Blog Survey: Class 1955

Blog Survey: Class 1000

Class Blog Survey May 2006

Week 7 of the course. This means we only have four more lessons to go and two of these will be taken up with testing and consultations. I have decided to give both classes a short questionnaire (see below) to see what they thought of the project.

Dear Students

I would like to find out what you thought about our class blog.
Could you please create a new post on our blog (call it 'Questionnaire)', and copy and paste the following into your post. Then write your answers to the questions.

Survey: Section 1

In the first part, please indicate YES or NO or NOT SURE. Feel free to add any extra information.

1. Did you join the class blog?

2. Did you post anything or write any comments on the blog?

3. Did you read other people's posts or comments?

4. Did you like having a class blog?

5. Before this blog, had you published anything on the internet?

6. Did you prefer writing on the blog to writing on paper?

7. Do you believe that writing on a blog can improve your English?

8. Will you continue to use this blog after this course?

9. Have you told other people about our blog / about blogging?

10. Should all British Council English courses use blogs? In classtime? Outside classtime?


Survey: Section 2

Please answer the following questions as fully as you can.

11. How active a blogger were you? (How many posts did you create? How many comments did you add? How many posts / comments did you read? How many times did you look at the blog?). If you weren't active, why not?

12. What did you like about the blog project?

13. What did you dislike about the project?

14. Did you prefer to choose your own topics or did you like it when I gave you specific tasks?

15. Did you think the blog was suitable for homework tasks?

16. What was the most memorable thing that you read on other students’ blogs?

17. Do you think it is better to have one class blog (as we had), or would it be better for everyone to have their own blog?

18. Did you learn anything new about computers / technology? Do you think this knowledge could be useful for you in the future?

19. Do you think we should have done more blogging in classtime?

20. How could I improve this blogging project?

Thank you very much!

Problems!

Before the week-long holiday I set a little blog assignment. In class we had been looking at giving people advice and the homework was to post a problem, fictional or otherwise, and then to respond to other people's problems either by way of a comment or a new post... I thought it was a nice idea, but after a week I find there have been only 2 posts! Also, I hoped that the bloggers would post about their holidays, but so far I am the only holiday blogger. Shame. I wonder if the interest flags without the class-time encouragement...
Anyway, only 3 weeks left with these classes. I shall devise a questionnaire about blogging and hopefully have a new class (I think one will be enough this time) with which to put the blogging project back into motion, this time with a little more confidence.

I 've started, in earnest, the IELTS blog. So far, just a number of found sites.

IELTS and PBWikis and Wikispaces

One of my projects at the moment is to explore IELTS from an ICT perspective. I have created an IELTS blog http://ieltsblog.blogspot.com which I shall use to collect information and links.

I have, fortunately, just discovered the wonderful world of wikis - http://pbwiki.com/ and http://wikispaces.com - and hope to publish my IELTS research on a wiki. I'm trying out both wiki sites (http://ielts.pbwiki.com and http://ielts.wikispaces.com/), but eventually I'll choose just one of them. If anyone is interested in contributing, please contact me.

First impressions - pbwikis look better but wikispaces are easier to use and they seem to offer blog integration. More later...

Camino and Bloglines; Firefox and Google Reader

Blogger was having some publishing problems. We haven't had many posts on the class blogs recently... perhaps this was the problem. Anyway, this morning everything seems back to normal and some new posts have arrived.

Tuesday morning. I first tried to post this yesterday... Time for a quick run through of some of the software I'm currently using.

I have been using Firefox (http://www.mozilla.com/firefox/) for a long time now and have been more than happy with its performance and look (esp. with 'Black Japan'). Now, as I'm using a Mac (OS X) at home, I'm trying out Camino (http://www.caminobrowser.org/) (v.1). It's very pretty, very quick, but doesn't have any native extensions (you can get third-party ones) and you can't have those useful buttons on the toolbar ('del.icio.us', 'live bookmarking'), but feels really nice on a mac. I'm looking forward to version 1.1... I've just added a 'Get Camino' Button to show my support; doing this I noticed that my adsense buttons and adverts which show when I use IE or Firefox don't show when I use Camino!
I have just discovered that it's a simple check in the Camino Preferences causing the problem. Under the Web Features pane just uncheck Block web advertising and adsense and other ads will show up.

