TASK 4: WHAT'S a BLOG?

    In this society where we are surrounded by any type of information in many different websites, the particular characteristics that one can allow with a blog is to find the information in a chronological order and, especially, to allow for comments from the readers. The role of these comments is quite important since it provides feedback to the author of the blog and it possibly allows him/her to gather further information on the topic of interest. Blogs are also quite capable to integrate lots of media files and share the information there in social networks.

        Looking up for the meaning of blog in the Oxford Dictionary made me remember that this noun is an abbreviation of weblog. It can be thought as a diary or a digital magazine. This definition emphasises that blogs are regularly updated, as opposed to a website where the content is quite static, and that they are usually run either by an individual or by a small group of people, but they barely used by organisations or institutions. The Blog for English Teacher is an exception to this since it is runned by the publisher Oxford University Press. This blog is dessiged to be useful to anyone involved in English Language teaching, mostly useful resources for teachers. I think that this blog is quite professional and extremely useful, with very well defined categories and available to be followed in many social networks.

    Another example of a blog that can be an excellent source for teachers is the blog on Literature "Poesia Infantil i Juvenil" in both Valencian and Spanish. Another advantage of blogging is that one can usually find other blogs closely related to the actual one we are reading.

        The application and use of blogs as part of the dynamics of the classroom, allows to improve the feeling of belonging to a community which can increase the closeness of the relationship between students, it also encourages shy students to participate in a discussion outside the environment of the classroom. The latter is more associated with the Class Blogs.

    I find particularly interesting the idea of using the blog of each student as a portfolio of the course work (Learner´s Blog) as we do it here. I think that a blog can be a very useful tool to access this type of information of each student and improve writing and reading skills. An example of this type of blogs can be found in the Learning Portfolio for Primary School teachers, where students of the University of Alicante share their work on ICT in Nursery and Primary Schools.
    Using a blog in this sense or by commenting in the Tutor Blog, students can share their works and thoughts with their classmates. I like the idea of thinking that a blog is a virtual extension of my classroom.

    Blogs used in the educational context can be also viewed as a tool to provide information to parents of students of early ages of the delevopment and path of the course. A very important aim of blogging is that provides students ownership over their own learning and they can articulate their needs and inform about their learning.
        For the content of this whole course, I found particularly interesting the blog on CLIL by one of the coordinators of the Bilingual Program in Madrid and a researcher on this important and interesting area. I think this can be a useful blog in order to start diving into this world of CLIL.

        Here you can find some additional websites where one can find information about what a blog is and how to use it for pedagogical reasons:
 
http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/blog

http://edublogs.org/10-ways-to-use-your-edublog-to-teach/

http://www.educatorstechnology.com/2012/06/ultimate-guide-to-use-of-blogs-in.html