English Raven: Blogging with students (1): Why get them blogging?

The author has decided to get her students blogging. She has several good reasons for it. All of the students will learn to express themselves. They will learn better social skills than they do with facebook. They will write to be read not only by their teacher. Their writing will stay on the blog permanently, also for future readers. It can encourage the talented students to express themselves. They can even promote themselves through a blog. The students may become pioneers blogging about their education and experiences.
I believe all of the reasons are good. Maybe, as I personally prefer listening and speaking to reading and writing, I can see a possible disadvantage: What if the students simply don't want to do it (and they get on it just because it's obligatory without any other motivation?

What to do with wikis - an ELT perspective

I must say this article was quite difficult to read, at least for me. Maybe it is too specialized and contains too many technical terms... I understood it a little bit better only after reading the article 7 things you should know about wikis.
What can be beneficial for me are the advantages of wiki for learning and teaching. For example the possibility to use it for administation of the class - for homeworks, subject syllabus, marks or feedback. It can also bring benefit if used for further development of the students by extra tasks or links.

The amazing web 2.0 projects book

I've downloaded and saved the document about the web 2.0 projects. I've read the introduction and then just browsed through it. The projects seem to be very interesting. I hope to be able to do at least some of them when I later teach at school. I think that some of the projects presented for the primary level can be also used for older children (lower secondry).
Which projects I liked: Cook It, Taste It, ICT IT (making a video recipe of something typical for the pupils' country), Around the World with 80 Schools (5 minute video conference call), E-book Creations, Portrait of Europe, Global PenPals, Going On an Excursion (on Google Map), Talking Book Record, Learning a Language Through a Blog (not only writing a blog but also collaborating with students from other country), Reading Group Social Network, Film and Book Reviews (students post their reviews on a blog, once they have written it).

How do I start a blog?

I'm not much into writing, so I don't know if I ever have a blog for my writings and for frecuent usage. However, if it helps education and my students, I can imagine setting up a blog. If I do it, I will certainly consider the information from this blog (not only one article but many of them). Bloggers - beginners can browse through this web to get the basic information and advanced bloggers can get more detailed information about a particular thing they need to know.
I appreciate the good pieces of advice starting with choosing the name of the blog or thinking about applying a stat counter to the detailed information about the template of a blog, pros and cons of hosted and non-hosted blogging platform, suggestions how to use the sidebars and how to organize the links.
Some information is useful also for non-bloggers. For example to know that light backbround with dark letters is better for eyes. Or the way how to think about the name of a blog - to consider the content, user-friendliness but also the taste of the target readers - I believe the same rules can be applied to other writings.

7 things you should know about wikis

I must admit, I didn't know much about how the wikis work before reading this article. Even though I still can't imagine everything described in this brief article, since I'm not very good at technical stuff, I have gained an idea about wikis, how it works and what it is good for. Many points were new for me: how to change the texts, who can contribute to the texts, how to use it for learning or the origin of the name wiki.
I have understood that it is quite easy to edit texts through wikis, it can help collaboration and maybe the main benefit is its cosmopolitan character and the worldwide spreading.
Some other good reasons for using wikis are given by the author in the beginning of the article: It is for free, you don't need a special software to work with it and you can post on wiki at any time and any place.

Campbell: Weblogs for Use with ESL Classes

It's incredible that the first free available blogging software appeared in 1999! It is spreading so quickly. It seems so normal and common to write on a web (and not only blog), but it has been possible (so easily) just for 15 years! Wow, these facts fascinate me! :-)
The biggest advantage of a blog is, according to me, that through this service everyone can publish his writings without knowing the HTML or FTP to create a blog.
From the three types of blogging the author gives, the tutor blog seems to be most useful to me. Even though it requires the most effort for the tutor, he can coach the students though this, he can choose suitable texts for them and give them feedback. He can also manage the class through the blog and give students extra tasks o
or links for extra voluntary reading. It can help in self-study to those who really want to learn while not creating more work to those who don't want to. The students also participate, but it doesn't require so much effort, activity and responsibility to them.

Netiquette

I liked the Netiquette articles from the headline to the end. The pieces of advise given here very useful. I have found most of them after some experience while using Internet and e-mail for some time, but here they are given at once for everyone. I think most of reasonable people are aware of the majority of these rules but especially for lower-secondary students it is good to be told these. The rules are

I have chosen some of those I like:
Never assume that a person is speaking for the organization that they work for. - It is sometimes really difficult to imagine a real person behind the organization e-mail adress, but we should bear in mind that most of the e-mails are really written by people.

