I am so glad you posted this as it has had me thinking ever since. It touches on many concerns that educators have. Please see the post I made at
http://anvil.gsu.edu/EduBlogInsights/2004/03/18#a376

As you can see, I had lots to say so didn’t want to put all that on this comment. I want you to know that I appreciate all your thoughts. Thanks for taking the time to share with all of us.

Best,
Anne

What I sense from reading the posts in this group is that people are not ready to embrace blogging as blogging; that is, blogging is a form or genre of writing
that can be taught in the same way one might teach an essay or an academic paper. It seems that most people are interested in using blogs to help them do something else but not to teach students about blogging.

Your site works better in Netscape 7 than it does in IE 6. I’m still getting part of the type disappearing in IE.

I think that teachers have to decide what they want to use blogs for. I’ve done handwritten journals and thought it was too bad that I was the only one who got to read such interesting snippets from my students’ lives. (BTW, I teach ESL at a community college.) Next I tried them in email messages with much the same thoughts. I tried a discussion board next where all the students could read each other’s journals. I think they generally didn’t share quite such personal stuff, but in fact, few students read other journals unless assigned to. Most don’t have computers at home, and as commuters they had to find time to do all computer work on campus. My thought would be to use blogs in much the same way, but it’s something that students can choose to keep up after the course finishes–which they can’t do in some discussion boards. They can tell their relatives about it if they so choose. By the way, most of the topics I give them to write about are personal experiences.

However, my goal would be for them to write for publication for their classmates and me. I would assign them to add comments to other student blogs from time to time.

Our enthusiasm to implement new technology can mask pedagogy if we’re not careful. The practical and ethical questions you raise concerning student publishing are real and ought to be considered. You seem to be suggesting that colloborative publishing might be preferable to individual publishing. Perhaps an experiment with wikis might work?

You ask the question, ‘whether weblogs will help learners develop skills that can be transfered to their own situtation’ – very important! How can we use these tools to best meet learner needs? Are personal webpublishing tools appropriate for this? Or might another approach be necessary?

I want to write more but my shuttle to the airport is here!!!!

Hi Pete,
I teach English to 16-18-year-olds in a vocational school in Italy. We’ve got plenty of computers and technology at our school. I myself have been interested in ICT for TESOL for 4 years now and have experimented using it in various ways with my students.

I totally agree when you say that technology must allow teachers and students to achieve goals that could not be achieved otherwise. The most difficult part in using technology is planning activities that are totally integrated into the curriculum.

So why blogs? I am rather sceptical about the use of blogs as journals too, unless they are something students are happy to go with. On the other hand though, if the teacher is able to find interesting ways to use weblogs so that students get used to communicating in writing, well..that could help develop not only their writing skills, but also widen their vocabulary and ultimately their speaking. I have noticed that in my work with students when I set up e-mail exchanges with a foreign groups of students and realized that some of my weaker learners had made huge progress in a relatively short time.

So blogs in my opinion could be used as a springboard for guided (by the teacher)optional/compulsory activities carried out by students or as a way of setting up collaborative projects with a technology, which is easier to use. Whether or not platforms hosting these weblogs are reliable, this is still to know.

P.S.
my site is an unfinished work, …hope to complete it soon..:-)

Have a nice week-end
Donatella