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Post by Sharon Betts on Dec 5, 2009 14:46:58 GMT -5
www.teachingenglish.org.uk/think/articles/blogging-eltThis 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. - What is a blog?
- Types of blogs used in language teaching
- Why blog?
- Where to start
- Tips for managing learner blog settings
- Keeping students interested
- Some ideas for activities
- Pitfalls to watch out for
- Advanced feature
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Post by carlosbarrera1975 on Jan 25, 2010 16:35:02 GMT -5
Weblog is an online journal that can be updated anytime by the blogger (owner). According to the article there are 3: the tutor blog: The teacher leads the class and decides what to blog about, students only read and post comments. Class blog: Both teacher and students share the same space and collaborate to blog together. Learner blog: a student has his/her own space and writes freely. teacher only posts comments, though he/she has to monitor topics. Web tools are attractive and motivating for students, and they really like to share their ideas using these means. Students feel they are using real language that they can use in real life situations. Everybody participates and the teacher can guide. Today we have a good number of blog sites such as Blogger.com, blogspot.com. First things first; choose one of these sites, register according to the instruction of the site and then start blogging. Remember that only people you invite via email can have access to your blog, so take advantage of the invite friends tool these sites have. teacher should create accounts for learners and then send them the passwords and user names. I want to use blogs with CEF A2 learners, so they start writing about a class topic and peers can provide feedback as posts, encouraging feedback. Also, IB students can use it to enhance and improve their writing skills, read and post comments or write one single blog which all the participants can edit anytime
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Post by carolina on Jan 27, 2010 20:10:43 GMT -5
This article has specific information about blogging. According to it, blogging is becoming popular as a language learning tool because it can be nowadays used by teachers and students to promote development in specific language skills such as reading and writing. Apart from that, blogs can help the members of a class create a friendly community because each one of them can talk about themselves, can participate actively, and give their opinions whenever they want.
In general terms, I can assure that blogging is really a nice experience. Actually, three years ago, I had a blog where I wrote personal things of my daily life.
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Simone Telles M Ramos
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Post by Simone Telles M Ramos on Jan 28, 2010 6:01:14 GMT -5
# What is a blog? - frequently updated website # Types of blogs used in language teaching - The Tutor Blog; The Class Blog; The Learner Blog # Why blog? - One of the best reasons is to provide a real audience for student writing and reading too. # Where to start - # Tips for managing learner blog settings - There are many free sites. # Keeping students interested - Respond to student posts quickly; Students should be actively encouraged to read and respond; Writing to the blog could be required. # Some ideas for activities - Excellent!!!! # Pitfalls to watch out for -Unwanted comments; Correction; Privacy. # Advanced feature - tool to keep track of a lot of learner blogs is to use the 'Site Feed' feature.
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Post by anisoara on Jan 28, 2010 9:43:05 GMT -5
Hi Sharon and all, I have read Graham Stanley's article, a very inspiring one about types and tips for using blogs to fire our students' motivation and at the same time enhance their writing/reading but also speaking skills. I have already explored two types of blogs: class blogs / where I was posting and students responding through comments / and individual blogs / where each student was responsible for his/her own blog. I learnt from the article different tips that I will apply in order to make communication more interactive, since in most of the cases of my class blog, all students seemed to be answering to me, so it was a type of T-S e-communication. The ideal would be to make it a S-S real communication!
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Post by Miriam on Jan 28, 2010 11:35:56 GMT -5
Blogging gives the learner a good opportunity to produce language meaningful and relevant to their intrests and lives. Native English speakers blog all the time about what matters to them, English learners should be exposed to this opportunity too. I also agree with the article’s assessment that many learners who hesitate to speak up in class are often compelled to express themselves in a blog. I think I would use a class blog and a learner blog. The learner blog could be used as their own interactive, reflective journals and the class blog can be used for them to talk about specific tasks. I could have them give a review on authentic materials used in class, movie reviews, talk about a class trip etc.
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Post by carlosbarrera1975 on Jan 29, 2010 8:51:24 GMT -5
I live in my nation’s largest and most populated city, so competing for getting students to enroll in the programs we offer has actually made us change what we offer. Some might be guessing we’re going to offer new careers, others might think we want to offer easy learning things. But we want to, no, we’re going to have online classes. Not a new thing, but Face-to-Face (F2F) classes will have online interaction using Web 2.0 tool and ICTs. It’s a must. It’s a good thing that our mentors, leaders, authorities, people in charge of departments are really pushing subordinates to innovate and adapt new technologies and tools. Not only are these tools and technologies attractive and motivating, but are a peep-hole for the world that’s coming on. Every new day, teachers, students and other people find new ways to communicate their ideas. We’re just at the threshold of a new teaching/learning process. Curricula have to change and include ways to use these ICTs and Web 2.0 (now Web 3.0?) tools. It’s a revolution. Learning and teaching have just started shifting and we are witnessing this event that I want to think happens once every hundreds of years i just cannot express. Let’s just pray that these technologies are well used, and equally accesible for each and every single human in the farthest and most isolated corner of our planet. Every person with a computer anywhere can use Blogging. It is giving people an opportunity to express their feelings, read what we need and/or want to read. It might very subjective, but we can get different points of view and come to a conclusion. Students who do not like writing can start changing their mind, and eventually start to think deep. Hopefully, this deep-thinking is meaningful for them.
