Blogging for

educational

purposes

How to use

a blog and

why to use

it

“A blog is a personal website that contains content organized like a journal or a diary. Each entry is dated, and the entries are displayed on the web page in reverse chronological order, so that the most recent entry is posted at the top.”

What is a blog?

Types of blogs in education

Campbell (2003) distinguishes three types of blogs for use with language classes:

THE TUTOR BLOG

• Run by the teacher of a class.

• Content of this type of blog can be limited to syllabus, course information, homework, assignments, etc.

• The teacher may choose to write about his/her life, sharing reflections to stimulate online and in-class discussion.

• Students are normally restricted to being able to write comments to the teacher's posts.

THE CLASS BLOG

• Shared space, with teacher and students being able to write to the main area. It is

• Best used as a collaborative discussion space, an extra-curricular extension of the classroom.

• Students can be encouraged to reflect in more depth, in writing, on themes touched upon in class. Students are given a greater sense of freedom and involvement than with the tutor blog.

THE LEARNER BLOG

• It involves giving each student an individual blog.

• It becomes the student's own personal online space.

• Students can be encouraged to write frequently about what interests them, and can post comments on other students' blogs.

Try creating your blog!

• Choose the easiest platform for you and your students and one with which you are familiar with.

• Teach students about netiquette • Posts should always be short and informative. • Let parents and guardians know what you are doing• Use simple language and correct grammatical structures• Don't grade. Blogging is meant to be a way to practice writing

for an audience and learning to respond to critique, not a graded paper.

• Challenge students. Use activities and games and inspire your students to write about certain topics

• Give it more time. If you think all students would straight away fall in love with  your classroom blog then you are wrong. Some students  take to it right away, others are  not so sure, and yet they will all end up loving it.

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Visit this link if you are

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Blog-on-Blogger

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Why blogging

?• To provide extra reading practice for students.

• To guide students to online resources appropriate for their level.

• Blogging enhances literacy skills.

• It fosters the learning bonds between teachers and students

• It fosters the development of writing and research skills as well as digital skills.

• To encourage shy students to participate.

• To stimulate out-of-class discussion.

A blog can be an ideal space for pre-class or post-class discussion. And what students write about in the blog can also be used to promote discussion in class.

• As an online portfolio of student

written work.

• To help build a closer relationship

between students in large classes.

• Provide further assignments for students to work on.

• Have students work in small groups to write and post summaries of content covered in class .

• Use blogs for classroom projects where students can include videos, clips, audio, text and images

• Create a specific section just for website links and references to other interesting content online.

• Use activities, games, puzzles to enrich students learning experiences

• Use blogs to conduct an online survey in relation to your students learning needs.

• Publish a list of the objectives ( general as well as specific goals )

• Challenge your students to write, record and post tutorials about certain concepts of things you teach them

• Use a section in your blog for classroom news where to communicate the general classroom news.

Some ideas to use blogs in the classroom