Intro. to Weblog

– Understand the weblog and its applications What is the weblog? What are some popular English learning weblogs?
This is the definition of blog (from Wikipedia).
To be honest, I do not know many English learning weblogs because I am still not accustomed to learn English by visiting others’ blogs. I just visit some English websites, selecting something that can arouse my interests. But today I found some weblogs which are about English learning. I cannot promise these are “good” English learning webblogs, but at least, I love them so much. The designers of these weblogs are English teachers, and I think I can see how much they’ve devoted to English teaching by seeing their weblogs.
Kidding me (I love it sooooo much!)
Bonie House
Cindy 魔法
Penny英語教學

– Understand specific weblog features and functions. What can the weblog do compared to the traditional English learning website? What are RSS/ permalinks/ trackback?
Not until Mei-Ya asked us to think about this question, did I really try to differentiate these two seriously. Compare to websites, weblogs provide us with other useful and friendly services which can produce more interactions! Though some special features, such as RSS / permalinks/ trackback, we can share and acquire knowledge much easier than before! Permit me to give you some ideas about these features. (from Wikipedia)
RSS
Permalink
Trackback

–Explore blog features and use them in your blog. How can team blog functions (e.g., comments, moderation, trackback, and pingback) support English reading and writing? How can multimedia presentation (e.g., pictures, and videos, and audio) support English listening and speaking?
Among four functions mentioned above, I do believe that they can facilitate English learning. In particular, I think “trackback” can practice reading ability while “comments” can sharpen writing skills. If you want to apply the function of trackback, it means that you’ve already fully understood and agreed with those articles. In the process of assess whether the article is beneficial for you or not, you have to read very carefully, that is, good reading ability is required in this process. As for giving comments, I consider it’s just like an art of writhing. It’s not an easy task to give appropriate and constructive comments because you have to be very careful not to hurt others’ feelings when you try to give some suggestions. So, writing skills are very critical in giving comments.
It goes without saying that multimedia presentation can support English listening and speaking especially when you are trying to integrate those technologies into your learning. To be more specific, you have to know why and how the multimedia can make you learn better before you decide to take them as learning tools. Most video clips in blogs or youtube have no subtitles. Though you get the general ideas of the clips, you would get more detailed and complete information if you have the ability to listen carefully to the dialogue or explanations in the videos. And also, speaking ability is very important especially when you want to introduce both these multimedia and your own opinion about them to others. In other words, it might be hard for you to persuade how fantastic those multimedia are if you do not know how to describe them properly.