A blog is a type of website where you regularly can add
short entries. It is a very quick and easy way of publishing text and pictures
on the Internet for everyone to read. A blog is usually arranged in
chronological order and the most recent post appears at the top of the main
page. The word blog is an abbreviation for a web log.
There are a lot of free blog-publishing services on Internet,
so it is very easy to set up your own. The free blog services are usually very
user friendly. It is just to follow the instructions. Here are some examples
A teacher can set up his/her own blog and use it as a way to
connect either with the students, their parents, or both. It can be about what
the class is working on in the classroom right now or it can be information
about upcoming events. You will also save the trees by not having to send out
all information on paper. It is a good way to communicate, since everyone can
comment on a blog.
Students can use a blog in a lot of different ways – as a
diary, as communication with other students, as a way to share their thoughts
etc.
If you want your students to use a blog specifically to
learn English, it would be great to have a student blog written by the students
about for example what they are working on in English right now. It could be a
weekly blog written to update the parents about what they have learned. This
kind of subject blog can start already with young learners. It might just be
one sentence in the beginning “ We talked about colors today”. As time goes by
it might be longer and longer postings with more information. You, as a teacher,
have to think about how much you will correct in the students blog postings. A
way to work with this problem is to have the students work in pairs and help
each other with spelling and grammar.
A blog is a way to communicate. It is not meant to be a monologue,
but a conversation. If you post a blog, everyone can comment on your blog and
you can respond back to the comment.
/Anna
Hi Anna
ReplyDeleteWhen I read your blog post, I got good information on various blog sites that I can pick and choose between. I think it is extremely important to choose a blog portal that suits your interest.
Now days your blog is a reflection of your “personality” and were you blog says a lot about you as a person and like you wrote in your blog post “A blog is a type of website where you regularly can add short entries. It is a very quick and easy way of publishing text and pictures on the Internet for everyone to read”. Therefore it’s important to match your blog entries with the forum for your readers.
As a teacher I think a blog is a good way to connect with the parents and the students. As you mention in your blog post the teacher can “connect either with the students, their parents, or both and…It can be about what the class is working on in the classroom…or it can be information about upcoming events and you will also save the trees by not having to send out all information on paper…”. I think these topics you mention are a good to use in a class blog and especially the last thing you mention in your blog post, to “save the threes”. I think it is important because when you work as a teacher you are a role model for your students. Therefore it is important to think “green” because our mother earth needs a “pause”.
For the students use with a class blog I think your idea is good but not the place to enhance your students writing because the blog (right now) is of a forum to write from your heart and you do not focus on the grammatical of the text.
One last thing I want to mention is when you have a blog for your own use, or together in a class, it is extremely important to lock the blog. To have an open blog is not safe because on the internet there are people who can use the blog contents and utilize it in a way that could give bad results. Instead activate an application that you can accept people who will get to read your posts. Obviously, it is not 100% yet but a small safety aspect.
Martina Vallin
Hi Anna!
ReplyDeleteI really liked your idea with a blog as a tool for communication, it feels modern and updated. You also give some different examples on blogsites which is very good information if I want to use your idea and start a blog myself. All sites have different look and content I it's important to chose a site that suits the aim for the blog. I also like that you mention that trees should be saved if we did not use as much paper. How we treat our environment is very important and a key thing to teach our students.
One thing I wonder when I read your blogpost is how you think a blog should work for them that maybe don't have a computer with internet? Can these familys get their information on paper insted and what happens if they do? My fear is that it should "point out" which can afford internet and who can't.
The idea of a class blog is very appealing to me. At the moment my class relies on weekly updates (veckobrev) to send out information about the previous week's activities and information about the upcoming week. Emailing and printing these are quite tedious, and I feel that using a blog would get the information out to the parents faster and easier than the weekly letter. Most weeks there is information that has to go out after the letter has been printed and I feel that would be easier to post on a blog. I think that you make some good points on the pros of using a blog to communicate with parents and students, especially perhaps the fact that information can reach everyone who prescribes to the blog immediately. It's easy to put the blog updates on an RSS-feed and get the updates instantly on a smartphone or computer.
ReplyDeleteWhat I would have liked, however, in your blog post is some reflection about how a blog as a communication between teachers and parents will be received by the parents. Will they take the time to look and read all the updates? Do all parents even have access to a computer and internet? I fully believe that these obstacles can be worked around, but I would have liked to hear your ideas on how the teacher can broach them.
Thank you for a great blog post!
Anna