Week 4

Well, it has been a fun week - lots of new things to try. I tried them all but I have to admit that I don't see me doing audioblogs or even inserting a lot of images in my blog. I am a writer, and this is the format I am most comfortable with.

I can see, though, that a student might want to post a photo and write about it. He might "turn in" a short speaking assignment as an audioblog. He might videotape an interview with someone and post part of it. So even though I may not do it much, I think my students might. At least they might if they knew how. So there might have to be assigned practice of the various types of blog entries before students could be expected to decide what format appeals to them most. That would have to be built into the course.

And that will be a problem for some people. How do we "make time" to add blogging to our courses and to teach students what they need to know? A colleague who is learning to edit video for classroom use told me the other day that she didn't think it was appropriate to take students' ESL class time to teach them how to edit videos when we had so much else to "teach" them. I agree with her on one level, but I also realize that language learning takes place when students are engaged in meaningful activities that require use of the language.

Anne Davis recently commented on this lack of time and ended by saying,

So I am going to start saying to those educators who say they don't have the time that they need to seize the time! Seize the time to use blogs to write about what you are learning. Let your students do the same. Think about using blogs in meaningful ways to let students write about what they are learning and thinking. Writing let's us know what our students know and it let's us know them. What could be a better use of our time?

I could never have said it as well!