Meet Blog Standards
Blog is a personal journal published on the World Wide Web. Everyone can use blog and create their own blog. They can share their latest news, information or articles from the blog which is an efficient way for people to get along with any other in the world through technology.
There are three standards that we will meet from blogging in the language classroom.
1. Your own diary
Standard1. b. Students create original works as a means of personal or group expression.
Nowadays many kids, teenagers, students enjoy using blog as their secret spot or opening-feeling site. They keep their diary in the blog instead of writing in the diary book. They share their feelings, ideas, thought and things that happen during a day. The blog could also be blocked and read by themselves or share with specific people. As the study said, diary-keeping for teenagers is a therapeutic way. Moreover, using the blog as a diary-keeping tool for therapeutic value is even better.
I used to use blog to keep diary. I felt that is convenient and more interesting because I could also post some pictures and songs in my blog to reveal my emotion. Sometimes my friends can respond my feeling and give me some comment or suggestions. It is a kind of bridge for you and your friend to make a closer friendship.
Website's Link: ISTE
Article's Link:A Blog as Therapy for Teenagers
2. Communication
Standard 2. Communication and Collaboration
Students use digital media and environments to communicate and work collaboratively, including at a distance, to support individual learning and contribute to the learning of others.
Internet is a powerful techonolgy nowadys, so learners can not only obtain thier information in schools, like library and langauge lab, but they can get knowledge thorugh Internet. Blog is one of the example, for shy students, they may not talk a lot in the classroom, but they might express their feeling with passion through the blog like writing their thought, opinions and reflections.They feel more comfortable when communicate with people using the technology tools.
The other example is that the teacher can create their own classroom blog and post any information and articles sharing with students. Moreover, the teacher can post a topic of second langauge in the blog, like defining the term "interlanguage" and ask classmates to find any relative information and comment on it. Through the blog, other studnets can read otehr students' thought and write their own opinions.
When students use the blog as their learning tool, it also give them a chance to collaborate with each other through digital media outside of the classroom. I have my experiecne of using blog as second language leaerning. When I was preparing the TOEFL, our cram school teacher share his blog which contains a lot of information about testing the TOEFL. He posted some English articles and learning skills on the blog. He also provided past TOEFL sample for us to download and practice. When students have problems about learning English and test, we can write our questions and comments on the blog. It is useful for the teacher and students to contact and exchange ideas.
Website's Link: ISTE
3. Communities
Standard 5 Participate in Multilingual Communities at Home & Around the world
- Standard 5.1: Students use the language both within and beyond the school setting
- Standard 5.2: Students show evidence of becoming life-long learners by using the language for personal enjoyment and enrichment.
Internet can be a useful tools for every learners in anywhere and anytime. When a student learn their second langauge, they can find abundant information through the Internet, not only at schools. For example, blog is an entrance for blogger to share the articles and latest news. In the classroom, teachers can post the interesting articles and news on the blog such as health, sports, movies and education news. Also, post video or music which is related to thier topic of second languge learning. Students can read these news through the blog and enhance their knowledge at any time, and the vieo and musci would make langauge learning more interesting whihc is deffernet learning styles like sitting in the classroom. Moreover, the teacher can ask students to write their reflections, comments, summary on the blog after they read the articles. On the other hand, students can also share their own articles which they interested in with their classmates. In this way, blog not only makes teachers and learners closer and makes learning more interesting.
Website's Link: ACTFL
10 comments:
Your ideas for using blogs are good ones, but the standards are not the types of standards you need to refer to. Please check my reply to you on UBLearns.
I like your idea of using blogs as a therapeutic diary. I agree that it's important for teens to have an outlet. However, I was wondering how this would be an assignment? Would you make the blog available to only your students and you, so only the two of you could read it? Otherwise you wouldn't know if your students were using it. Are you thinking it's more of a suggestion for your students?
Your idea regarding community involvement is a great activity. I like that you introduced it as an exchange between teachers and students, allowing both to post interesting articles. It is typical that teachers give out assigned readings and students do the assignment. Your idea allows students to contribute to the curriculum too, which is a great opportunity for student-driven learning.
I love the idea of "Your own Diary" I felt as though blogs would serve as a perfect platform for journal writing and poetic responses. I think that kids would really begin to enjoy writing and all things blog!
Thanks for sharing :)
Hi,
I love your page's setting so much. It makes me feel clean and happy.I also like your different color fonts. It makes me get your points directly and effeciently. Looking forward your next post.
I have to admit, when I first read your proposal to use the blog to post news about sports, health, entertainment, etc. in addition to educational posts, I thought this was kind of odd giving it is for an educational purpose at its core. However, in relation to language learning, I think you have touched an an EXCELLENT way to encourage student participation. Why not give the students the opportunity to practice their foreign language skills while writing about and discussing issues they are interested in and maybe even passionate about? This very well may serve them unforeseen benefits in the future, as they will be practicing vocabulary in fields, like health or the environment perhaps, that they may end become involved in professionally. If I want to learn French, for example, but want to stay involved in environmental issues overseas, it would make sense that I would want to be able to discuss the environment 'en français.'
Great idea for me to build on, thank you.
I like the idea of having teachers post interesting articles for the students to read and comment on. Definitely a more modern approach to discussion.
@Lydia, It's a new idea for me to give students assignment,too. Because I think using a blog which can post video or music with related articles, it will be more interesting. Studnets can write their opinion or comment under the post after watching the video and articles. Of course, everyone can see our blog, but the teacher can know who comment on it or not and make sure the students participate in the work. It is just a platform for learningn English that I come up with in my classroom which is different from sitting in the classroom.
I really like your ideas about integrating blogs into daily teaching and it is a good practice for students to further practice their speaking, reading and writing ability!
It's great that you talked about how bloggers are creating original content, and authentic writing in their target language is possible by these means!
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