Don't use capitals unnecessarily in email. - I don't have a problem with this but I really don't when people highlight everything and make a sensation from everything.

Never forward an email you haven't read, or send someone an attachment you haven't examined. - It seems very clear to me, but I know that this happens sometimes and it shouldn't.

Check current information before replying. - It also sometimes happens to me, especially when I am on e-mail after longer time. It is quite embarrasing to react to something not topical.








And I would like to comment on a few others:

I don't really agree with the statement "Always include your email address in your email or newsgroup messages." I usually don't do this because it takes some time and effort. It seems to me to be redundant when it is usually automatically included in headings.

My last point, I haven't heard about the term "flaming" before. But I agree that many people insult others more on the Internet than face to face. When I sometimes read the discussions under Internet articles, I feel really shocked how people are able to react and how rude they are.

What makes a succesful online student?

After reading about online studying, I have a feeling I shouldn't have signed for the ICT subject, because I probably don't meet the requrements for online students given here :-) I must admit, I have problems to express myself in writing. Usually, it is easier for me to find the consultation hours and go and discuss my problem with my teacher then to send "speak up" through the Internet. The self-motivation and self-commitment is what I sometimes have and sometimes don't. As the author says, the online studying will never replace the traditional education. I must say I admire those who are able to study online in a virtual classroom. But on the other hand, the way of their socialization is very different and I'm not sure whether it would be sufficient for me. But studying on-line provides a good option of self studying or studying from home.

PowerPoint presentations aren't helping education

The article about PowerPoint presentations drew my attetion as the first one. It is very common at schools, but I am also a little bit sceptical about this popular teaching tool to help learn better or be the best way to learn. But it can help, and that's why I can't agree with everything that the author, Esther J. Cepeda, says. For example with the part about the times when "the teachers were masters of their subject areas and they shared their wisdom by lecturing and maybe making a few notes on a chalkboard." Well, I don't know if these times really ever were. After doing my exam from pedagogy I lost my idealistic view of schools in the past. I believe that now as well as in history, there were good and bad teachers and those who had knwledge of their subject and those who didn't. But still, I hope the education has improved and is still improving. The presentations are good for being attractive for children (and sometimes even for adults), being well organized and containing the most important facts. But I think it is not always the best way how to teach. As the author states, it can make the teacher just blindly follow the slides and he doesn't think about it and the presentation prevents him from telling the students what is important particulary for them. But generaly, I think, the problem are not the presentations. They can help the teacher and make his job easier, but they can also make the lesson monotonous. The classes may be interestig with the presentations as well as without them, and they might be boring with or without them. I believe that the presentations can neither save our education, not can they ruin it. But it can improve it or worse it depending on the usage.

Skype in the EFL Classroom

Even though I have skype and I use it, this article has brought some interesting pieces of information to me. For example the origin of the name "skype" as "Sky peer-to-peer". I didn't have any idea about this before. Well, that's just an interesting little thing. But what I find most helpful with the skype in lessons is that it can encourage students' speaking and listening, which is most important for daily communitation. It can also raise their interest, if the teacher arranges a skype conversation with a native speaker, or it can bring benefit to both sides if two classes from different countries speak in English through skype. It can also help students to make friends and they can continue in skyping at home.
Also some of the ideas how to use skype in the classroom were new for me - for instance the possibility of recording. I also liked the suggestions of how to use skype like for example the project Around the World with 80 schools or the video of using skype in Spanish class.

Blogging for ELT

Before reading this article, I didn't think about the possibility of blogging for ELT even though I teach adult learners. Now I see many positive aspects for blogging in ELT. Those that I consider the best ones are to provide students space for other people reading their writing (not only the teacher), to focus on content instead of form, to make the community of students closer, to encourage writing and to make shy students participate more. On the other hand, there can also be some negatives in creating a blog for all the students. First, all the students need to be able to express themselves in English, which is not suitable for beginners, and second, some students do not like writing and they can also be somehow afraid of posting their writing on the Internet. It's true that the privacy of the blog can be set, which can eliminate the fear of the students to publish their writing. But still, some students may not like learning to blog and write articles. Another thing I am not sure of is the error correction. For me as a teacher, it doesn't sound very well to correct mistakes after posting the piece of wtiting, and if it is corrected before, in the class, in my opinion it loses part of its sense (for exaple: reading for the content, easiness of posting, writing something new for one's collegues, etc.) But still, I must say that the ELT through blogging is woth considering.
I like the pieces of advice given in the article. Especially the part about keeping students interested is very important, I would say. The ideas for activities are also very good. I like especially the one called Mystery guest.