Class Blogs – Create a New One or Build On to Previous One?

This year I am using blogs in all my classes. One of the classes is another section of a class I taught last semester. I had to make a decision whether to start with a new class blog or whether to keep the old one.

Some advantageous of having a new blog are: the students can create their own work; they can feel a complete sense of ownership; they have a clean slate, not a slate already created by others;

Some disadvantages of having a new blog are: not learning what others have done; not building on what others have done; and having to re-invent the wheel/materials.; and my not having to enter the old essential material.

I’ve decided to build on the previous course’s blog. Students can read the previous class’ chapter summaries and add new material. They are adding new material to the blog that go beyond where last semester’s students went. For example, this semester’s class is adding business letter examples from the web so that we have real examples to react to. Since I do not have to recopy all the essential material I had in the old blog to recreate a new one, I can add new sections for the students. I can create more sections that provide more scaffolding.

Do you create new blogs or build on the old ones for the same class?