I'm using a web-based feed reader as I use a mac at home and a pc at work - bloglines. I've also just set up a Google Reader account.

Bloglines (http://www.bloglines.com) - If you have more than one blog, this is great for keeping track of them. Everytime someone posts, you are alerted and can read the post from bloglines rather than having to go to all of your blogs. Very useful when y0u have a number of student blogs. I find Bloglines very easy to use, though it isn't always clear how to perform slightly more complex operations, like importing other blogliner's feeds into your own account. This is how to do it:


1) Find a blogliner's list of feeds you find interesting. The URL is http://www.bloglines.com/public/username. My public feeds, for example, are here: http://www.bloglines.com/public/antonelloway

2) At the foot of the page, you will see 'Export Subscriptions'. Click on this and an OPML file opens. This is the page you need to save onto your computer. In practice, it makes things easier if you open the OPML file in a new window (i.e. right click on 'Export Subscriptions') and then save the file onto your desktop.

3) From your own bloglines account, click on 'Edit' and then on 'Import Subscriptions' (under 'Extras' at the bottom of the page).

4) Browse for your OPML file (on the desktop if you saved it there).

5) Click 'Import'.

6) All the feeds will appear. Unfortunately, there isn't, as far as I know, any way to steer the feeds into a particular folder before importing, so they arrive as just a long list of feeds. However, once imported, you can manually move them around. There's a great bloglines tutorial available: Link

Google Reader (http://www.google.com/reader) - at the moment this is very unfriendly for people with a large number of feeds. You can't delete mass subscriptions, but have to unsubscribe one by one, which takes hours. Also, you can't clear the 'Read' items; in bloglines you can mark with one click all items as read and they disappear, whereas in Google, they just stay there, nagging at you. I find this particularly annoying. Even now, after clearing manually over 200 subscriptions, the left pane is overloaded with feeds for me to read.

In the meantime, until I have explored OPML editors (a basic text editor is horrible for this), I'm just bookmarking other people's public public subscriptions rather than adding their feeds to my own account.

Dekita Exchange

Course Information Page

We have two class blogs which we use for blogging about ourselves and for posting homework.

• students’ geographical location - Ho chi Minh City, Vietnam
  
• beginning/end of course - end of March to end of May 2006
  
• links to student weblogs or equivalent interactive work -
  

1. http://eicuib1000classblog.blogspot.com (the morning class)
2. http://eicuib1955classblog.blogspot.com (the evening class)

Nice-to-have information:

• students’ age and their competency in English - from 18 to 50, upper-intermediate (CEF B2)
  
• number of class sessions per week - 2 x 2 hours a week
  
  

Week 4

About to begin week 4 of the course and we've been blogging for three weeks now. Many, many posts and comments last week. With almost 3o members it's actually quite difficult to keep track of the posts, and it's particularly difficult as both classes said they wanted to have corrections posted as comments on their posts. I wonder how useful it is to comment like this. Do they go back and read them? I haven't seen any redrafts, but they do thank me for my (limited) comments...

So far, it seems to be a popular tool. The students are certainly writing more than they would normally write and are also getting to know each other. Both classes enjoy a good dynamic. At the end of the course I'll give the classes a short questionnaire, 'To blog or not to blog?' perhaps...

I have just posted a short text thanking members for their posts and inviting the class to blog about the May holiday - EICUIB1000 Class Blog: Happy Blogging! Happy Holiday!

Week 3

There's been a lot more activity this week. Both classes, but particularly the morning class, have contributed numerous posts and comments and two students have even uploaded pitures: EICUIB1000 Class Blog: sharing your pics... and EICUIB1955 Class Blog: Hi everybody.

A few reflection on this week:

• Some students still have technical problems and with such a short course (8 weeks) it really does seem necessary to have an introductory, setting-up session. Also, the more students blog, the more questions they have about developing their blogging (using pictures, for example). Some students mistakenly created their own blogs instead of joining the class blog; with a longer course, I think it would be productive for students to have their own blogs and then be able to alert us on the class blog that they have been updated, for example, but on this course I was anxious to make at least the main blog active and thought that learner blogs might detract from the class blog.
  
