Reflection T1 2006

This term I wanted to use pictures more effectively on my blog. I decided to have a Picture Post for each week, where students had to comment with one sentence on a photo. At the end of the week someone (me, my family, my colleagues, a friend overseas, a student volunteer) would pick the comment or two that they liked best. This worked reasonably well, although some pictures generated more language than others. Hard though to generalise as to what made the picture successful. Discussing it in class helped in terms of vocab that they might use. As did class time in the lab to write (especially initially).

Students were happy to send me photos to put on so everyone could see (eg. of BBQ, of students who had left) and I also used more photos eg. of community events.

Students generally (in focus group discussion) seemed to realise that you could write about whatever you wanted on the blog, which was the other thing that I pushed. I tried to tie it in to the workbook and give suggestions. Noriko and Peter in particular, enjoyed writing about their experiences.

Areas to improve on next time

• Get students to comment more
• Teach them how to add photos/sound
• Show them bloglines at the beginning of the term (I did at the end!)
• Make sure they get comments on their blog emailed to them (settings)

One suggestion (Peter) was that they all have access to the class blog to write on, which was exactly what I wanted to do, but felt that we didn't have enough time. Also there needed to be a purpose - task related and I felt that they were overburdened with coursework as it was.

Maybe next term - a wiki where they can write comments about how they feel and what they have learned over the term in relation to the project. Or would this go better on a blog?

Welcome

Hopefully by now you know what a blog is, know a little bit about what we’ve been up to and are rearing to give it a go!
If you want to have a look at what we’ve been doing ……then have a look around and read this blog. You can either scroll your way down and read the bits that you are interested in or you can click on the links in the side bar here on the right to go directly to them. Also in the side bar you will find links to our class blogs and a few other blogs that may be of interest (we found them interesting!).
If you want to get started …… we have copies of the worksheets so you can work through them and design your own blog ready to use with your own students.
We would love your feedback please click on comments and tell us what you think.

What we do with blogs

Perhaps the most difficult thing we have found is convincing students that their blog is their space and for them to write on it what they want! We believe that it's all about ownership!

In class time we try to do the following-:

• support students as they use blogs. This includes helping them to set up their first blog and get used to the different functions they have access to. As needed, we show them how to put in links, add photos or soundfiles and manage formatting, as well as the settings and template tabs.
• focus on interaction. One way has been Emily's 'blog surfing' activity - a variation on the Find someone who... activity, where students have a list of questions and have to find the answers on each other's blogs. We actively focus on getting them to read and comment on each other's blogs, and have extended that to looking at other EFL class blogs (both in Unitec and overseas) and getting them to read and then comment on other students' blogs. A good place to find partners for this sort of exchange is at Dekita. The next step is to find what they are interested in and see if there are blogs available in their interest areas in English.

Reflection at beginning of 2006

At the end of 2005, I looked back at the way that I had used blogs through the year (a whole year!) with my students. Highlights for me were

• students writing on topics that they chose
• interaction between us through the blog
• the chance to communicate even when NOT at Unitec eg. students who had left the class and for me as a part-time teacher when not at work
• students discovering new things to do on blogs and then teaching me how!
• interviewing students and finding out what they thought about blogs
• writing my own blog - any task I set the students, I tried to do myself
• finding other teachers excited by blogging and its potential

Things to exploit in 2006

• the power of photos
• creative and personal input
• audio files (and foray into podcasting?!)

Have been challenged by Aaron's article on Start with student passion!

Interested in reading about blogs?

Here are some articles/presentations about using blogs for language learning.

Barrios, B. (2003) The year of the weblog

Campbell, A. (2003) Suggestions for using blogs in three different ways

Johnson, A. (2004) Creating a writing course using blogs

Dieu, B. (2004) Blogging and presence online

Duber, J. (2005) Media blog


Want to know more about RSS and aggregates? Read

Richardson, W. (2004) RSS: A quick start guide for educators

and then check out Bloglines for an easy way to set up your own feeds.

Who uses blogs?

Surveys completed in recent months by the Pew Internet & American Life Project found that almost a fifth of teens who have access to the Web have their own blogs. And 38 percent of teens say they read other people's blogs.
By comparison, about a tenth of adults have their own blogs and a quarter say they read other people's online journals.

