With previous semesters, I had some challenges with students clearly submitting AI-generated work. At first, I wanted to put a stop to this by incorporating weekly in-class handwritten assignments, but I soon discovered that it would take a large amount of time to provide suitable feedback on time. This semester, I decided to embrace AI and to develop my Writing and Presentation Skills course by incorporating the digitalisation of their writing by getting students to write blogs. This is despite the overreliance of AI, particularly with auto-generated content and the loss of student voice with their writing.

In this blog post, I will share some personal experiences of incorporating blogging with my students, best practices if you wish to do the same, as well as some final pointers should anyone be interested. As ever, if you have any advice for student blogging, then do please let me know and drop a comment – even if you enjoyed reading my ramblings today.

Introducing Blogs to Students

When I started the semester, I introduced blogs to my international students and why they should even consider writing online, even it was just an online diary entry. The students were shown a variety of popular blogs, such as Market Watch, Harvard Business Review, and TechCrunch. I even shared some popular Korean blogs to really sell the idea that blogging is certainly an opportunity.

The next step was sharing with them some popular blogging tools such as WordPress, Wix, and Blogger, and asked them to set up an account after class so they would be able to complete the first graded assignment. This was a mistake as students had difficulty setting up a free account with Wix – for those that chose this platform – while navigating WordPress was a little complicated. I had to return to class the following week and decided to share the following video about setting up a free WordPress account, while asking students to follow the steps advised in the video.

Most students moved over their blog to WordPress after I showed the video in class and they were able to learn more about creating their personal website via the platform.

AI and Student Blogs

To avoid the whole AI-generated slop of appearing in student blogs, I thought long and hard about how it would be more beneficial for students to actually go about writing, as it would take longer to generate suitable content via AI. However, I wouldn’t be adverse to AI but shared the following video below about how to spot such writing.

After the video, to make sure that students were paying attention, I handed out a worksheet with some comprehension and open ended questions. For example, the handout included, ‘Give an example of parallel sentence structure’ or ‘What are five key examples of AI generated writing?’. Students then discussed in pairs or small groups their answers.

The final step was to have an open and honest discussion with students regarding AI, explaining that I am not anti-AI but don’t want to see AI-generated slop with their blog posts. I then shared best practice for incorporating AI into their writing process, which included a declaration of AI usage at the bottom of their blog post as well as a link to the prompt and generated answer from whichever AI platform they had used. Just a quick point, most AI tools such as Claude, Gemini, or ChatGPT offer a personal link that can be shared publicly to all.

Personalising Student Blogging Assignments

One of the tasks that I asked students to complete

The next thing that I worked on was getting students blogging was incorporating highly personalised written assignments while also including a variety of tasks during the writing. On top of this, I wanted the international students to get out of their comfort zone and experience the real Korea. So, after chatting with the students about what they could do outside to blog, we agreed a number of written tasks which included:

  • Introducing themselves
  • Going to a Korean PC Room
  • Visiting a traditional Korean market
  • Trying out a dedicated Korean restaurant or café (there were some resistance with regards to the restaurant task as some students were Muslim and they had strict dietary requirements to follow so I also encouraged cafés as an alternative)
  • Life as a student at an international business school

On top of personalised blogging assignments, I asked students to truly show that they had experienced what they had written by asking students to share personal images of themselves. For example, if students were writing about their experiences at the Korean market, as part of the grading criteria, they had to take a selfie at the market, trying out some local food, as well as what they discovered along the way. It required a lot of preparation but this would reduce the opportunity for students submitting clearly AI generated work.

Recommendations for Educators

As I reach towards the final five weeks of the semester, I have certainly learned a lot while getting my students to blog about their personal experiences in South Korea. If you are also feeling inspired to get your students blogging, then there are a number of things that I would recommend.

The first thing that I would suggest is that despite undergraduate students being a little more tech-savey compared to possibly the older generation, they are not necessarily skilled enough to create a blog from the ground up. Don’t assume that all students of a particular age are patient enough to sit down and experiment – most students have difficulty using technology unless it is their mobile phone or tablet. Thus, you would have to spend a bit more time guiding your students and sharing tips and advice through the use of YouTube videos (as I have shared previously) with your learners.

Secondly, I experienced students were not sure of the difference between a blog post and a blog page. I had to explain to students the difference and similarity between both, but also to advise on how to go about writing a blog post. Again, such problems started arising once students were submitting blog pages rather than blog posts. So, I would recommend that you advise on the difference right at the beginning of the course so students are aware.

Third, I would get students to write with pen and paper their writing preparation and the introductory blog paragraph. On top of this, I would also ask students to brainstorm and do some research regarding the assignment. For example, if they were to go to a restaurant or café, then they would need to find out some information and to add any links to their research as part of hyperlinks within the blog post. Obviously, I had to provide a lesson on how to go about adding hyperlinks within a blog post and the students learnt another skill. I did ask students to submit their handwritten paragraph to AI to seek out feedback using a prompt – related to the fourth recommendation.

The fourth recommendation that I have for other educators is to get students using an AI prompt that would provide feedback but not correct everything. As part of the student’s assignment, they would have to use a prompt and then share a link to this as part of an AI Usage Declaration at the end of their blog post. The prompt was: “Review my introductory paragraph but do not correct my grammar, just provide some common patterns with my English writing that I should correct”. This obviously reduces the possibility of AI rewriting or creating a student blog post.

My final recommendation for other educators would be to enjoy the trials and tribulations of students blogging. It is not all plain sailing and there are certainly going to be many ups and downs, but try to learn from these to improve your student blogging course.

Final Point

I suppose the whole purpose of blogging is essentially to share a passion or interest, and if students are unaware about this area of writing, then it would make sense to encourage this. Furthermore, students may discover that they actually enjoy their blogging and sharing their experiences of studying in South Korea, so I do hope that they will continue after the course.

It is also an opportunity for students to share their experiences with family via their blog / website. I guess the next step for me would be to create a course for students that want to start videography or filming social media content.

I may create a handbook or guide for teachers on getting their students blogging, and if you are interested, do let me know.

Thanks for reading!