"Am I ready to introduce blogging to my own EFL class? If no, why? If yes, what exactly would I like to do with it in my class, in terms of assignments, technology access, assessment, parental involvement, if any, etc?
I started my journey in the Internet back 11 years ago in 2001 in one of the popular forums in Armenia. Although there were people not only from Armenia but also from abroad. The forum gave all of us an opportunity to share our experiences and ideas freely and as Will Richardson states, there were people who actually were interested and were applying to our post. I personally was very much surprised as the author of this article when I received my first response to my post.
Nowadays we are already familiar with blogs, which give us more interaction and room for online discussions. Blogs actually give as an opportunity to follow the developments in any area, getting hot "news" on its top with the recent developments by the author and the readers. Blogging is a great new start for networking, sharing news and ideas including education.
We as Language teachers have much more opportunities to learn about the new methodologies of our colleagues from abroad or close ones.
I will be honest and confess that I don't really like reading blogs, but I love keeping them.However, i must admit that reading blogs of let me say colleagues with bigger experience gives me thought, which I might not have myself, links i could have missed on important and interactive activities I might use during teaching.
Blogs are also good in the terms of the opportunity of sharing other bloggers links, which may have been missed out, or photos, papers, etc. And the best things is that the use of the blogs is much easier nowadays that back 12 years ago the personal webpages were. We don'\t need any specific knowledge to run them. Which means that even older generation can make use of blogs, in their classrooms, which can help them not only in sharing information, but also giving an enormous amount of information without any big effort.
According to Will Richardson, a big part of our potential students however use the blogs not for learning purposes but for journaling. It's worth to mention that one third of newly opened blogs are not being updated for months. Although, blogging ensure users to think in words, critical thinking, analytic thinking, promote creative, intuitive and associative thinking, as well as promote analogical thinking and increase access and exposure of quality information (according to Eide Neurol-earning blog, 2005).
However, to answer the stated questions I would say yes, I am ready to introduce blogs in my classroom. Moreover, I am aiming to use blogging and encourage my students to use blog writing during my internship project. First of all, It will be easier to follow the impressions, wishes and confessions of my students if they decide to be honest enough to share that information. Secondly, this is a very fast and easy way to share and exchange information with my students. Thirdly, this may be much easier for students to express their real understanding and comprehension of the content of the course. And finally, to learn about their concenrs.
Reflection journals have been the most effective tool for my study during my year at AUA. And I am happy to know about this tool. I will try to involve my students into writing reflection journals online and sharing them with me and their peers if they would like to do so. I believe that sometimes it is easier for some people to express their feelings, as well as attitude and understanding of the covered material through written sources, and not face to face with their teacher. And this may be especially helpful in my case when teaching to my colleagues at my company. I am very proud that my company has expressed this wish to give me opportunity to gain knowledge and experience through teaching inside the company, which will develop not only my professional skills as a teacher, but also an HR professional for the best prosperity within the company.
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