Wednesday 10 January 2007

Using blogs in the classroom

There are lots of ways a blog can be used in ELT. Here are some

- to share tips on teaching e.g. Blog EFL
- to disseminate information about classes/courses
- to provide reading practice
- to allow students to write journals that can be read by their teacher only or by others
- to guide students to resources
- to develop 'community' discussions and relationships within classes
- to encourage participation within the classroom
- to stimulate out of class discussions
- to encourage a process-writing approach
- to encourage colloborative working e.g. via project work
- to develop an on-line portfolio of work
- to develop distance learning approaches
- to record class events. www.photoblog.com is a blog site specifically for photographs.
- to forge links with students overseas

BUT some issues to be aware of:

- unwanted comments: do you need to restrict who can comment on the blog? do you need to be a moderator (this is possible with some blog providers)
- correction : not that easy to do but it might be possible if the teacher is a co-blogger. Peer correction may also be possible in class or correction could be undertaken via 'Comments'.
- privacy : you may need to restrict who can view the blog (this is possible with some blog providers)

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