Back to the Periodic Table

Explore the elements from Brian Washburn’s book
What’s Your Formula? Combine Learning Elements for Impactful Training.

blog
blogging

Blog

(BLAHgg)

interactive elements
Interactive

What is a blog?

Blog is short for weblog; an internet site that contains a series of journal-like entries and articles that can be of varying lengths, often allowing for reader interaction through a comment section.

Key Properties

These are some characteristics of a blog:

  • Informal, web-based writing medium that doesn’t require an editor or approval to be published
  • Articles may be as long or short as the writer wishes
  • Primary interaction comes through reader comments in a comment section
blogging as a learning tool

Resources From The Train Like a Champion “Blog”

Insights that May or May Not Have First Appeared on Brian's Blog

  • "Specific blog posts that are relevant to your topic can expose learners to concepts or outside experts that can serve to prime your learners for what they’ll be exploring in your training program. You can make this even more interactive by challenging learners to read and comment on a blog post or respond to another’s comments in the comment section."
  • "Similar to the purpose of pre-work in exposing learners to outside experts and new concepts, you may wish to hold off on assigning outside blog posts until after a learning event so your learners will have a stronger foundation on which to build additional knowledge. In addition, encourage participants to capture their own reflections and learnings and contribute to the field with a guest blog post (this can also be a great marketing tool for future courses)."
  • "No matter how self-motivated your participants are, ultimately it is their supervisor who can hold them accountable, encourage them to follow through on their goals, or (in the absence of goals) can encourage them to focus their attention elsewhere. For a training program to be effective, you’ll want to find ways to avoid that last scenario. Identifying potential strategies by which you can help supervisors set goals with their direct reports as well as make them aware of the goals participants craft for themselves can make the difference between an interesting training program and an effective training program."
Whats Your Formula book
Order your copy to learn more about blogs and all of the related elements.

Elements that Bond Well With Blogs

videoVideo

While blogging is typically thought of as a written medium, sometimes it’s easier to record reflections, thoughts about concepts, or reactions via video and post that on the blogging site. (This action is sometimes called vlogging.)

dialogue educationDialogue Education

Blog posts may seem like digital magazine articles, but by their nature of living on the internet, blogs generally offer a forum for more back-and-forth dialogue. Often, valuable learning experiences come from the comments and discussion at the end of a post, not the blog post itself.

follow upFollow-up

You may wish to be intentional and incorporate a request for participants to draft a blog post or assign a blog post to be read (and commented on) following a learning experience to keep the content fresh and front-of-mind.

35 MicrolearningMicrolearning

There may be times when assigning a blog post is the entire learning experience. If this is the case, make sure you send along questions for the learners to keep in mind as they read, which can help focus their attention on the most important pieces of the post.

slideshareSlideshare

Similar to embedding a YouTube video into a blog post, you may also wish to embed a slide deck, via SlideShare, into your blog post to supplement your main points with PowerPoint-based content you have created or found to be relevant and useful.

Other Sources of Information

blogging for l&d
checklist

Download the Element Sanity Check

Even if you haven’t yet purchased the book (what are you waiting for?!) you can get access to worksheets that will help guide you through the use of the elements of amazing learning experiences.