My thought on creating a blog for class:
Even though I have just created a
blog for class for the first time, there are already positive things I feel for it
as far as my expectations from using blogs are concerned.
First of all, a blog would be a
way to keep our relationships though this Web Skills class will be over after
ten weeks. Second, using a blog will allow us to give and receive feedback on
anything we post there together or individually. Another advantage of creating
a blog could be the increase of one’s self- esteem empowered by the idea of
having his own something to be shared with others. The last but not the least
is the fact that having your own blog can boost your sense of creativity. In
short, creating an educational blog would be more than having a personal blog
because we build something together in teaching and learning.
After reading the
materials(Blogs Blogger
how-to , Blogging for ELT ,and Creating Online Content -
Larry
Ferlazzo's blog ) related to web skills for this first
week , I realize that
handling (not creating) an educational blog may be tough work but interesting.
Tough for the reason that we, as teachers, have to manage and monitor the tutor
blog, the class blog, and the learner blog in order to have control of
everything we expect to happen in our students’ learning process using this
online teaching tool. Interesting for another reason, which touches relationship,
curiosity and creativity while learning and teaching. Unfortunately, it is said
in “Blogging for ELT” that teachers cannot have the chance to instantly correct
students using blogs but have to address this concern only when everyone is in
class.
Manda
(Madagascar)
Dear Manda,
ReplyDeleteNice to meet you here and read your thoughts.
I do agree with you at certain extent but I think the issue is not correcting students because we can post our ideas and share journals and diaries via blogs and correct in class, the problem is how to get them involved and make them motivated to use blogging and monitor the process.. So hard in mixed level classes and large ones.
Dear Wouroud,
ReplyDeleteNice to meet you here, too. Thanks for your comment on my blog. Although I have no experience in blogging, you may be right in saying that the issue is to make our students involved and motivated in blogging. If that is case, then, do you have any tips to address the issue?
As I have stated in other participation in the main course (nicenet,) there are many ways to get a group together and start doing interesting tasks from a single place. Before Moodle, and Blackboard, I experimented with YahooGroups (for free, of course) and I could put together all the materials for may class and I manged the messages from a single account with the possibility to chat via YahooMessenger with my students.
ReplyDeleteNowadays Facebook lets you create an interest group with more or less the same tools. Googledoc, Skydrive, Dropbox open new possibilities everyday.
Dear Jorge,
DeleteThanks for sharing your experience. I have heard most of those things you are mentioning here, but have not had time to try them. In this Webskills course, I will have to!