3. Blogs and Microblogging

One of the important and basic components of any E-Learning programme is the Blog. It is a simple Internet tool available for us to enrich the classroom learning of our students. It is free, easy to create and in no time also. Two popular sites where you may create a blog are www.wordpress.com and www.www.blogger.com . The latter has more features than the WordPress.

We often find that we don’t have enough time in our classes to do what all is necessary to ensure effective learning on the part of our students. Even if we are able to do, there is the problem of slow learners. Then what are we to do? Here in comes the use of Technology. Create a blog for your class and let it be another classroom—of course, one in space where you are not present but can provide all the help your students may need for further learning. Here they can continue their learning begun in the class.room.

If you have created the blog with Blogger, each student also should first be asked to create an email Id in Google for himself. This is important for getting feedback from your students.. You would get this feedback from them through their ‘Comments’, for which provision is made under each post in the blog. In order to enable them to use this ‘Comment’ feature, you should go to the ‘Settings’ of the class blog and under ‘Posts and Comments, provide for it.

Class Blog

Let us now see how we may use the Class Blog to supplement our classroom teaching.

With its help, you may

1.post any additional learning materials—text—for which you didn’t have time to provide for in your regular class

2 provide tasks/exercises for your students to be done at home.

3. give links to websites relating to the lesson you have done in the class.(By just clicking on the links they would be be able to access the relevant sites. No need for them to enter their URLs.)

4. Import video clips (e;g.YouTube) and images from Google or elsewhere which would help them to understand the lesson taught in the class better.

5. import relevant PowerPoint Presentation, if any, from SlideShare. <www.slideshare.net>

In addition to the above , you may give in your Class Blog

1. Assignments for students along with instructions, if any, .

2. Syllabus (Students should know what they should study during the course of the year)

3. Schedule for the submission of assignments and also dates of tests

4. Links to websites providing Quizzes, Language Games, Vocabulary and Grammar exercises and podcasts which your students may access during their spare time for the improvement of their language skills.

We often find that most of our students are hesitant to stand up and ask for clarifications if they have not understood anything we have just taught.(There are also teachers who don’t like to be ‘disturbed’ during the course of their teaching.) What is then the remedy? Here, too, the Class Blog would come to our rescue. Any student may ask for clarification using the ‘Comment’ feature found under each post in the blog, Clarifications may be given by you or even some student.. This way there is scope for class discussions also in our Class Blog.. One big advantage here is that such discussions taking place in the blog enable even the timid students in our class to take part in them.

Students’ Blogs

In addition to the Class Blog we may ask each student to create a blog for himself and share it with you as well as the entire class..What are the advantages?

1. We may ask our students to do their assignments in their blogs. Since its URL is shared with all, the assignment done by each in his blog is read by the entire class. not just his teacher only. It is a big motivating factor for him in writing. He also gets the benefit of comments by other students on his work. Before the teacher goes through his assignments, he gets an opportunity to refine his assignment. Another merit in using blogs this way is the class contributes also to environmental care albeit in a small way by doing away with paper work.

2. Students may use their blogs as a ‘Journal’, keeping a record of what they have learnt every day in and outside their classroom. It would help them to keep themselves abreast of the progress they have been making in learning English. It would motivate them for further progress.

3. The blog gives opportunities for our students to show their creativity—in choosing the themes for the their blogs, writing poems, stories, etc. In no time our students would realize that blogging is fun in addition to its being a tool for their learning.

We have seen how a Class blog (Team blog) coupled with our pupils’ Individual blogs could provide an excellent learning environment for our students outside their classrooms. One of the advantages of providing such an environment is that each pupil can learn anytime, anywhere and at his own pace.

How are we to know if they have done the work we have given them or not? You may ask them to send an email to you after completing the work given.

From all we have said above it is clear that the blog is a very useful tool for us to teach English. Apart from the Class blog you create for teaching your class, you should also have a personal blog. It would go a long way in helping you in your professional development. This is the first tep every teacher should take for forming a professional learning network for exchange of ideas about teaching and learning with other teachers..

It would be a good practice if at the end of the day before you go to bed, you spend some time reflecting over what happened in your class that day and give your reflections in your blog--how successful your lesson was, the problems you faced, if any, and how you dealt with them, any new insights you had about how your pupils learn - in short all your reflections on the lesson you did on that day. Such reflections would help you to improve your teaching resulting in greater job satisfaction for you. And when you share your blog with other teachers and they too do the same, each commenting on the postings made by others in their blogs,, a lot of interaction thus takes place and naturally it would help the professional development of all teachers. The professional learning network thus created may be expanded further by subscribing to the blogs of other ELT professionals also.

Using your blog as a diary of the day’s happenings would also help you to hone your writing skills. Most teachers seldom get opportunities to do any writing other than writing letters or send email messages.

In your personal blog you may give links to the websites you often visit and the advantage is you get ready access to all of them at one place and there is no need to type the URL every time you are to visit a website.

You may also use your blog to give your views on various issues involved in ELT, talk about the books you have read , articles you have gone through in professional journals-in fact anything related to ELT and found useful. When others access your blog they also get benefitted.

Apart from all these you should remember your blog or website would give others an idea of how much you are committed to our profession and when you apply for a job elsewhere your online presence would speak for itself.

In blogging there is no limit to the length of the message you may post. But in microblogging the text you enter should be very short like SMS. In the most well-known website for microblogging, Twitter, www.twitter.com your message should not be in more than 140 characters. It is one of the Web,2.0 tools very useful in ELT.

You can create an account in no time and it is free. Once you have created an account you may begin posting short messages - what are called ‘tweets’. All those who are your ‘followers’- in this case your students would get your tweets in their Twitter page. Ask them to make it a point to access their Twitter page every day so that they may go through the short messages you send them. As they ‘follow’ you, you may also ‘follow’ all your students. Thus you get an opportunity to know more about your students through their tweets. It results in the building up of an emotional bond between you and your class getting stronger day by day. In fact Twitter is a good social networking site though it has not as many features as Facebook.

How can we make use of this web tool through our tweets in teaching English to our students?

We may, through our tweets

give instructions, if any, which we were not able to give in our class or remind them about tests, exercises, assignments or anything else relating to their study of English.

Give the URLs of websites, if any, which they may access for further learning.

Give a new word and ask the students to define or use it in a sentence in their tweets.

Give an incorrect sentence and ask them to give the correct one.

Students may through their tweets

Seek help about what they have not understood in the lesson taught. (Not only the teacher but the other students also may respond resulting to a mini class discussion.

Share with others learning resources he has had access to.

Twitter is helpful for teacher development too. You can choose well known ELT professionals to ‘follow’ and what happens if you do so, is you get their tweets on your twitter page. In this manner you come to know about the different kinds of resources available in ELT and get ready access to them through the links given. You also get acquainted with the current trends the world over in teaching English and it helps you to get new insights in teaching. You acquire new knowledge and skills

Another important feature of Twitter is what is called ‘Lists’. You can choose a topic in any area of English teaching and create a ‘list’. When you do so, you get regular updates of all the tweets made by those whom you are ‘following’. . Twitter allows you also to make any number of ‘lists’. These ‘lists’ would help you to improve your professional knowledge and skills.

In conclusion one may say the use of blogs and Twitter would help us to make our teaching more effective than what it would be otherwise.