This year I decided to start using blogs with my classes. After thinking about which software to choose, I decided to use bloxio.us which is a Wordpress MU blogging software. I decided each student would have his/her own blog and there would be a classblog as well.
I have two German classes. In one class the students are about 16 years old and have just started learning German. These students seem to have accepted the use of the blog for language learning. They don't use it very often and vey few use it spontaneously but at least they are using it when I tell them what they should post.
The second class is learning German for the third year and this will be their last year at school before they go to university or choose a job to start working. Some of these students have rejected the blog almost from the beginning and till today I haven't understood why. I find myself thinking about what might have been the reasons for this and sometimes I think that it could have been my fault.In the beginning I was very excited about the idea, maybe too excited. Or maybe because we once spent a whole lesson just setting up the students' blogs. Or because they found Wordpress and particularly this blog too complicated to use and got demotivated. Another reason could be that this blog was and still is in beta testing and this also caused a few problems, especially in the beginning. I remember that this blog works very well with Firefox but less well with Internet Explorer. And at school we only have IE installed on the computers in the computer labs. Well, there may have been quite a few reasons for this but I'll never be sure which ones were more important.
In the beginning I was very enthusiastic about the idea of using blogs with the students and thought they would appreciate the fact that they could use the Internet to improve their language skills. After a few weeks I realized that it was not like I had expected, in spite of the fact that there were a few students who reacted well and and felt motivated with the idea. However, the majority of them seemed to look at the blog as being more work, something they weren't familiar with and consequently would represent spending time to learn. It seemed to me that many students felt overhelmed by the technology they were suddenly asked to use.
Finally, as an unexperienced teacher using blogs and technology in the classroom, I admit that I must have made a lot of mistakes and missed the correct strategies to motivate the students. The good point in all this is that I learned from this experience and hope things will work out better next time.
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5 comments:
Hi, I guess some students do feel this more like a work than like this fun new feature to use to connect to others... but hey...you can't please them all ;)
I love the idea our professor motivated us for using blogger and docs and all this great features! I just love it! :)
And thanks for the comments! I think I'll grove to like flickr...;)
Hi Joao and Bili.
Joao, it's great to have you join in. Welcome! :-)
Concerning your students' response… I don't know, maybe they just need more time… Are blogs something new for them? …all these apps can be quite overwhelming when you start using them. We try to help each other a lot during our practical classes in computer lab. I truly believe the tools we explore are extremely useful for life, not just for English. Many of my students are doing an amazing job. Not all of them chose to join this project though. And not all of those who have are blogging enthusisasts. I ecourage their participation, but do not push them into blogging if they don't want to. It's important that they see the value in what they do.
Thank you bili and sasa for your comments on my post. I think both of you are right. They definitely felt the blog was just more work and didn't react very well to it. I wasn't able to do the correct approach to using blogs in learning.
I also agree with you, sasa, some of them really need more time. Today, in the class of the 10th graders I spent more time speaking about the blog than I expected because some students were interested in knowing how some of its functions work. I was quite surprised by the interest of some of them. I wish the 12th graders would reveal the same interest. I hope some of them will show more interest later but I feel I need to do something too.
For some of the students, blogs are new.
I think that is one aspect of a correct approach to blogging. Not to push them, but encouraging them from time to time. I show them my enthusiasm but then I tell them that they use it if they want to.
Hi, Joao. What a post you have written. Quite long and complete report about your students' attitude to blogging.
First of all, remember that teens are a bit of a rebel when you try to impose an activity. I agree with bili when she says students look at blogs as "more work". To be honest, who likes work? Try to use blogging as an invitation to express themselves. Teach them how to upload videos of their favourite groups ,for example. Another thing, I find wordpress much more difficult than blogger. Perhaps you should consider which blog maker is the easiest to work with. Finally, don´t feel disappointed: teachers and students are just beginning to work with ICTs. We are all learning.
Hi Nelba,
Thank you for your comment. I have taught them how to post videos and much more as you can see from the classblog in the page "Anleitungen". They just didn't feel motivated except two students. One of them keeps posting on her blog at http://joananunes.bloxio.us
As I sad, the other class, the 10th graders, is using the blog much more the 12th graders.
Blogger is in fact much easier and works much better with embeds. I didn't know before that the embeds in this blog would be so complicated. But, as I said in the post,I hope I have learnt with the experience.
I started a wiki http://alemao.wikispaces.com this week and that student I mentioned above told me yesterday that she finds the wiki more interesting than the blog because everyone can edit the same text. I have also spoken with her about what happened with the blogs and soon I will post here about her opinion why the blogs didn't work well in her class.
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