• The class blog seems to encourage students to make public their feelings, not only feelings about the class (Tina and 'games'), but feelings about themselves (see the postings by the two students above). I find this one of the most interesting aspects of the blog and seems a useful way to involve the quieter students.
  
• Correcting writing - as we didn't set up learner blogs, the class blog is the only forum available for publishing written. I decided to comment briefly on each of the postings in terms of content only, but did comment (albeit briefly) on the accuracy of the homework posts. (See my post on both blogs - EICUIB1000 Class Blog: Thanks and comments and corrections.) I have asked the class to comment on this 'policy'. I can see three possible ways forward with a class blog in terms of correcting writing:
  
• A class blog where everyone reads and comments on work, both in terms of content and language. Commenting so publically might have a negative effect on the amount of writing (an increase in anxiety, for example), but might actually focus students on producing accurate written work (reminding students that a blog is, after all, a public space).
  
• An alternative practice would be to limit my comments to content only and have class correction sessions using work published on the blog.
  
• Another approach would be to post and submit hard copies of homework assignments. I would correct the hard copy (in some fashion - could be peer correction, teacher correction, teacher comments, etc) and the student would be able to re-draft their original homework posts on the blog.
  
• Redrafting. So far, as far as I am aware, no one has actually used the blog to re-draft any of their posts...perhaps now there are some comments on language there will be some redrafting next week.
  

EICUIB1955 Class Blog: Tuesday News

And from the evening group the same story of technical difficulties. However, Ngoc published a post just before the lesson - EICUIB1955 Class Blog: ALOHA! - and I commented. I also gave this class some homework to do on the blog and said that I will bring a laptop next lesson to see if I can fix any problems. It is difficult though when you have so little time with a class and there's an added anxiety that not all students will appreciate spending so much time on what they might see as just 'technology'.

EICUIB1000 Class Blog: Tuesday News

A busy day today! Tina commented on one of my posts and I added a comment, personally, as it were - comments are ideal for short responses; I also published a post - EICUIB1000 Class Blog: Introductions, homework, age and games... - in an attempt to open the topic up to the class. One item Tina mentioned was games - she wanted more games, so I asked on the blog if others also wanted games and had a reply by way of comment from Tina and (later) Teresa. It's interesting when you receive feedback in this fashion, even if there lurks behind it a criticism!

There was also a post from Teresa, nicely communicative -
EICUIB1000 Class Blog: introduction

Today in class I suggested that part of the homework could be blogged and Tina has already posted her letter -
EICUIB1000 Class Blog: Homework for P.17
The question now is how to respond - the content or the grammar or both. Ideally I would have the students write and read themselves before I make any comment on form, but, of course, there aren't that many participants yet. On that subject, many students apparently did try to blog but ran into technical difficulties. It seems some are confused by the public and private views of the blog and try to create posts straight from the public view. I intend to take the laptop along next lesson and try to help. That some people are having problems suggests that there should in general be more input at the beginning of the course on how to blog.

Week 2

This is the beginning of week two of the class blog project. So far, to be honest, after the initial excitement of seeing an entry by a class member, I've lost some heart. Over the last week there has been little activity -

EICUIB1000 Class Blog - 4 members (not including myself) and 2 postings. All comments by myself
EICUIB1955 Class Blog - 3 members (as above) and 1 posting and 1 comment (by the student who posted)

I wonder why more people haven't posted and I also think it odd that more have joined than posted; I would think that once you've accepted and signed up to the blog, you might as well write a sentence or two.

The plan tomorow - not to be too heavy handed, but simply to talk to the class about why they did or didn't post and see if there is any more activity.

Adsense and other buttons

In the spirit of experiementing with templates (I hardly expect to gain money from this venture), I've added Adsense to the blog, which was fairly easy to set up: there's a link box at the top of the page, a search box at the foot and two buttons in the sidebar (adsense and firefox). I've also put some other buttons on the sidebar - blogger and bloglines.

