About Blogs

1. What is a blog?

Please watch Blogs in plain English



Common Craft. (November 9, 2007). Blogs in plain English [Video file]. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NN2I1pWXjXI

“Websites consisting of dated entries typically listed in reverse chronological order on a single page” (Kolari et al., 2006, p. 92).

Publishing, sharing, connecting, and more.

Three basic components of blogs (Stone, 2004): 1) Chronology; 2) Frequency; 3) Focus (a voice/a specific topic of interest)

2. What features do blogs have?

Multimodal Publishing (such as text, image, audio, and video)
Commenting
Creating a network (by following or being followed)
Creating a link (through a blogroll, a list of links to blogs)
And MORE

3. Pentials for SL/FL learning

Blogs may:

Promote self-expression (a strong authorial voice) (e.g., Huffaker, 2005; Oladi, 2005; Warsachauer & Grimes, 2007)

Promote interactive and collaborative learning (particularly reading and writing) (Godwin-Jones, 2003; Ferdig & Trammell, 2004)

Provide an authentic audience (Warschauer & Grimes, 2007)

Help learners transform their learner identities

“Offer content for the exploration of the various nuances, registers, and genres that exist within blog writing in the target language” (Murrary & Hourigan, 2008)

Provide meaningful tasks and extended readership (Skyes, Oskoz, & Thorne, 2008)

Enhance reading and writing (Ducate & Lomicka, 2005)

Intercultural competence development (Byram, 2000; Belz & Throne, 2006; Throne, 2006; Elola & Oskoz, 2008)

Develop and refine their general ICT skills (Murrary & Hourigan, 2008)

“Another advantage is the ability to exploit what many students are already doing for fun and connect this to their reading, writing, and learning” (Will, 2005).

4. Theoretical Perspectives

Expressivism; “promotes and encourages a sense of fluency” and “supports the development of the writer’s distinctive ‘creative voice’”. (Murrary & Hourigan, 2008, p. 87)

Communicative Language Teaching (CLT): meaning-based language learning in real communicative situations.

Sociocultural orientations of language learning:
-Learning as a social practice
-Language as a mediational tool
-Dialogism
-Learning as a participation process

5. Example Cases of Using Blogs

Non-dedicated CALLware (Murrary & Hourigan, 2008)

Ducate & Lomicka (2005): University foreign language classes; A travel project in which US and French students who were participating in an exchange program documented their travels; helped US students gain a better understanding of the other perspective/culture.

Hendron(2003) states:
-Blogs promote frequent entries
-Promote short succinct entries
-Encourage the use of headings for each entry
-Put emphasis on content and not web design
-Encourage discussion about material online (p. 4)