Tuesday, March 21, 2006
Discussion: Stanley, G.(2005). Blogging for ELT.
“This article takes a look at blogging, which is becoming increasingly popular as a language learning tool. It gives an overview of blogging websites, suggests why you might want to use them, and gives some practical advice on setting up blogs for use with your own classes.”
After reading this article, do you feel ready to start using blogs with your students?
I don’t know whether I am ready to create my own blog since i still think I have to go a bit deeper into the technology to use for this but I am sure I will do so soon since I found the uses discussed in the article very appealing. As facilitator of a collaborative project, I found the task of updating the material from all the participants interesting, it is rather time consuming.If blogs give participants the possibility of updating things, everything will be done in a shorter time and participants will feel more motivated since they wiil quickly see their material on the web.
I see writing blogs can be an envigorating activity at both EFL and ESL lessons, as well as any of the other collaborative environments we’ve seen so far.
However, it seems to me that it would be advisable to meet certain needs before you went on a project in terms of the number of computers available for your students, the possibility to use them on a regular basis and having regular technical assistance at the lab. Otherwise you may have students relying on their peers’ work, lose the students’ interest because of time gaps or spend ages trying to fix programmes or making computers work before they start working.
A single incident might be anecdotic, but burdensome if so happens to be routine.
I’ve had two kind of CMC experiences. On the first occasion we tried to exchange information among four schools in different countries of Europe. We did it through e-mail. It was a time when new viruses turned up everyday and fable protection. We lost documents and got despaired each time we came back to the computers.
Then we took the adventure of designing a website to write the information on web documents, which was the best known programme for the students. It took ages for us as webmasters to find time to use our Front page to convert, reshape and put up all the new documents on the web. So was the casde with the teachers in the other schools.
It tooks us so long to update the web that the students lost track of what they had done in class and got discouraged becaused the project lacked immediacy.
I haven’ worked with my students in the last three years, I had lost my initial enthusiasm.
Just recently I learned about blogs and realised that they can sort out both of my problems, since you work on line and get immediate results. This means your peers abroad can check your contribution to a quest on a daily basis and see what has been updated or not. We can write or webcast local or school news bulletins, discuss important issues, do surveys, etc.
The only limit I regarded was the use of blogs with the little ones (4-9), since it involves typing, and even so I guess a single computer, digital shots, podcasting or videocasting are wonderful ideas to make them blogging with other friends abroad. What about recording your students on a mobile phone? Could you videocast them later on? So far I haven’t found the answer
my advice is to start with small experiences. Once you notice you’ll be doing things with the students you had never thought possible and become amazingly shocked at yourself.
Here is my first blog with students. It is quite simple one but they still had fun. (the avatars are not working any more, I’m afraid!http://thenglishquill.blogspot.com.
You never know how much you can do and how far you can take it unless you try it!
I have never built my own blog, but I have seen many of my students’ personal blogs and I always make sure I check them and write a comment. I feel that we establish a different kind of relationship with our students when we show that we are interested in what they do, think, like etc. I get to know more about them and this helps me prepare more interesting classes. Also, I have noticed that students love to see their own photos on-line. They always access a webpage if you tell them that there are photos of the class. In my opinion, the best thing about having a class blog is that students have a chance to practice English outside the classroom
I have used blogs with students before and I know exactly what you mean when you say you develop a different kind of relationship with students because of blogging. I share the idea that a blog is a powerful social software that can bring people more closer together and unite them for the purpose of communication and also learning.
I also noticed that my students were quite eager to have pictures and their writings online. They felt kind of important. I think it gave them some purpose to improve their writing skills and they were being involved in real situations.
Having guest teachers was also a big Plus. Sharon from Boston joined us and they loved interacting with her.
All of this contributed to a more positive perspective towards learning and towards English as the most important communication language of our connected society!
I have never used blogs with my students but I know they are very interested in them. In fact, most of them already have their own photologs. I usually feel they are more comfortable with technology than I am but at the same time this makes me want to learn more. It is true that realationship between students and teachers changes through communication outside the classroom. I imagine how your students must have enjoyed having Sharon as a guest. This increases their sense of reality annd activities like that help to motivate students to use the foreign language since they can see the purpose
I made real connections with this class. He become much closer and I could feel that they like it although at the begining they didn’t react as enthusistically as I thought they would. I had to encourage them daily constantly and remind them about the blog. But isn’t that the modserator’s role too??! In the end the result were quite positive and rewarding! We had a great time blogging…