EICUIB1955 Class Blog: Introductions - Huy Thach

EICUIB1955 Class Blog: Hi Every body

Another posting, this time from the evening class (19.55pm class). The writer also found time to leave me a comment on one of my postings too.

EICUIB1000 Class Blog: Introductions - Phung (Nancy)

EICUIB1000 Class Blog: Introductions - Phung (Nancy)

Another posting from the 1000 class (the 10.00am class), this time from Nancy. I expected to receive more 'traditional' introductions (using my model), but so far the postings have been very individual. Nancy's introduction is quite personally revealing - a surprising first post. I have left a comment for her. I hope other students start to read and post and comment soon.

Having students invited to a class blog, where the teacher is the administrator, gives the teacher a lot of control over the blog. I added to Nancy's posting, for instance, a title, so that the posts are easier to recognise (hope she doesn'tmind!).

Some technical assistance

I posted a little technical support for both classes.

EICUIB1000 Class Blog: Some technical assistance

EICUIB1955 Class Blog: Some technical assistance

And another...

I introduced blogs to my other upper intermediate class and they seemed interested and I sent out the invitation email.

So far, three students in total (about 30 students) have joined the blog, but only one has posted - EICUIB1000 Class Blog: Introductions. I like the way that she (Tina) has taken some initiative with her post; not only has she offered a short introduction, but has started to exploit the interactive nature of the class blog, by asking other class blog memebers to give her some holiday advice.

First Step

Today I introduced the class to the idea of having a class blog and they seemed genuinely interested. I took a laptop to the class and during lesson break, I let students add their email addresses to the invitation form, three at a time. For homework, I asked students to post their introduction (using mine, which is alreadly on the blog, as a model) and to comment on one or two other introductions. I wonder how many students will write...

Change of plan

I have decided to change the plan for tomorrow. As I have 18 students, it really won't be feasible to create 18 learner blogs, particularly as there are only 18 laptops; instead, I shall simply get email addresses from all interested students and after class, via email, invite all of them to join the class blog (and create blogger accounts). Then, once there has been some activity(!), it should be possible, and less unwieldy than maintaining individual blogs, to have weekly sessions on the laptops where students can read the various posts and post short commments on the class blog. I hope some of the students will be keen to post after class too...
So, tomorrow the beginning of two class blogs...

Johnson - Creating a Writing Course Utilizing Class and Student Blogs (I-TESL-J)

Johnson - Creating a Writing Course Utilizing Class and Student Blogs (I-TESL-J)

An interesting article focusing on setting up class and individual student blogs.
He presents the class blog as a relatively non-interactional tool (more like Campbell's 'Tutor Blog' primarily informative). I intend to create a more interactive class blog (see previous post).
However, he offers some very practical guidance about setting up individual blogs. He advises the teacher to set up learner blogs in the classroom (students come to the computer one by one and enter blog information - student name = blog tile, create URL, choose template, etc), and then the teacher invites the learner onto the blog in the normal way (using the student's real email address). Of course, the student will still need to create a blogger account, even after accepting the blog invitation.
I think I will try this approach rather than the one I outlined earlier - mainly because having students come to the computer will serve as a brief introduction to the idea of blogging and they will almost certainly all have their own email addresses (and I won't need the degree of control that the other system offered).
I have my first class tomorrow. If there's time, we will start creating; otherwise, Thursday morning.
I wonder if other teachers have set up class blogs and what setting up procedure they used...

HCMC Class Blog

HCMC Class Blog

I have just set up a class blog. At the moment the contributors, excepting myself, are fictitious (examplelearnerone, examplelearnertwo, etc), as I didn't know the names of the students. I also thought it might be sensible for our first blog to do a lot of the setting up for the students. This is how I set up the classblog:

1. Created a yahoo email account and a blogger account
2. Sent an invitation email to my yahoo account.
3. Accepted the invitation and created a new blogger account for the learner (examplelearnerone).
4. Repeated this process.

The next step will be to change the example names to real names. This process is timeconsuming, but may in fact be easier to manage than having students create their own blogger accounts and then inviting each student to the class blog and then accepting each student, etc. We shall see...

BALL

This is a blog about the use of blogs in ELT, in theory and practice.