Blogging is an Art, people love writing about their life or they may choose to write about important events that are related to their interests and their work.
Blogging is now easy to start as there are a lot of tutorials online. There are plenty of platforms that enable people to start blogging.
I started blogging as I was asked to write my learning diary online when I did my first MOOCs with Coursera. Once I started I never gave up and continued as I had found a way for writing and reflecting about school, education and about what I had learnt online.
When I was doing some webinars I learnt about teachers who were blogging too and I realized that I could write about my online experience. There is a growing community of teachers and bloggers who write about ELT, technology, education and I like to learn from them.
I could watch some webinars about blogging in the event SPRING BLOG FESTIVAL in 2014 and 2015: you can find some interesting videos online which are related to the events.
LINDA JOLLIS ON STUDENTS
BLOGGING
WHY DO I BLOG?
There are a lot of platforms, some are really easy to start blogging while with others you need to be an expert and know more. Here are some tutorials which have been presented online by Nellie Deutsch who shared them as she usually required people to write their reflections about the Moocs or the festivals which she ran.
BLOGGER
TUMBLR
WORDPRESS
These are popular ones and you do not need to pay while for others you need to . A more detailed comparison of the many platforms which are available can be found in this recent article:
http://makeawebsitehub.com/choose-right-blogging-platform/
BLOGGING AND ELT
Why is blogging important for teachers and students?
Students can write more about what they are doing and they can write a sort of learning journal online where they share materials, activities and also pictures they have taken or chosen to illustrate their homework.
Blogs can be used to write reflections too and this is important in education as more and more we want our students to be active learners who can monitor what they have achieved or if they have made mistakes. It is important to remember that learning occurs when we make mistakes too. Language practice is enhanced while students are free to write about what they have done or they can cooperate online and write together.
If we decide to start a class blog we can have a lot of materials and readings online which can be shared and which can be used also for expressing ideas and free discussions online.
In ELT we can have plenty of activities which we can run thanks to the use of modern technology:
- students can develop their reading skills
- writing skills are enhanced as students are usually required to write, to summarize or describe what they have learnt about
- students can present their work: it can be an article, a presentation with a slide or video where they showcase what they have done
- blogs can showcase what classes have done and in some cases we can have a student's porfolio online
Both students and teachers can use blogs as a reflective writing.
In general blogs and wikis can enhance communication online and this is important today.
Other tools used for writing and collaborating online
Today we can use other tools : I have learnt about padlet as a place where students can discuss and present their ideas, tackk is also used for sharing materials and people can make comments on what you have done and presented online.
Some teachers now use Moodle or Edmodo for class activities. These are LMS that provide you with more tools and you can do more online in a safe environment. We must bear in mind that with blogging and wikis we need to check what is posted online unless we choose to provide the links only to registered users.
References and further reading
about WIKIS and WEBSITES used in ELT
https://www.tesol.org/read-and-publish/journals/other-serial-publications/compleat-links/compleat-links-volume-6-issue-3-4-(october-2009)/wikis-one-more-great-tool
http://www.tesl-ej.org/wordpress/issues/volume16/ej62/ej62m2/
http://jefflebow.net/node/331 (ELT Live Webcast#2 Hows, Whats, and Whys (or why nots)
of class websites and other online resources. September 2, 2014 )
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