreover, blogs have great potential to facilitate collaboration and peer interactions, so that they become a breeding ground for the development of an effective learning community. However, learners tend to use blogs mostly for entertainment purposes. This paper will discuss how some educators design structured learning tasks and ways to motivate learners to participate in course-based blogs.

1. Learning-centred blogs Dr Paula Hodgson Contact: [email_address] Faculty of Education University of Hong Kong This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License .

3. Blog for social networking

5. Learning activities Lectures / tutorials Placement

6. Online activities in LMS and blogs Source: Dora Wong (PolyU, English)

8. Reading real cases through RSS feeds Source: Dora Wong (PolyU, English)

9. Reporting/commenting on real cases Source: Dr Pamela Kwok (HKCC, Marketing)

10. Writing exercise Source: Dora Wong (PolyU, English)

11. Reflecting on critical incidents in the workplace Source: Kitty Chan (PolyU, Sch of Nursing)

12. Topical discussion Source: Dr Pamela Kwok (HKCC, Marketing)

14. Reflection through blogging community Source: Paul Penfold, Creamy Kong (PolyU, SHTM)

15. Individual blog in the community-based blog Source: Paul Penfold, Creamy Kong (PolyU, SHTM)

16. Peer feedback through blogs