Friday, September 7, 2012

Blogs: Uses and Standards



SOME OF THE ACADEMIC AND PROFESSIONAL USES OF WEBLOGS

According to the first 3 chapters of the course text book, there are many ways in which blogs can be used. In the classroom, this tool can be useful both for students and teachers. A Weblog can be used as a class portal to communicate and archive documents. From a teaching point of view, it can be a place to publish the course curriculum, the syllabus, class rules, course contents, links of interest, homework assignments, rubrics, handouts… The blog is, undoubtedly, a marvelous course management tool. From a professional perspective, Weblogs allow teachers to share their own experiences, to work in cooperative projects, etc. 
For the students, a blog can be used as an electronic portfolio, a diary, a good tool for group activities, a place to handout their assignments and to communicate peers and teachers, etc. 

STANDARDS THAT STUDENTS CAN ACQUIRE BLOGGING

I’m planning to teach English as a Foreign Language, so I’m going to focus on the AmericanCouncil on the Teaching of Foreign Language (ACTFL) standards. The standards of my field that students can meet blogging are:


COMMUNICATION
Communicate in Languages Other Than English
  • Standard 1.1: Students engage in conversations, provide and obtain information, express feelings and emotions, and exchange opinions
  • Standard 1.2: Students understand and interpret written and spoken language on a variety of topics.
  • Standard 1.3: Students present information, concepts, and ideas to an audience of listeners or readers on a variety of topics.

7 comments:

  1. In addition to the many ways you mentioned that blogs can be beneficial to student learning, they can also be used to connect L2 learners with speakers of the language they are studying. A collaborative project between native speakers and L2 learners can be a good source of learning both language and culture if it is well planned and executed.

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  2. I like the idea of using the blog as a class portal to keep students and parents updated about what is happening in the class. I can imagine that it also helps keep everything organized, too! Also, it could cut down on the number of questions you have to answer about classroom procedural information from students and parents because they can just look it up, which can have the extra benefit of having them learn how to obtain information online and be self-reliant. I think it can also serve as a good record for you as the teacher from year to year as you have all of the information stored in one convenient (and paperless!) place. One more thing...I like how you put the students' names next to the blog name on you LAI 590 class blogroll. I'm going to go back and see if I can add that because I think it will make things easier. Good ideas!

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  3. I think using blogs from a professional stand point can prove to be beneficial as well. It's a chance for educators to write and share ideas in teaching a particular subject. Teachers can discuss on what worked or didn't work in a classroom when using technology.

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  4. Yes, I think blog is a good platform for the communication between teachers and students after class. I would like to post the the syllabus, homework assignments and PowerPoint, etc. on my blog so as to help my students to study better.

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  5. As an educator, a blog would be a great tool to use to share ideas. In my school, I am the only high school Spanish teacher so I know that I would really enjoy the chance to collaborate with others in my field. Great idea!

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  6. It is true that blogs can be wonderful source for managing courses. As a teacher I tried to keep teaching journals or teaching portfolio in three ring binders, only to succeed partly every year. By introducing blogs as a class material tool, it can eventually be the automatic teaching portfolio, I think.

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  7. I like the idea of using the blog as a portal for teachers. It would be a great way to do class projects among different classes in a school and to communicate about important information in their classroom on a given day. I also think it could really help teacher become better teachers overall if they communicate with each other and know what others are doing.

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