Blogging Experience and Reflection

Dreams come true
This is blog, “Cherrie”, is my first “English” blog. Having a blog which is about English teaching and learning is what I’ve been dreaming of. It’s great to realize my dream though the process of constructing it is actually a CHALLENGE. I am really not good at using computers, not to mention having an English blog. But now, I have a sense of fulfillment to see my own blog even though it is not good enough.


Intro. to Cherrie
When you get into my blog, you will see a picture of my favorite doll. Then the following are the labels which I use to classify my postings. Almost all the postings are related to the course I take called “Online English Learning.” Then, the session of “I need something new” are websites that I visit very often, so I put the links in my blogs to make it easier for me to get access to them. As to the section of “Role Models”, they are some English learning blogs/websites. I expect my own blog can be as good as those ones. Ha~ then, the following is a news scrolling sidebar. Oh, I have a story to say about this news scrolling sidebar. This news function was downloaded from widgetmate.com. Well, the story goes like this, one day, when I was checking my e-mail, I found a letter from a person named Alex Smith. He said that he likes my blog, and he thinks maybe I would like to add the news function from widgetmate, so he suggested me to give it a try. I was really surprised his praises because I do not think my blog is not that good as he thought. But to be honest, I was really happy to know that there are some other people (except my classmates and my friends) visit and like my blog. Alex Smith’s letter not only gave me another kind of motivation to run my blog, but also remind me again that what I post in my bolg can really be seen all over the world! So, I have to think twice before I post everything. Then, there are some video clips. Whoever I think I need to relax and see something interesting, I will click on those great clips. And the last section, “whisper to me”, in the sidebar is a forum for my dear visitors. You may leave anything to me in that forum. Among all the functions in the sidebar, there are three functions in my blog that I feel proud of. They are a clock a news scrolling sidebar, and a forum. The reason why I feel proud of them is not because they are special; in fact, they are just quite basic functions in blogs. My proud comes from that I spent hours and hours to figure out how to find or create those things. Besides, I tried tens of thousands of times to add the HTML codes in the correct form. This might be an easy task for the average people, but for me, this is tough than even you can imagine. Anyway, I did it. And I will try some more and add more functions in my blog to enrich it.


Learn something from blog
One year ago, I had a Chinese blog, “巧瑞兒”, that was an assignment of the educational courses. That was my first time to know “blog.” I set the blog under the instruction of the teacher, that is, I followed the teacher’s instruction to finish that blog. Though I accomplished that blog myself, I did not really learn a lot from that because I just did the “steps” that the teacher had already arranged for us. Compare to 巧瑞兒, the blog “Cherrie” was finished by my own exploration, so I think I really learn something from this experience. I think Emma give me a precious notion: you have to try by yourself!!! Just try!!! Though “try and try” took me a lot of time, I think it’s worthwhile for me to do so when I find that I am not so poorrrrrrrr in computer as before. The saying goes like this, “practice makes perfect.” For me, I think “try and try; fail and fail make perfect.”


Words to push myself
All in all, I’ve learned a lot from blogging. Nevertheless, there is much room for improvement. I expect myself to maintain the enthusiasm and confidence in running my blog for keep it progressing. Most importantly, I hope I can see my own progress from it !!!

Top 3 EFL blogs in my mind!

Let me introduce you to my favorite three EFL weblogs!

★ kidding Me
Among all the EFL blogs that I’ve paid a visit to before, this one is my favorite. Though this blog is not completely related to English learning (Febie also uses this blog to record things in daily life), as an English learner, I think this blog has great attraction to me. My own definition of a good weblog is that it has to make people “feel close” to it. I can not give you a specific reason why I think kidding me has such charm for me, maybe that’s because I like the style and the manner Febie organized this blog. Febie clearly classified the blog into several sections, such as “recent posts”, “recent comments”, “photo albums”, “other English teachers’ blogs”, etc. And also, she used various labels to make every section in order. Searching for the links the meet my needs is not difficult at all. Febie not only shares her teaching reflections but also her unique hand-made teaching aids to us through both pictures and words. From my point of view, it’s important to match the pictures and words well because that would make the posting attractive and persuasive. By the way, I love those teaching aids so much because they are full of creativity and they are actually quite delicate! How I wish I can also come up some special ideas to make fascinating teaching aids!

*Presentation: It uses sections to classify the blog and each section brings learners to different topic/theme they want. Besides, it uses labels to make the postings clear to learners. The format and the organization of the blog are friendly to learners.

*Appropriateness: This blog is not really designed for the students who want to “learn English”. Instead, this blog is more beneficial to English teachers, or people who intend to know more about English teaching. So, for English learners, this blog is not so useful.

*Outcomes: Learners have more opportunities and access to communicate and share their experiences with other English teachers.

