Sunday, February 1, 2009

Readings on blogging

The readings on blogging suggested for this week have been really useful, particularly for the novices in blogging, such as I am. This is my start and I hope  I will establish regular blogging activities with my students (who are just coming in this week - it's the beginning of the school year here in NZ).
Now,  the readings in focus: Carla Arena's article gives us a succinct summary of advantages of blogging for educational purposes and the activities that can be done with the students. I take her points and am looking forward to trying at least some of them with my students. To me, the most powerful arguments for using blogging in class are those that stress the  importance of building a sense of community, encouraging the shy students to express their thoughts and opinions, developing fluency in L2 writing and, last but not least - I see blogging as a powerful motivational tool for students.
I found Graham Stanley's article on blogging for ELT  particularly helpful, with lots of information, explanation, definitions, suggestions - just excellent. All presented in a user-friendly way. I'm sure I will refer to this article and the web page in the future as well. 
Briefly, I am very pleased I have joined this Collaborative writing  group and in these three weeks I have already learnt a lot. Unfortunately, I haven't had enough time to explore all tools as much as I wanted to,  but I believe I can manage to do that later. I see all this as an exciting adventure! 

4 comments:

  1. It really is an exciting adventure. When I starting blogging two years ago, I said the challenge was to go beyond my comfort zone. It's a zone that keeps expanding, and it's one's attitude to the changes and approaching them positively that really counts.

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  2. I agree. There seem to be so many things that keep changing our everyday busy life - sometimes I struggle with time (particularly at the beginning being new to the use of some tool, I have the feeling that it takes me hours to do just some simple things) but the excitement and satisfaction at the end, when the task is completed, are just faboulous.

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  3. Yes, I agree that blogging can be an exciting adventure indeed, and I also agree that even though new applications and skills often take a hefty investment of time, the end results (when you actually use them) can be fabulous.

    Carla Arena has done some wonderful things online. I collaborated with her on a blog called "An International Exchange." It's inactive now, but you can still find it online:

    http://internationalexchange.blogspot.com/

    Best wishes to both of you (Veronica and Nadia)!

    Dennis in Phoenix

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  4. Thanks, Dennis, for your comments, and for giving me/us this link - I'll check it - from what you said it must be really interesting.
    Thanks a lot, and dovidjenja,
    Nadia

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