TEACHING MATTERS
BUILDING BLOGS AS LEARNING ENVIRONMENTS
It is now well known that social networks could create a great environment for ESL/EFL teaching and an alternative to integrate a very considerable amount of skills as writing, listening, reading and speaking in real life situations with authentic communication purposes. From all those possibilities one stands out in the crowd for its versatility and capacity to motivate people to interact with others, we are referring to the online blog, also known as weblog.
A blog is a type of internet site that can be exploited by teachers as a VLE (Virtual Learning Environment) or, according to its original idea, as a personal site where teachers can share their thoughts and reflections on their topics of interest. Building a blog has the advantage that, true to the social perspective of an interactive web, anyone can deal with it pretty easily. Here, the focus will be to give the novice blogger a hint on how to set a site where students can find a variety of tools to practice on their own and complement their language learning process. The first element to consider in building a blog is to understand its possibilities and limitations; being different from a web site implies that the blogger does not need knowledge on Html language or advanced design tools as Flash, but it also implies some design constrains for creating some interactive gadgets. However, the teachers who intend to build a blog can take advantage of many already built-on tools that can be found on the web.
Benefits from using blogs:
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Blogs engage students in interactive and social processes of communication that serve authentic communicative purposes.
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Besides motivating students to share their opinions, blogs can facilitate self-reflection and evaluation.
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Blogs are easy to use, easy to build and easy to administer.
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As blogs do not hold files, they load pretty easily even with slow Internet access.
Drawbacks:
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Teachers who have never used blogs or any social media might feel insecure about what steps to take to make the activities interactive and motivating and not just collections of paper-based activities.
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Because of their “easy to use” configuration, some gadgets and features might be insufficient for the teachers expectations.
Some general suggestions on building a blog:
If you want to start blogging and creating learning environments, there are some guidelines that might make your work easier.
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Check the two most popular blogging sites http://wordpress.com/ and http://www.blogger.com and find the one you feel most comfortable with. For Google account holders, Blogger might be easier to administer from your own account.
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Find a template you would like to use for your blog. A template gives the general feeling of the blog and is very important for setting the mood of the site in general, so be careful with the colors and layout you choose, as modifying the template can imply knowledge of Html language. Here you can find instructions on how to add a new template to your blog: http://www.templates-blogger.com/how-to-install-a-template/
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You can use any of the suggested templates of the blog administrator or surf these pages that offer different templates with specific designs.Check instructions before using them.
http://www.deluxetemplates.net/
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A blog is structured as a news cast, hence the reverse order layout. If you want to control the order in which the information might appear, use only one entry and, instead of adding new ones, edit it every time you are going to include new content.
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You cannot attach files to a blog as you do with, for example, an email. However, there are plenty of sites where you can upload your content and embed them latter in the blog. For texts: open an account in http://www.slideshare.net/ and upload there your pdf, word, ppt or excel files. For audio files: go to http://www.ivoox.com/ and upload them there. For video files: use your Google account or start a new account to upload your videos to http://www.youtube.com
Check an example with the different kinds of files mentioned here: http://physicaldescriptions.blogspot.com/
Choosing your gadgets
In the configuration tab of your blog, you will find plenty of gadgets to include: polls, video bars from youtube, calendars, weather forecast, search bars, etc. Choose the ones that you like and place them in the side bars of your blog. However, there are other gadgets offered by other sites that might be very useful.
- Here you can find the gadget from the Oxford dictionary online to add a search box to your blog: http://oald8.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/search_widget_info.html
- Add a virtual ipod to your blog with your own music selection: http://www.mixpod.com/
- So you can chat with your students and allow them to share their insights online, add a chatbox http://www.cbox.ws/
- Create speaking avatars to add sound to your blog, http://www.voki.com/. This site gives you the chance to use your own voice or to choose a variety of voices and accents.
- Many other sites allow sharing different gadgets, find if your favorite sites allow it and jazz your blog up!
These are some examples of blogs created by English Teaching undergraduate students in Colombia, you can get some hints to build your own learning environments.
- http://www.funlamvispot.blogspot.com/
- http://englishteacherisc.blogspot.com/
- http://conexionsupersonic.blogspot.com/
- http://www.myenglish4kids.blogspot.com/
As teachers and as technology users we have to be growing constantly and finding new ways to address our students in a motivating supportive way, blogs are another step on the road, try them on and keep adding your ideas and insights. The tough side would be updating it on an hourly basis, as the Internet demands a constantly changing rhythm of new information. The significance and benefit of teaching our students to cope with technology will both make them much better than us, and equip them with tools to overcome greater challenges not only when learning a language but also in any aspect of their lives. This text is just a beginning, it is now your time to find something else.
By:
Frank Antonio Travezaño Amaro, Jonathan George Muñoz Portilla, and Gloria Lucía Arboleda G. (Group 29)