It is likely that the course tutor will have chosen a hosting service for the blog, to ensure standardisation and ease of access, and in some cases to allow the teacher to create an aggregated team blog from the individual weblogs. Additionally, where the blog is an important part of assessed coursework, the teacher might provide extensive guidelines which include the number of contributions to be made each week, specific topics for discussion, how much attention students should give to commenting on the blogs of their peers, and so on. Clint Wrede of the University of Iowa took just such a structured approach in setting an assignment for his Electronic Publishing class in 2001.
Educational blogger Ken Smith (2003) believes it's imperative to give clear instructions to students, and advises don't hide the moves. He warns that using blogging software is not necessarily the same thing as blogging, and sees a clearly-defined project as essential. It's a point of view James Farmer (2006) also shares. 'We cannot tell students "go blog," without an understanding of what our goals are for requiring them to do so, and how to best implement that model in our classrooms.'
To ensure students achieve the learning objectives for the weblog, the teacher might subsequently monitor blog use and provide feedback to each student, comment on entries and aim to stimulate discussion on relevant course topics.
An alternative teacher-directed approach recommended by Balagué (2007) is for the tutor to keep his or her own blog which will be visible to the students, in order to act as a guide for their own blogging and as a means of encouraging 'new discussions, debates and reflections'.