*Notes: this blog gives people a concept that making teaching aids is fun and helpful for young learners. Oh~I want to try it by myself!

★

Penny ABC
The link I provide here is a website, not a weblog. But there are many links in this website, including penny’s blogs. From Penny’s website and weblogs, we can know that Penny teaches in cram school and she has collected considerably rich teaching and learning. I believe that both instructors and learners can benefit a lot from the database. In Penny’s blogs, she recorded her student’s learning with words and pictures. From her postings, we can know Penny really cares about whether students learned something from each activity. Besides, we can see some visual and audio clips made by Penny from her website and blogs. And this feature makes Penny’s blogs much more interesting and beneficial to learners!

*Presentation: It uses clear instructions and links to lead the lerners to the sections they want, such as the links to other blogs which also run by Penny.

*Appropriateness: From the blog/website, we can know how students learn, and the different ways which Penny applies to her teaching. I think the blog/website are designed for both the instructors and learners. So, I recommend teachers and students to pay the blog/website a visit!

*Outcomes: both teachers and students can obtain some knowledge they want, and also share the teaching/learning experiences.

*Notes: I think this blog really “digitalize” English learning. It sets a good example for English teachers who want to set this kind of database.

★ Cindy 魔法ABC
The style of this blog is quite like Kidding Me which I’ve introduced before, but this one looks not as complicated as Kidding Me. This blog was also organized well with clear sections and labels. Besides, different from Febie, Cindy tends to find some actual materials in life, instead of making her own teaching aids. I am amazed and surprised to see how Cindy turned those ordinary objects to magical teaching aids. But it’s pity that there are not many posting in the blog. And most posting do not have lots of words to explain the pictures. I think it would be better if Cindy can share more her reflections or her ways of teaching.

*Presentation: The style of this blog is quite similar to kidding me. It uses sections to classify the blog and each section brings learners to different topic/theme they want. Besides, it uses labels to make the postings clear to learners. The format and the organization of the blog are friendly to learners.

*Appropriateness: This blog focus more on sharing the teaching experiences rather than proving some new ideas about teaching and learning. So, this blog actually does not give teachers definite thoughts about the ways of teaching.

*Outcomes: the content of the postings are not much. Mostly, we have to get the meanings of the postings from the pictures Cindy provided.

*Notes: if Cindy can try to write more in her postings, I think it would be much better for us to the reason/motivation of using those teaching aids.

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After seriously thinking about why I like the three EFL weblog so much, I find out that sometimes it’s hard to use the criteria and principles to judge whether you like this blog or not. Somehow, you just like, but you cannot figure a definite reason to account for that. And I wonder that does everybody have the same feeling or just me? Ha, maybe I am not that kind of “rational” person. :)

2007/5/11Discussion : weblogs

1. Discuss principles for designing English teaching and learning weblogs with team members Our group thinks that the principles of an English learning weblog should be the use of “multimedia”, the “links” of wide range of information, a platform for posting and receiving “comments” from other participants, and a way to “evaluate” the effectiveness of their learning.Compared to the traditional classroom learning, English learning weblog has the characteristics of online learning, which provides more time and space for learners to think, offers hypertexts for learners to absorb more information if they want, works with multimedia contents to attract learners’ attention.Besides, using the form of weblog, learners can receive immediate articles from that English learning weblog through “RSS.”For example, when an English learner gets into a weblog, he/she will browse a lot of online articles with links and multimedia contents to learn English. Then, he/she is allowed to post his/her personal opinions there, he/she can even give the response to other postings, certainly, he/she can receive the feedback for other participants, so that the learning process involves a kind of interaction of knowledge, instead of just one-way input for a learner. Finally, after learning from the weblog, he/she can receive the updated information from that weblog immediately in their personal blogs.

2. Discuss criteria for evaluating ESL/EFL weblogs with team members. **Multimedia : This is a very basic and important component for a weblog because students can find the most appropriate way of learning. That is, the weblog provide various media to facilitate students’ English learning. If there is no multimedia in a weblog, then, it just has a few differences between those traditional learning materials.

**Comments : To judge whether a weblog is good or not, we can take a careful look at the comments from the visitors. These feedback can provide more objective views of the weblog. In other words, we can also know the advantages and disadvantages of this weblog. Besides, comments can inspire the designer of the weblog to make his or her weblog better.

**Information links(hypertext) : The greatest difference between traditional learning materials is that hypertext can make student’s reading much more efficient. Students do not have to flip through many books to obtain knowledge. They just have to click on the links, than, they can explore as many as other websites or weblogs they want.

**Quizzes/ Tasks : It’s very important for an English learning weblog to have such criteria. In that way, students could have the opportunities to check what they have learned. Most importantly, by taking some quizzes or tasks, students can get to know what else they need to put more emphasis on.

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.