ACU has launched a full-scale version of class blogs as part of the myACU system this semester, after completing a pilot phase of the project last year.

Class blogs are a new way for faculty to present content to their classes. Although they are optional, 236 course blogs, representing 129 faculty members and more than 2800 students already have been created, said Hab Adkins, manager of programming and support for Web Integration and Programming.

The blogs are intended to give instructors a simpler, faster way to get content in front of students and facilitate discussion and closer class interaction, said Mike Wiggins, associate professor of art and design, who was responsible for the design and production of the ACU blogs theme.

Dr. Kyle Dickson, associate professor of English and director of the digital media center in the Learning Commons, and Wiggins, developed the project in conjunction with the Web Integration and Programming department.

The university was looking for a platform that could do two things not available in the current learning management system, Dickson said. The system includes such myACU features as Blackboard and the ACU files system.

The first thing the new platform needed was mobile accessibility, a feature already supported by the WordPress software that was eventually chosen. The second was the ability to publish content quickly and easily.

“The files system is great, but it’s just a list of files,” Dickson said. “What it does well is distribution. What it doesn’t do well is context.”

Providing context is the goal for the blogs this semester. Faculty and students can now post many different kinds of content in all kinds of ways, Dickson said.

One faculty member might distribute documents, while another could use the same tool to allow students to interact and post their own content. A third, using the same core tools, could use it to supplement the textbook, he said.

This simplicity and flexibility is intended to “eliminate some friction between faculty and students,” helping them “build vital connections,” Dickson said.

For some teachers, Blackboard almost has too many features, and Web sites can be difficult to maintain, Wiggins said. He said he kept that in mind when creating the simple, straightforward appearance and operation of the blogs. Wiggins has had a class Web site for several years and recently switched to using a blog instead.

“One of my motivations, originally, was I’d had other teachers come to me and say ‘Oh, you have a Web site. Could you show me how to have a Web site for my classes?'” he said. “Until two years ago, there was just no way. It was so technical.”

After experimenting with blogs, Wiggins realized how much they could benefit teachers with little to no experience building a Web site.

“I realized right off the bat, I was adding tons of content to my class site really easily,” Wiggins said. “I was surprised at how much more content I could put in front of the students outside of class and how often I did it just because it got so much simpler.”

ACU blogs are set up so that only the instructor and his class can view a particular blog, but the WordPress platform actually allows users to share content with the entire campus or Web, opening up new possibilities for the future.

“It’s helped us to rethink how we conceive of the classroom,” Dickson said.