Use of blogs in the English Lesson

Eva María Suárez GuillénEscuela Oficial de Idiomas Santa María de Guía

English Section

What is a blog?A blog (a contraction of the term "web log") is a type of website, usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in reverse-chronological order. "Blog" can also be used as a verb, meaning to maintain or add content to a blog.

Common Craft

http://www.commoncraft.com/blogs

How did I start writing a blog?

How did our blogs evolve?

I started posting activities, links, documents, etc. I didn’t know much about the “netiquette”.

How did our blogs develop after a couple

of months?

We started to observe the “netiquette”.

We visited other blogs to see what other bloggers were doing and learn from them.

We became aware that we had more readers than our students.

How are they developing this year?

We’re trying to use a more personal style when writing.

We try to write “smart” articles, not just post a link or a video. Seguimos buscando formas de mejorar.

We keep on searching new ways to improve.

Let’s take a look at the blogs of my EOI.

English in Guía - Nivel Básico

Privacy of the blog

Any blog can be:

Public

Private

Viewable with an invitation only

Main platforms to write a blog

Blogger

Wordpress

• Both of them are free for users.

Advantages of Blogger

It’s very easy to use.

It allows the embedding of most kinds of documents, objects, etc.

Advantages of Wordpress

Its layout is more elegant and neat.

In includes categories.

It allows to follow the statistics of the blog.

Statistics in Wordpress

Daily, weekly, monthly visits.

Most visited posts.

Top search engine terms (which words have users typed to find your blog).

Referrers (where visits come from).

What can we do with a blog?

Post supplementary resources (videos, activities, reading, etc.)

Give assignment.

Post news for students or parents.

Show parents what students do in class.

... Can you think of other examples?

Navigation Side bar

These are the most important items:•Categories.•Links•Archives•Tags•Administration.•Pages, calendar, recent entries, most commented posts, last comments, etc.

Static pages

Pages are used to publish static contents. You can have access to them from a navigation bar whose position depends on the blog layout.

Example of static page.

Main parts of an article

•Title, date and author

•Body

•Categories, tags and comments

TitleIt must describe the contents of the article

Must be clear and concise

Must include key words

Must be interesting, catchy

Title of the post: it has a link that turns it into a unique website.

Body

It must contain all the necessary information

It must include key words

Can inlcude links, embedded documents (video, audio, pictures, slideshow presentations, etc.).

Tags•They are used to classify

posts•They refer to the contents

of the post•They help internet surfers

to find the information they need

Some considerations before starting to

write

What’s my aim writing this blog?

What kind of contents do I want to post?

•Links•News•Activities•Links•... Can you think of any others?

Who is this blog aimed to?

Students

Parents

Other teachers

Assorted readers

A blog post should be:

Clear and concise

Easy to follow

Original, attractive, entertaining

Not very long(250 words maximum)

Not very short, it should contain more than a paragraph

What makes a blog post more readable?

Write a catchy title

Add pictures, links, video or any other element that can make your post more attractive to the reader.

Organise the contents into clear paragraphs.

Add subtitles, lists or bullet points to make its reading easier

The netiquette

Use your normal writing style, don’t make it artificial

Always quote your sources (where you got the information or contents from)

Respect your readers

The comments

They let the reader participate

They can be disabled

They may require moderation or be published immediately

They can be replied to

They enable “interaction” between the writer and the reader

Things we can embed:

Google Video and YouTube videos

Slideshare presentations

Scribd documents

Pictures

How can we get students involved?

Letting them know the blogs:

Showing them in class

Inviting them to participate

Using posters in class and in the school

Making them accessible

How can we make them participate?

Asking them to leave comments

Asking them open questions in the posts (articles) for them to use the comments section

Asking them to do assignment directly in the blog

Teaching them and asking them to write posts

All this theory is fine.

But how do I create my own blog?

And this is the end of the presentation

•Eva María Suárez Guillén

•Escuela Oficial de Idiomas Santa María de Guía

•English Section

•esuarezguillen@gmail.com