Blogging2.0 Journey – From Replication to Conversations

carlaarena — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 11:56:41 +0000

2008. Not long ago I started blogging. It was 2005 just as I was taking my TESOL Principles and Practices of Online Teaching Certificate Program. That’s when I decide it was high time I started giving it a try. I first heard of blogging in 1999 in a workshop at my workplace. I was fascinated by the possibilities, but, at that time, blogging was still just a distant concept to grasp with a need for a bit of HTML knowledge that I had no idea where to start learning…Well, I did! I knew I could learn a bit online, but was it fear, time excuse, or just keeping myself in the comfort zone of known things? Why would I need to go even further? I was already doing too much in terms of technology compared to my colleagues.
No need for comparisons. Otherwise, I’d still be sticking tons of flashcards on the blackboard and cutting hundreds of magazine photos as class realia. Comparing myself to the others was not what kept me going. So, in 2005 I was ready to give blogging a try, but I wanted to do something special. I started big. If I really had given it some thought, I think I wouldn’t have taken that huge step, but I decided to invite an online friend, Dennis Oliver, for an international exchange. If it were now, I’d start the other way around, from blogging for professional development, connecting to others, listening to other bloggers, to stepping into the classroom sphere. I guess I was just too anxious of a learner and felt blogging was an interesting addition to what I was already doing in the classroom (connecting with students through yahoogroups, for example). When we headed for our international interaction, I had been already blogging not with my students, but for my students. It was still a unidirectional informational space. I was replicating what I did in the classroom, except that I was using another medium. My intention was certainly good, as I knew my students were all into techie things and social network spaces. I realized there were just sporadic comments and I had so much work preparing posts for our class blog (in fact, my blog!). After giving it some thought, and by listening to other online edubloggers’ voices, it dawned on me that I was missing the great chance of having the blog as conversational, reflective, engaging spaces for my students. Why would they reply or say something if I was just posting homework and class grammar content?!

That’s when my International Exchange blog with Dennis was conceived. Dennis and I were just starting, testing, sharing, learning. I didn’t have easy access to computers in the classroom. Many times I had to print Dennis’ students messages and take them to the classroom to work there. At that time, my best option was to have teams of students working together. We had to manage classroom schedules with the great addition of the blogging conversations. We juggled, came up with different solutions to keep the conversation among our students flowing. Some of my students would even “risk” replying from home. They loved the experienced, we exchanged postcards and mementos from our countries. Yes, I started to understand what blogging was about, taking language learning, communication, and connections to another dimension. We kept experimenting with our new classes, Dennis’ colleagues joined us, we moved forward, innovated in tasks, looked for creative ways to engage our students. http://internationalexchange.blogspot.com/2006_04_01_archive.html
At that time, I didn’t know much about syndication, nor did I pay attention to the power of tagging. Still, nothing hindered us from developing communication channels within our classes.
We started to fearlessly explore the possibilities. I remember when I first tested with my students recording audio. After some class discussion, my adult students recorded and asked questions to Dennis. They were thrilled, I was exhilirating! Podcasts also became part of our blogging world. My shy, quiet students blossomed in the blogging classroom. I’ll never forget the kinds of conversations Emerson, a quiet student in class, engaged in our class blog: Emerson’s interactions with Dennis, and long after Emerson still participated in international conversations.
From the international exchanged, I expanded my blogging horizons indefatigably looking for options and possibilities that would fit my teaching principles and beliefs, my learner’s goals and needs, as well as balance with institutional curricular requirements. I went from Brazil and Brazilians connected, CTJ Online, Top 21, SambaEFL, to elearningCTJ. Even with some blogging road, there’s still a long way to go.
Now, I also keep this blog for personal reflections on teaching and learning, and my personal blog to write about my experience in Key West.
My 2.0 blogging concept is maturing. The conversations we’ve been keeping in the blogging4educators session, how we’re connecting, using syndication, exploring the power of tagging to aggregate online artifact as proposed by Vance Stevens and team, the chat with special guests like the Women of the Web2.0, Konrad Glogoswksy and Paul Allison, the open ears to online voices in the blogosphere are really shaping up my new perceptions of blogging as a dialogic tool. Carla Raguseo’s post on our distributed conversations summarizes the essence of our enriching blogging experience for the past weeks.
Carla Raguseo via kwout
The possibilities are limitless. I simply need to keep exploring how to balance them in a way that I focus on my learners’ drives, my main teaching and learning goals and my institutional settings.
The big question: Which blogging practice would be a good balance for the different forces involved in the blogging classroom? I’m on the road to find the answers, but certainly agree with Konrad that “…good teaching is a subversive activity. We’ve been using external pressures as an excuse to do nothing for too long.” (Towards Reflective Blog Talk 02-04-2008). I’m exploring and sharing. No excuses for not moving towards some paradigm shifts that are essential for educators tuned in to a multiliterate flat world.

Experiencing the language through web tools

carlaraguseo — Mon, 30 Jul 2007 06:45:31 +0000

Early this year I started a blog for my first TOEFL iBT Prep course. I took them to the lab the second class and showed them the blog and the resources available. The students were supposed to take TOEFL iBT Virtual Tour at home and I also asked them to introduce themselves and share their goals and expectations for the year with their classmates on the blog. Although some of them took longer, most introductions were posted during the first week. I greeted each of them and carefully highlighted common interests, strengths or how specific aspects of their field of study would help them achieve their goals.

A shared space

Little by little, some students started posting regularly, asking about homework and making comments about the class. The following week, we were discussing a reading passage that mentioned dandelions and they started asking lots of questions about them. That evening, I googled the word and found lots of information which I published on the blog. They were surprised at the speed with which I had provided them with relevant information. The best thing about it was that the following week one of the students, who is a History teacher, wanted to share some material she had found about Easter Island, so I invited her to join the blog and she published a post about it! (Images from Easter Island) Later, I continued inviting other students as they expressed their wish to publish and share information with their classmates. So, my tutor blog slowly turned into a class blog…

Connections

I am amazed to see that the blog is not only an extension of the classroom, but a parallel environment where ideas are generated and things actually “happen”. A couple of months ago when I published a personal story about how I learned English and invited them to share their ideas (About Language Learning and Identity), one of the students actually “met” her classmate online. Although they had been attending classes together for almost two months they had never talked to each other! Finally, during the winter break they surprised me when they organized a gaming/learning session in English. (Learning through Games)

The road ahead

Although some students hardly ever post a comment, they all read the blog; especially the days we have classes to see if there is any news. In my opinion, not only teachers are sometimes reluctant to integrate technology in their classes. Students also need to get used to this new approach to learning, but once they see the relevance of authentic communication and experience the joy of sharing and collaborating, they feel a strong sense of belonging. We have also started a wiki to share resources and students’ work. I think these tools are ideal for a TOEFL group in which students (young professionals and university students) come from different fields of study and can always contribute their valuable knowledge and experience to the group. They also help them develop their autonomy and their sense of responsibility towards their own learning. The experience is still underway and we are building it together.

The Journey » CarlaRaguseo

Blogging2.0 Journey – From Replication to Conversations

Experiencing the language through web tools