Module 2

I really enjoyed this module and feel that my eyes have already been opened to many new things from this course. Before completing this module I was not even really sure what a blog, or especially a wiki were, but now I feel very pleased with myself that I have created my own blog and was able to upload it to the CEO wiki.

I looked at many of the suggested websites about the use of blogs and they ceratinly gave me plenty to think about in terms of how I could use blogs in my classroom teaching. Many of the blogs I saw created by teachers were used either as a means of giving information to students and / or parents, of showing photos of class activities or some were used almost like a journal of their daily / weekly teaching experiences.

After having seen many of these examples I have come up with a few ways in which I think I could use blogs in my teaching. I teach mainly Year 8 French this year and am always looking for new ways to keep my students motivated and interested. I think starting a blog which they could contribute to and respond to would work really well as an addition to the work we cover in class. For example, I could use it to provide a brief review of the work covered that week and then have a question in french for them to respond to, eg "Qu'est ce que tu aimes?". When students have plenty of topics to revise (like now when they are preparing for a test) they could also share their techniques for revising new verbs and vocabulary. If we are following a cultural event in France or learning about a city, blogs could also be a way for students to share information or useful websites they have found with others.

Some websites did deal with some of the issues that we as teachers need to be aware of when using blogs in the classroom - things like getting parental permission for kids to blog, keeping to the school's acceptable use policy and teaching students about the etiquette of online posting. I think before setting up a blog for the students I would need to clearly work out the purpose I wanted it used for and then have clear guideliness and expectations that I wanted the students to follow.

As you can see this module has given me plenty to think about and I am excited about the prospect of how I can use blogs to further engage and interact with my students outside of a traditional classroom setting.
Until next time!