- in this semester I will start two blogs - a blog for my two elementary classes and another one for my two upper-intermediate classes.
- I am not sure how I will name the blogs yet, but they will probably be called Coffee Time Elementary and Coffee Time Upper-intermediate. Why Coffee Time? Because it will be like chatting over a cup of coffee, informal, yet creative.
- I will start the blogs, but they will be group blogs. If some of my students feel like starting individual blogs, I will be more than happy to offer them support.
- I will demand word verification and moderate the comments.
- this will be an individual project to start with, but I hope some of my colleagues will like it and start doing the same.
- these particular blogs will be active between March and June 2008
- the blogs will be connected to the curriculum, but we will also write about whatever interests the students – films, music, books. We will use the blog to socialise outside classroom and get to know each other better. I will try to use a lot of pictures and visual stimuli.
- the students will have to post from their home computers. Some of them have slow connections, so I will have to bear that in mind.
- I think it would be realistic to expect the students to post twice a month, not more (unless they wish to). I will do some preparatory activities in class before the assignment and some error correction activities after the assignment. I will NOT correct their errors in the blog.
- Apart from the regular assignments, I hope the students will feel free to post entries and comments whenever they feel like it.
- There is no way I can force the students to post (no marks), but we do portfolio assessment in my school, so I will encourage the students to see their class blog as an E-portfolio. Also, some of them take exams, and this is excellent exam practice. I suppose some of them will not blog regularly, maybe not at all.
- At the beginning, they will write for me. Then, I hope they will start to communicate with each other through the blog. After that, they will find out there is a whole world outside listening to them. I hope they will go through these three stages quickly.
- I am not sure how I will advertise these projects. A poster on the school notice board sounds like a good idea. Dekita? Yes, if I get the students to participate.
- I have to be careful with widgets because some of my students have slow Internet connections. I will embed a few, to make the blogs look more appealing and to help other people find them.
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3 comments:
Wow, Natasa!
You've committed to starting two blogs, in addition to this one, I suppose. More power to you!
The proficiency levels of your students may dictate whether you task them with blogging, individually. However, the linguistic and technological proficiency of incoming students may be a mystery.
If I may cut to the chase, whether you require technical word verification on student posts, or moderate comments; you suggest that you will encourage "students [who blog] to see their class blog as an E-portfolio."
Since I'm keen on portfolios, I wonder how you may guide your students to articulate portfolios on their blogs. I'm looking forward to sharing your vision.
Cheers, Paul
Yes, Paul, I might have got carried away with all those grand plans. I sometimes do that. Maybe I will start small at first.
My main target is my upper-intermediate class. If I can get them interested...
As for blogs and portfolios, I was thinking of doing it the other way around - of using the blog to help the students evaluate their work and then write about the experience in the (classical) portfolio. I think peer evaluation is very important and it seems that blogs can be very useful peer evaluation tools.
To be quite frank, both areas are totally new to me. This is my very first personal blog and soon I am going to start my very first class blog. And my school is doing portfolio assessment for the first time this semester (I am in the team which is supposed to organise it all). Am I scared? Oh, yes. So, I haven't got a vision - I will improvise on the way, but I love a good challenge. I'd gladly learn from you or anybody else who is keen on portfolios and maybe we could share our mutual visions.
Natasa
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