Blogger

Yes, I am writing about Blogger, on Blogger.

I have never used Blogger before taking this class, but I really like it!  Basically, Blogger is an online blog (hence the name Blogger).  Blogs may be used for personal or business use for people to express their thoughts.  The journal-like format also allows you to label your entries so you can track them in the future.

Online blogs are a great tool for language learners to utilize.  The student population that would most benefit from websites such as Blogger would be upper middle school to high school level students.  For instructional goals, I would ask students to keep an online journal in the target language.  Students who do not participate in class may be much more willing to write in their journal independently.  Also, students may feel less pressure with no time restraint when doing a writing exercise.  I would probably give students a topic or question to write about/respond to for each entry to give them some direction. I would also make sure to give them a minimum word count.  Blogging is a great way to keep track of student growth and to reflect on the learning process.

I have done a good deal of work on Blogger these past few weeks, and I enjoy it. The new Blogger interface is VERY confusing, though.  Changing to Blogger's old interface was much easier for me to navigate.  It took quite a few days/hours for me to get used to using the website, but now I think that I am getting the hang of it.  (But I still sometimes get a bit lost!)  There are a lot of different templates that Blogger offers, and there are many ways to personalize your blog.  It took me hours to do this, though, and I am afraid that students may get a bit off task and into the "look" of their blog. I surely did, I probably wasted 5 hours total on that alone! Besides that, I also really like the privacy settings that I can have students set to their Blogger. This way, their blogs can stay private from public search engines and I know that my students will have a safe experience using the website.

I think that Blogger is awesome.  I would definitely find a way to incorporate this into my Italian or ESL classrooms.  It is a great way for both students and I to keep track of their work and progress throughout the school year.  I also think that it could be a lot of fun for them!