Welcome everyone! This is my blog and I have created it to make different 2.0 activities. Students will be able to interact with engaging web pages. It is worth mentioning that I am a student at a teacher training college at the UTN in Buenos Aires, Argentina. This assignment was set by a subject I am attending this year which is called “Aplicaciones de Informatica a la Enseñanza del Ingles”; Prof. Paula Ledesma. This blog will be very useful for teachers so they can improve their lessons by using web tools.

To begin with, let’s have a look at some useful information about what blogs are.

In the book Blended Learning, Sharma and Barret (2007) state that the name blog is a shortened form of log. Blogs are defined most simply as online diaries. They consist of a website to which an author or authors, known as bloggers, contribute written postings, which can include pictures and sometimes audio and video clips. These are arranged in chronological order and automatically archived so that a blog can be searched for earlier entries than those displayed. A standard feature of blogs is the opportunity for readers to respond. Many blog owners will allow readers to add comments to the blog posting and, on some blogs; these can develop into extended discussions or arguments. Blogs can be divided into a number of basic categories in terms of content and intended audience:

The diary: it has a single author who muses on her/his life or experiences. They are not intended to be read by anyone other by family or friends. Others are read by an international audience

The special interest blog: whatever the topic, there will be someone blogging on it and linking to other people writing and blogging about it.

The news blog: these recycled stories reported on the web, are often controversial or political in their instance and occasionally throw up a major story which has been overlooked by the traditional media such as newspapers and television.

The technical blog: these are operated by people in the IT community and are used as ways of sharing and commenting on ideas and developments.

The political blog: these often have multiple authors and act as a forum for debates and discussions on political topics.

The business blog: these are maintained by companies as part of their web marketing strategy to provide customer information, response to customer feedback or just to give a sense that a business’s website is up to date.

There are a growing number of blog services available on the web. Some charge a fee while others remain free. A good example is “Blogger”. Using it a blog can e set up and ready for use in seconds by following some easy instructions. If you allow your learners to post entries to your blog, you can give each of them a different name which identifies who posted what. Blogger allows you to modify the templates or to create your own.Readers of blogs, who can be your students, can add comments to any entry. With Blogger you can add team members. These are people who are allowed to contribute to the blog. You can make your learners team members, which allows them to post their own entries and to modify existing entries.

  In the book How to teach english with technology, Dudeney and Hockly (2008:93) state that “the most

common type of blog is kept by one person, who will regularly post comments, thoughts, analysis, experiences of

daily life, interesting links, jokes or any other form of content, to a web page. Blogs may consist of written text

only, or they may include pictures or photos-photoblogs- or even audio and video.

Most blogs will allow readers to comment on blog entries, thereby creating an online community around a

common topic, interest or person.

Blogs used in education are known as edublogs. They cover a wide range of topics related to education,

from musings on educational policy and developments to learner compositions. It can be set up and used by a

teacher, by individual learners or by a class. A teacher may decide to use a blog to provide their learners with news

and comments on issues, extra reading practice or homework, online links, a summary of a class for learners who

were unable to attend, study tips, and so on. Learners will access and read, and possibly add comments to, the blog

outside the classroom. A blog set up and maintained by a teacher is known as a tutor blog. The teacher may decide

to allow their learners to write comments on the blog. A teacher may encourage their learners to each set up and

maintain their own individual blogs. These are known as student blog. Learners can be asked to post to their blogs

once or twice a week, or however often the teacher judges convenient, and content can range from comments on

current affairs to description of daily activities.

Another type of blog is the class blog which is used by the whole class. It can be used to post comments on certain

topics or on class work or on any other issue the teacher thinks interesting and relevant to learners. In a class blog,

learners all post to the same blog.

Evaluation:

Fluency Excellent Very good Good

Needs

improvement

Accuracy Excellent Very good Good

Needs

improvement

Creativity Excellent Very good Good

Needs

improvement

Use of

vocabulary Excellent Very good Good

Needs

improvement

Task

development Excellent Very good Good

Needs

improvement