blogging nerves

doing some reading around different literacies, I've been thinking about blogs and how/where they fit. what are the conventions of blogging? having noticed that my student's comment on my blog used shortened forms (familar for email and texts) and very imformal punctuation (as i do with lack of capital letters). At what stage of my blogging history did my writing change/adapt? when i'm writing i do go back to change spelling errors, etc, but i would think that i still follow many of the conventions of writing Standard English.

i've been particulary thinking about why i was so nervous about using blogs in the class. i was never really sure how the students would react to every lesson starting/ending with posting (creating a new consevatism in my sessions? - Breen) but what other norms do i have in my class. Often i will email the students a rough outline of plans for the class, often with links to the work they would be doing. by 10am (to allow late-comers and logging on) i usually gather the group together and do some kind of activity (linked to either my session or something their other tutors have been doing) before then splitting off again into groups/pairs/individuals.

i also do very little individual work in this class. when i was planning thier exam prep classes this usually involved my talking to their personal tutor about particular grammar/skill weaknesses then researching links to Internet quizzes from which they could choose to complete. It almost felt like a cop-out, like i wasn;t 'teaching'. Yet at one time (b4 my involvement in the ICT Effective Practice Study) this was the structure of the majority of my lessons (my inherent conservatism?)

so i was nervous about using blogs as i was uncertain that this new conservatism i was creating would not be well recieved by the studnets, that they wouldn't see the value of it and i wasn't confident that i could 'sell' it to them.

how will i feel about it next year? i'll have L1 and L2 CALL classes AND be personal tutor to an E3 group. How will the different levels cope with it?

happy blogger

another of my students has posted a comment on my blog. hurrah!! :-) we had our end of year party this morning and the class had got cards and flowers for all thier tutors and stood in front of all the ESOL students to present them. Many of them won;t return as they have taken their L2 exams and it's time to move on. it was a little tearful. I will realy miss them. i've had a really good year this year doing the CALL class, they ahve been really open and receptive to most things that i ahve tried with them. (everything except the writing of student life on the bbc i think!)
i almost can't believe how the blogs have worked out. it was on;y 2 weeks ago on my live chat that i happened to mention the blogs, then the tutor suggested that i could do my assignment around them. the next day was my final class with the group so i prepared the evaluation lesson. i think there really is quite a lot to be said about them.
one thing i have noticed at first glance at sabir's comment is the informality of his text. he has minimal use of capitals (i i ahve in my posts) he has used slang (rite, coz). i will look more closely but i didn;t notice this at all in his (or the others) postings.
i really hope they do continue to use the blogs and to enjoy them. they really a great medium.

weary blogger

i am so incredab;y tired. been to liverpool on the college trip today and i am wipped, who would have thought this would be more tiring than a normal day of teaching?
i am going to use the student blogs as the basis for my next assignment for my ESOL debates module. i am a little unsure what the main focus of the assignment will be, but it has been a really interesting experience so it's worth exploring.
i did a group interview for my last class with my Lr group, and we talked about literacy in L1 and L2, learning english in their own country, and an evaluation of using blogs. I had been disappointed in the fact that the students hadn;t continued to use their blogs in their own time, but they gave 2 reasons for this. One was that they were unsure what to write (on class i always gave them topic ideas) and secondly that they were embarrassed about thier english and the mistakes they make. This was really intersting as i had never checked their blogs for errors, comments were always about content. Although we had never overtly talked about this they hadn;t picked up on it either way. they didn;t notice that i wasn't proof reading thier work, or encouraging them to proof read their own, nor were they conciously aware that i wasn;t proff reading.
how has using blogs improved their literacy in L2? this is a more difficult question to answer. I didn;t do any pre- or post- assessment tasks, all i have is thier blogs themselves. one of my main aims for using the blogs was for them to record their thoughts and ideas, and to write in English for fluency rather than for accuracy. a blog is an ideal medium for this.
how much does it being a global medium influence it's impact? how would it have differed had i asked them to keep a paper journal? I wouldn;t have been able to comment at any time, nor would they have been able to comment on each others. other staff/tutors wouldn;t have been able to read and commetn and the studnets wouldn;t have been able to read blogs from around the globe.
i would like to think about other ways that blogs can be incorporated into the classroom. there are so many around now. the guardian news blog would be an interesting medium to explore.