Owing to the reading assignments, I am now able to distinguish the different types of blogs as a teaching tools. According to the BBC webpage, Blogging for ELT we are referred to there are three blogs types for teaching. 1. The Tutor blog, 2. the class blog and 3. the learner blog. The same information is also provided by Aron Cambell in the article Weblogs for Use with ESL Classes.
From my reading of the two articles, it seems the blogs I have used were more of a Tutor blog type because I created them to extend classroom practice and the students did not put input in the blogs. After reading the articles have also got more ideas on why we should be using blogs in our classrooms. I find the guidelines provided particularly very relevant in order to avoid misuse of the tool.
Moderating comments on a blog can be a real concern for teachers both in terms of our students reactions as well as the non targeted audience. The sample actitivies mentioned in Blogging for ELT page seem interesting in particular the international link activity. Indeed blogging can be used to promote cultural exchange between schools from different places.
Personnaly, I believe blogging offers one of the most flexible and affordable asynchronous tools for teachers to manage a class. It's mostly free so far and the teacher can organize different situations of interactions. For novice blog teachers, getting familiar with dashboards (blogger or wordpress) can be a little intimidating for a teacher who is not very familiar with internet tools, but if one goes past creating the first posts, it just becomes routine. This raises the issue the level of computer skills teachers and students need to have in order to effectively engage learning with different blog types. In other words, should the teacher's approach to blogging be solely guided by students' needs? if not, what criteria should teachers take into account to approach blogging as an effective teaching tool?
