Driving learning through blogging: Students’ perceptions of a reading journal blog assessment task

In 2007, a new assessment task, a reading journal blog, was introduced to undergraduate public relations courses at the University of Newcastle on Australia’s east coast. It was designed to address two challenges: firstly to encourage student engagement with the required course readings to facilitate student learning; and secondly to equip students with the technical skills of blogging. There is evidence suggesting that this type of assessment task increases student engagement with required course reading, that the assessment task could have wider application than in public relations courses, and that it facilitates the development of students’ technical skills in using new media. In this paper the context and design of the assessment task and the results of a student survey are presented. In addition to discussing the research findings, ways to further develop the assessment task are explored.