Do's and Dont's of Educational Blogging - Dipesh Dulal

Educational blogging is the pursuit of responsible writing premised on topics that may be useful (mostly in the cognitive domain) for content consumers across the world.

While some blogging gurus may argue that 'educational blogging' is only for teachers and professionals related to pedagogy and/or andragogy; I argue that any blog/website containing posts that can serve the learning purpose of the visitors must also be 'educational'.

In this article, I am hereby considering both types of blogs as 'educational blogs'. Hence, any author contributing to 'educational blogs' should adhere to certain principles of responsible and ethical writing.

Do's of Educational Blogging

With this list, one must consider the basic prerequisites of educational blogging, and moreover, the strategy to make the blog more resourceful, reliable, and helpful to the readers.

1. Write on the topics you have expertise/confidence in.
2. At least mention your academic credentials (and professional background) on the page with the author's profile.
3. Work on a good mix of text, graphics, and perhaps video.
4. Enable the commenting system. When the visitors can interact with you through the comment system, they will have a sense of (longitudinal) attachment to the author. The users would also be able to validate certain things you establish and/or get clarification on certain things they do not clearly understand.
5. Put a 'disclaimer' on your subjective ideas and business motives, should you have put it somewhere in the blog.
6. Design your blog with user experience in mind. For example, you can use a navigational menu and search function so the user feels no hassle in navigating to the expected webpage(s).
7. Provide backlinks to other websites, only if this adds to the contexts, resourcefulness, and critical dimension of your article. The target links should also be deemed 'educational' and/or professional blogs.
8. You can also provide internal links to your articles on the same website. The user experience will be better with more contextual internal links on a website.

Dont's of Educational Blogging

While I do not want to discourage enthusiasts from 'educational blogging', there are certain red flags that would jeopardize the essence of one's work on educational blogs.

1. Do not write blogs under the influence of so-called blogging gurus whose primary purpose is to cash on the money-making aspirations of their content consumers.
2. Do not write without expertise and/or experience on a certain topic.
3. Do not engage in content duplication. Whatever you are writing can be found on various websites already. Instead, do provide something that would add to the original work(s). You may: provide new pragmatic contexts, expand the existing horizons, or perhaps have critical views on the original ideas. Keep in mind that your (educational) blog is academic writing; content duplication would not provide any value to your personal development.
4. Do not infringe the legal provisions of use and distribution in the case of digital products like images, PDF files, audio, and video. If you buy an image for lawful use in your blog, you may need to provide the reference to the original content producer.
5. Do not infringe the privacy of any individual (second person, or third person) while doing an educational blog.
6. Do not go 'personally' in your blog. You may know your audience; however, engaging in personal conversations through comment systems may not be a professional thing to do.
7. Do not engage in selling 'backlinks' and publishing 'sponsored posts' in your 'educational blogs'. Interests of some corporations (with vested interests) may take over the digital fronts of critical pedagogy when one begins to sell these.
8. Do not put too many advertisement banners, and or affiliate links in your blog website. Otherwise, your visitors may feel that your primary focus could be 'making money'.