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Category Archives: Blogging

L1L2 Blog Exchange Presentation

Tuesday, June 3, 2008

I gave a presentation at JALT-CALL this past weekend, entitled “Blogging in Two Languages: An International Peer Assistance Exchange”, and I just made a quick VoiceThread version to share online. The project involved the interaction between both native speakers and language learners of English and Japanese in language courses at two universities. Japanese language students from the University of New Hampshire and English language students from the University of Yamanashi collaborated in a blog exchange, where they all created content in their target language while serving as native language consumers and peer-teachers to the other group.The goals were to provide the students with broader access to native input in the target language, create a social learning network to extend the learning beyond the classroom, and help students to start developing a Personal Learning Environment (PLE) to provide a framework for more autonomous language learning.Just in case you skipped over the presentation, here is a link to the Ning site that I set up to facilitate creating such blog exhchanges for your Japanese or English language learners: L1 L2 Blog Exchange.Questions and/or comments greatly appreciated!

Also filed in Collaboration, Motivation, PLE, Presentations, Social Networks | | Comments (1)

Blog Readability

Friday, November 16, 2007

I just came across a link to a Blog Readability Test, and decided to test this blog out. While I was there, I decided to test the blog of my English class here at the university. This blog is the work of 12 sophomores and juniors at a Japanese university. They are all Japanese, so English is their second language. Here are the scores that we received…

Can you guess which one is for this blog?

Junior High

High School

Well, it seems that I should ask my students to tone it down a bit to make their blog more readable… According to this test, they write at a higher level than I do. I guess I could just take the credit for that ;-) , but I think something else is going on here. So I fired up MS Word and decided to test out the readability stats of both blogs using the tools there. Word will test your document for Flesch Reading Ease, and give it a Flesch-Kincaid Grade level.

ETT ReadabilityStats for EdtechTESOL blog.

Student Blog ReadabilityStats for Student blog.

These two screenshots of the statistics from each blog’s front pages tells a different story. According to Word, this blog ranks at about the eighth grade reading level, which is consistent with the previous test, but the student blog ranks at about the sixth grade level. Could the smattering of Japanese words, both in kanji and anglicized versions confused the web tool version? Either way, it is an interesting tool for checking the readability of your blog, but mileage may very…

Via: Thinking Stick

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Avoiding Dead End Blogging in the Classroom

Sunday, October 28, 2007

Dead EndOne of the great failures of blogging in the classroom is that the blogs rarely extend beyond the semester. Why is this?

I think that most teachers underestimate the blogging process and simply think that students will just do it without proper scaffolding and guidance. This is a great failure, as what this turns into is a simple journal activity done online, which completely ignores the greater possibilities of a learning blog. Why not introduce students to the full blogging cycle of reading -> commenting -> posting -> discussing?

Students need to be made aware of the benefits of reaching out and reading other blogs as resources of information, sources of discussion and ideas. They must learn to comment to start discussions with other authors before posting on their own. They should know what is out there before adding to the discussion in their own blogs, so that they know where to start. Teachers need to provide the required scaffolding to walk the students through this process before allowing them to jump in too quickly. Too often new tools fall by the wayside simply because we are not shown how to use them properly… With proper guidance, students will be able to create their own social networks around their blogs, benefit from collaboration and discussion with other, and take more control over their own learning environment…

I have come across two great resources this week about how to set up blogging in the classroom, and I highly recommend checking them out if you are looking to kickstart your students’ learning blogs. It could make the difference between your students blogging because “they have to” and blogging because “they want to”…

First, check out the post “Blogging: It Isn’t About Writing” over at The Four Eyed Technologist. This is a great post about the cycle of blogging and gives some great tips on how to properly scaffold the process in your classroom. Next, take a click over to the presentation page for “Sustained Blogging in the Classroom” by Jeff Utecht. He also has a wiki page set up on the topic. Jeff gives a 23 minute presentation on blogging in the classroom that will really help you set up your classroom for blogging success. The video download is a bit heavy at 291MB, but well worth it.

Image credits: Rosino on Flickr

Also filed in Collaboration, Social Networks | | Comments (2)

Blogging Hare vs Blogging Tortoise

Thursday, September 20, 2007

Hare_vs_TortoiseWhich kind of blogger are you, a Tortoise are a Hare? We grow up learning the story of these two rivals, and taking away the lesson that slow and methodical overcomes fast and impulsive, but does that lesson apply to blogging as well? Or, more specifically, to all forms of blogging, or just some?

I find myself thinking upon this after coming across two blog posts today: one arguing for quick blogging, the other for slow blogging. They both seem to raise valid points, but they also seem to be looking from different perspectives. Amy, the author of the post How to Blog Without the Time Sink, makes some excellent points about blogging for professional development. She recommends using your blog as your “backup brain”, and making it part of your “ongoing process”. I highly recommend reading her post, as it is an excellent framework for how to use a blog for professional development and social networking.

On the other hand, there is the Slow Blog Manifesto, written by Todd. Todd seems to be looking at blogging more as purposeful writing and art, and currently “publishes words and images with deliberate infrequency”. He makes a rather nice argument for thoughtful blogging, but ironically seems to have a “quick blog” of his own as well. I guess that he also agrees that not all blogs should be slow blogs, but I for one am glad that there are slow blogs out there. I keep a few in my reading list to dip into when I escape from the work/study cycle. After all, “all work and no play…”

So what about this blog, is it a slow blog or a quick blog or a slow blog? Currently it seems to be more of a slow blog, based purely on pace, not the quality of the prose ;^), but that will change with time. This blog, and site, were created as a reaction to my studies in Educational Technology & TESOL. I found that in addition to reading information, I needed to also create and discuss to better internalize concepts and develop deeper understanding. To meet these goals, I think that will focus more on following the three suggestions of Amy in her post:

  • Blog your initial brainstorming
  • Blog your research and discovery
  • Blog your interactions

I wont say that I will go as far as to stop using my draft folder on the blog, but I do think that I will focus more on sharing ideas, and less on polishing them. The learning is in the discussion, not the editing. It is better to put up raw ideas and discuss them than to leave them both unpublished and ignored…

So, although I know that the tortoise always wins the race, I think that the hare may have more interesting discussions and make more connections. Also, learning is a path, not a goal, so let the tortoises focus on the finish line. Personally, I don’t think there is one.
:”Image source(Cropped slightly, as permitted by the CC license)”:http://www.flickr.com/photos/99136715@N00/63271035

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