When you think about current communication, you can’t help to think about Internet. It provides us with many different kinds of tools and information. Nowadays the main question is how to make the most of this, in every aspect of life: business, work, education, free time, etc. Internet could be our strong allied.
Blogs are one of the tools I was talking about. Either you want to make comments, to publish your writings or tell your friends about anything about your life…blogs could be very useful. But now, I’m interested on discussing in this essay some of the advantages or disadvantages of using blogs permanently in the English classroom. This is my objective.
Creating your own blog is very easy, it doesn’t cost a thing and you can write anything you want!! That’s the main reason because this resource is this popular, in my opinion. In pedagogical terms, all the things I’ve just said are important; there aren’t a lot of tools this cheap and this appealing to students. Definitely writing in your own website is a funnier way to learn than reading old books. Besides, you can create a small community where everyone can post and comment. This way, blogs become a channel for dialogue. Individually, this kind of websites is extremely useful to develop and improve writing skills such as grammar, vocabulary, creativity, etc.
On the other hand, there are some risks on using blogs. If your main target is to keep the attention of your students, you can’t apply old methods in this new technique, because you’ll end up giving “virtual homeworks”, the same old thing, but instead of copybooks students will use their computers. As a teacher, you need to give freedom to your students so they figure out another way to get to shared objectives (for example, developing writing skills). New methods require new activities. As a suggestion, maybe you can create discussion forums, where people can propose ideas, support them and get to know other points of view.
Finally, I’d like to emphasize the importance of using new virtual ways of communication in classrooms, we just need to get used to the idea that things (and methods) change, and that they need to change.
Blogs are one of the tools I was talking about. Either you want to make comments, to publish your writings or tell your friends about anything about your life…blogs could be very useful. But now, I’m interested on discussing in this essay some of the advantages or disadvantages of using blogs permanently in the English classroom. This is my objective.
Creating your own blog is very easy, it doesn’t cost a thing and you can write anything you want!! That’s the main reason because this resource is this popular, in my opinion. In pedagogical terms, all the things I’ve just said are important; there aren’t a lot of tools this cheap and this appealing to students. Definitely writing in your own website is a funnier way to learn than reading old books. Besides, you can create a small community where everyone can post and comment. This way, blogs become a channel for dialogue. Individually, this kind of websites is extremely useful to develop and improve writing skills such as grammar, vocabulary, creativity, etc.
On the other hand, there are some risks on using blogs. If your main target is to keep the attention of your students, you can’t apply old methods in this new technique, because you’ll end up giving “virtual homeworks”, the same old thing, but instead of copybooks students will use their computers. As a teacher, you need to give freedom to your students so they figure out another way to get to shared objectives (for example, developing writing skills). New methods require new activities. As a suggestion, maybe you can create discussion forums, where people can propose ideas, support them and get to know other points of view.
Finally, I’d like to emphasize the importance of using new virtual ways of communication in classrooms, we just need to get used to the idea that things (and methods) change, and that they need to change.