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Post by vesile on Jan 29, 2010 16:13:31 GMT -5
The text Blogging for ELT is about blogging and it gives clear definitions about what a blog is and how it can be used. It also explains the types of blogs in language teaching and gives examples. (When I had a quick look at the given links I saw that the link for the Tutor Blog 'The New Tanuki' thenewtanuki.blogspot.com is out of service and going to be deleted by the end of the year.) The text also gives reasons about why to use blogging and in addition to them; I think it is another way of filing and having a kind of archive which is easy to access. The text also gives some practical clues to use blogging effectively. I personally want to say that this reading makes me more aware of the blogging with its clear definitions and practical tips.
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Post by sheela on Jan 29, 2010 18:08:41 GMT -5
A blog is an online journal. In it you can register your experiences by writing and posting photos as well. People can share ideas, opinions, suggestions and they can also write comments. In my opinion, blogs are popular but we can still face some problems with students. Last year I tried blogging with them (I didn't have any guidance, tried by myself) and I had to help some students who had difficulties in posting their comments. What was interesting is that since I was trying it by myself, I still didn't manage the blog settings well and a students offered help. I learned a lot with her. I'll try something different this year, with much more confidence because now I have some guidance and a lot of ideas and suggestions. If you want to check the result of this first trial, feel free to do it and suggest too!! (it is a blog about a blog ) shee.wordpress.com/2009/02/22/brazilian-lifestyle-a-comparison/#commentsCya Sheila
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Post by gilder on Jan 29, 2010 18:55:20 GMT -5
Hi Bawers!
My experience with weblogs has been as an online journal. After reading this article I could see all the stuff you can do by using a weblog. I like to teach reading and writing to my students, and I always try to encourage them to write what they feel through English language. Most of the time they feel incapable of doing it because their L1 is Spanish and they think the teacher will pay attention only on form. Thanks Graham for those good advices about using a Weblog. I just can’t wait to put all of them in practice. Gilder.
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Post by belkisy on Jan 31, 2010 0:05:51 GMT -5
I love technology, but I'm a newbie regarding the use of Web 2.0 tools. This article has been of great help since it clearly describes blogs or weblogs for ELT. It has enlightened me and given me the insight I needed to answer part of question 1 in Week 3 activities. It has also helped me to manage my recently created blog at blogspot.com. I am currently using it as a diary or journal as a way of training, but after experiencing all week 3 has offered me, I’m ready to “spread my wings and fly away…”
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Post by beabees on Jan 31, 2010 7:42:47 GMT -5
Thanks for this article which gave me some new ideas on how to use a blog. So far, I’d say a blog is a kind of diary, open for everybody to see, a good way to communicate with students for instance, to share your thoughts and expect comments. It’s more efficient than sending e-mails because you can always come back or refer to any entry, at any time, or enter discussions. Tagging each post makes it easy to navigate and go straight to the point you are interested in. I don’t teach groups anymore, only one-to-one, mostly blended; even so, I hold a blog for my students of English (http://beabeesen.edublogs.org/ ), another one for students of French (http://beabeesfr.edublogs.org/ ) and another one for colleagues (http://beabees.edublogs.org/ )Unfortunately, they are not very active because of time management issues; it’s a shame since the great advantage of the blog is its dynamism. I’ll try now to put in practice some of the hints developed in the article.
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Post by dimivalmi on Jan 31, 2010 12:13:28 GMT -5
I have been using blogs (Blogger platform) to describe the events in the Access School and Access Summer Camps for less than two years.
I tried to invite my colleagues and students as contributors, but was not a success. I like Blogger for various widgets and simple syntax.
This week I have started exploring different Wordpress syntax and sometimes was at a loss.
Blogging helps me to arrange my ideas and material into a system. Besides, writing improves English.
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Post by mlujan on Feb 2, 2010 21:55:01 GMT -5
I've been using blogs for two years now, and feel they're an excelent resource to motivate ss. However, I've found some obstacles which I had to cope with once I started working with them in class. On the one hand, I made a mistake when I assumed that my ss where computer literate (some of them didn't even know how to attach a file to an e-mail). On the other had, it was hard to make ss understand that this was real homework, since they tended to believe that we were working "informally" because we were using the web. I agree with dimivalmi that there's lots of resistance to take part in such an experience, both from colleagues and students. Also, I find blogger more user-friendly than wordpress
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