Alexandre Oliveira

CTJ Online Web Tools for Educators

[alexctj]

Alex Blog Auditing Reflection

The highlight of my blogging auditing was the realization that I am not a blogger, nor do I intend to become one.  I mean, we have all heard about the blogosphere and how powerful it becomes every day, and we are all on board with the importance of connecting and sharing and elearning in our new, digitally connected world.  I do see the value in learning more about blogging and in developing more of a critical eye for evaluating blogs.  However, same as I was never one to write diaries, I do not find the need to, nor do I seek to develop the discipline or to find the time to write extensively on a blog on a regular basis.

My teaching blog, as I have mentioned previously, came into existence out of my need to have an easy-to-access place where my students could be sure to find certain material I needed them to view in preparation for or as an expansion to topics discussed in our classes.  I am not, I am afraid, that much interested in ‘sharing my wisdom’ with the world, if you will.  I have a full time job, and I am very happy with it, and it takes all my time.

I did learn a lot from this week’s activities.  Not only have a learned about interesting blogs out there from my classmates, but I have also grown in my understanding of the science behind blogging and how much more complex it has gotten as technology and digital culture have evolved.  That is only natural.

As for changes to my blog, I do intend to make some.  Mostly, I intend to change how I use it: instead of just putting material there for students to access, I will start moving some of my students’ writing to the blog, so that everyone in the class can read and comment on everyone else’s ideas.  As for making my blog more appealing visually, adding widgets, counting visitors, and the like…. Those are not high priorities for me with my teaching blog.  I do not seek to build an audience for the blog outside my classes.  My goal with my teaching blog is to have it be a serviceable page where my students and I can have an extension of the classroom.  I will probably require them to post to the blog regularly, maybe one reflection per topic covered in class, and I will require them to post at least one comment to someone else’s postings.

[alexctj]

Alex Blogging Reflection

I chose this picture for my Blogging Reflection illustration because it symbolizes new clarity.  Sunlight shines on the waters making them clear.  After completing all the activities for Week 5 on Blogging, it seems very clear to me that there is no better place these days for the writing component of the EFL class to go than blogs, or a good portion of it anyways.  Clearly, if the tools are available and if teachers and students are comfortable with them, why not equip every class curriculum with blogging.  We do want students to reflect and build upon classroom activities outside the classroom; we do want and need for them to do writing; we do see the benefit of making at least part of that writing (and the reading, reflecting, and learning that necessarily go with it) visible for the benefit of the whole group.

So, how about this: next time I teach a physical Legal English class, which should be this coming August, I will matter-of-factedly include a blogging component to it.  I will make it a class blog, where all students will be required to post at least one reflection on each topic/case discussed.  They will also be required to comment on at least one other post per topic/case.  It will be asy to keep track of and grade, and it will require no extra work for me, the teacher.  After all, that will replace the writing per topic I require them to complete anyway, the only change is that the writing and my reply to it will be shared on the blog.  Maybe I will keep the corrections private.

Since we are all going to be linked up on Web 2.0 for ever, I will let you all know how it goes then .....

[alexctj]

Yahoo Tumblr

From the Harvard Business Review:

http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2013/05/yahoo_tumblr_and_the_loyalty_f.html?cm_sp=blog_flyout-_-cs-_-yahoo_tumblr_and_the_loyalty_f

[alexctj]

Incidentally...

Did anyone see this:

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/business/jan-june13/yahoo_05-20.html

[webtoolsforeducators]

I believe students of all ages learn by DOING… motivation and engagement are lowest when students are expected to simply remain passive and ‘pay attention’ to a teacher! Under such circumstances I believe very little learning takes place, yet that is what tends to happen 90% of the time in...

[alexctj]

Hi, Graeme.

I enjoyed reading your reflections.  I am still not sure I have been able to join the tumbler blog; I don't seem to be able to post to it yet.  So as I respond to your post I may provide some of my own reflections as well.  I hope that is OK.

I ennjoyed learning about the ways in which you have been incorporating Web2.0 technology into your teaching, the projects you have going.  Thanks for sharing you experience.  I was reminded that the tools of Web 2.0 are just that tools.  As such, they can be used in different ways, to a greater or lesser degree of effectiveness, like a blackboard, or the paper bulletin borads in a classroom.  The trick, then, is that as long as tools exist, one needs to learn how they work and explore/experiment with what result possibilities they provide so that one can use them effectively.  That is something else that the Internet revolution has not changed about schools and teachers.  We have always been in the business of learning and experimenting with tools that can help us better engage and educate our students.  We all had to learn how to use the white board, and the computer itself...  It just so happens, that much of the world and life today takes palce on the digital domain, creating all the wonderful life possibilities we know about, for interacting, for learning, and sharing, and our Internet native students come to the classroom having already been aculturated to a life that includes the digital.  Asking them to leave their digital selves out of the classroom seems to be fast becoming a sure-fire way to ensure they do turn off or tune out.  I guess what I am saying is that, as I read about your efforts to incorporate technology, like gamification, and all the different tools being incorported to the curriculum, I do sort of cringe at how much there is to do, but I also resign myself to the fact that we have no choice, it has just become part of life and so part of the job.

[webtoolsforeducators]

Karé’s Week 2 reflections:

I believe my students learn by using the structures and vocabulary they are exposed to when they are motivated! They learn when they can make sense of whatever they’re seeing and when they start to risk their own usages to produce something that’s meaningful to them....

[alexctj]

Hi, Kare.

I am still stumbling on tumblr, not sure I have joined the collaborative blog.  I cannot locate my invitation email.

In any case, again with the safari material and the Will Richardson interview, one thing that resonates with me is this notion that, also when it comes to Web2.0 technologies/tools, the traditinal role of education/teachers/schools is to serve as that knowledgeable model or mentor, that can provide an ethical, civic, academic, lifelong-learning, scientificcompass for that positive and effective digital footprint we hope learners will develop.

In that sense, I mean, that is one aspect of school education that never changes:  School must contribute to the individual's genral education (value-guided understanding and experience) and preparedness for the world we live in.  Therefore, in today's world, school and teachers should be equipped to set those parameters, and to guide learners into participation in the digital world.  Otherwise, it would be like saying that students have to learn Web2.0 on the street, so to speak.  I mean, schools and teachers cannot abdicate that responsibility, right?