This document discusses how to use a blog as an educational tool. It recommends determining the target market and their knowledge level, deciding how to educate users such as through frequently asked questions or lesson plans, and choosing a format like categories. The document also suggests allowing user comments and downloads of additional educational resources. Used properly, an educational blog can be a powerful way to teach audiences about various topics.

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3. How To Use A Blog As An Educational Tool

4. While blogging originally had the purpose of easily allowing
people to post their personal thoughts online, blogs today are used
for a number of different reasons. Now some of the most
interesting and useful blogs are used for educational purposes,
where the focus is to educate an audience about a specific topic.
When using a blog for this purpose however, there are a few
additional steps that you must consider before you create your
blog and customize it to your website. Most of these steps are
rather straightforward, but should still be taken into
consideration.

5. Determine the Target Market for Your Blog
Choosing your target market is a standard step for any online or offline
business endeavor you choose to go into. This is especially true for an
educational blog, because in addition to determining your target market
and the specific niche, you also have to decide what knowledge level your
desired target audience has of your subject material. The knowledge
level will also have an impact on the content contained in your
educational blog.
Are you educating people who have almost no knowledge of your topic,
or are you educating people who have a basic knowledge of the subject
and are enhancing what they know? Both audiences will require very
different kinds of information, even if it is the same subject or niche.

6. Determine How You Want to Educate Your Users
In order to know how you want to educate your users, you will
need to decide what it is your blog is going to accomplish. Will it
be to provide a place to post comprehensive details about specific
products you offer, a place to post class homework and lessons, or
perhaps a way to share answers to the most frequently asked
questions you get in your business? Once you have determined the
specific type of educational purpose your blog will serve, you will
need to set up the blog to allow it to support your specified goals.

7. Determine the Format for Your Blog
Once you have determined how you want to educate your users, or target
market, you will need to determine the format for your blog, or how you
will present the information.
If your purpose is to answer frequently asked questions, you should set
up your blog to have many categories, which are listed on the side. This
will give visitors easy access to your questions. You would also want to
have links to the latest FAQ entries in your sidebar. The title of your FAQ
entry, should be the question, and body of the blog post should contain
your answer. If you have the ability to put a link in your blog entry, you
should link to another part of your site that gives even more detailed
information about the related question if available.

8. If your purpose is to provide instruction sheets about specific products
and services, you should set up your blog to have enough categories to
define the largest grouping of products. The title of your blog should be
the product name and the phrase 'feature set', or 'instructions'. The post
body should be the instructions or feature set, or it could be a brief
description with a link to a downloadable pdf file of the feature set or
instructions.
If your blog's purpose is to post lessons for students who are taking an
online course, then you would typically only need categories if you are
teaching more than one course through your blog, and in this case, each
category would be named after the course. Each specific blog posting
would have the title of the lesson being taught, plus the lesson number
(I.E. the category would be Computer Science 101, the title would be
Lesson 10: Functions and Procedures). The actual post body could be the
entire lesson, or a brief description of the lesson and a link to a
downloadable pdf file that the student can print out and use, or both
(posting lesson in the blog with a link to a downloadable version of the
lesson.

9. Allow Users to Comment on Your Postings
Allowing users to leave comments on your blog will enable them to
ask questions about lessons, or other educational content. Using
comments is a great way to get feedback that you can use to fill in
any missing pieces that you may have overlooked. Comments from
your users will also provide additional perspectives to the subject
matter, and will allow other blog readers to answer questions if
appropriate.

10. Allow Users to Download Files From Your Blog
If you use your blog for educational purposes, you will probably
have additional resources that you will want to make available to
your users such as white papers, lessons, product information
sheets, or a syllabus. Depending upon the nature of your
educational based blog, some of the information you may want to
convey is best done as a pdf file instead of a blog entry. Most of the
good blogging software today will allow you to upload files to your
site that you can make available to your readers/students. This
will give you more flexibility in the way you can educate and
communicate with your readers.

11. An educational blog can be a powerful means of communicating
with and teaching your audience about the specific information
you wish to share. The power of using a blog is that educating your
audience can be done in a number of different ways. Once you
have the content in your blog, it can be a great resource and tool
for your visitors for years to come, and is very easy to maintain
and update as new material becomes available. Your next step
should be to learn how to incorporate other features into your
educational blog that will allow you to earn revenue so your blog
can pay for the maintenance costs required to operate it.
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