Irvine, M. (2005) Blogs can come back to bite you in The San Diego Union Tribune Associated Press

Uses for blogs

The value of blogs lies in being

• a diary/journal record
• able to link to other sites on the internet
• able to read and reflect on what others have written
• an easy way in to having your own website

Obviously, the way that you use a blog is tailored to the needs and interests of your learners. Bearing this in mind, here are a few of the ways we have seen blogs in use.

• Students put up lyrics of songs/poems they like and explain why
• Students write about things that are important to them eg. sports, their family
• Mystery guest - students have to guess who the mystery guest is online
• Students review a language learning website
• To support collaborative activity ie. share the workload and put your work on blog so all can see

You're only limited by your imagination...

Karen's Reflections (Term 2 2005)

This term I have felt more satisfied with my students blogs. There has been more involvement with the whole concept of blogging, driven especially by three students who have put up photos and audio files on to their blogs. Admire Sabrina's photos and paintings and enjoy Shawn's and Cathy's taste in music.
These captured the interest of the rest of the class. The amount of writing that students has done has also been more than last term. This may well reflect a more mature attitude in general towards their learning. A number of students have written on their own topics, although they still say they like me to set a topic.

As well, my focus on communication has paid off. Students have commented freely on each other's work (time given for this in the lab helps!) Posting questions on the class blog and teaching them how to comment has been of value.

The class blog I largely used to give them writing tasks as homework each weekend (our lab time was on Friday morning each week). Each task I modelled on my own blog. I also posted sample sentences/paragraphs using the vocab list for that week. It was nice having the opportunity to revisit words in this way, and I worked hard at giving students useful chunks of vocab - this related to what we were doing in class with more of a lexical focus.

For me, one of the things I have enjoyed this term is the students actually teaching me to do things on the blog. Also the comments they have made and the authentic interaction created in this way. Their evident enthusiasm for blogging - and their request for 'more time please in the lab' has been encouraging. They seem (in questionnaire and interview) quite convinced that blogging has helped their language learning.

Term 1 2005

I used this class blog with my intermediate students this term, but it basically 'just grew' rather than me planning it at the beginning of the term. My aim was to experiment with the medium and see what 'worked' with my students.

At the end of the term, I reflected on what the blog consisted of. The main purpose of blogging had been to encourage students’ ownership of learning, but I found that what I'd really enjoyed was the chance to communicate with my students in a different place. The postings could be divided into three general headings - examples of each given below.

Class blog
· Communication - This included information about the course and also about events in the community that students might enjoy, homework set and answers given, responding to questions that students asked in class giving more detailed examples than I had been able to off the cuff.
· Use of Internet - Suggestions of websites that students might find interesting relating to course content, topics discussed in class, public holidays
· Affective value - A chance to build community, share each others' blog URLs, talk about myself and a place to put up photos.

For the students' own blogs, I felt the value had lain in
giving them a public place (with a class audience) in which to write, and encouraging them to make it their 'own' space. Informal feedback from students was very positive, with one student commenting 'this is the first time that I have written English for people to read'.

Things to improve next term?
· Student communication – focus on comments more, both to class blog and to each other's blogs
· Students' ownership of blog – move away from set topicsp>

Initial blog encounters

When I first came across blogs mid 2004, I didn't know what to blog. Started one on Computer Mediated Communication, which was my then research interest, as a reflective place to write down my ideas and what I'd read. Found that I didn't really have the motivation to sustain it - possibly due to a lack of audience.

A workshop on how to blog at Unitec with Alan Levine (visiting from the States) was perfectly timed, as I was just about to go overseas for a month's trip over Christmas to Thailand and India, and this afforded a real opportunity for blogging. It was so easy to suggest that people went to my blog (Trip 2004) rather than constantly repeating myself in emails - and I was pleasantly surprised at the comments I got about the blog from my family and friends, which of course fuelled my urge to keep journalling about the trip.

Suggested to Emily, my colleague, who was going to Chile for work, that she blog her trip there as well, and I enjoyed reading her comments on her visit (Emily's trip), while I was travelling in India. Came home and talked with Emily about blog possibilities for our students...