Using Blogs and Twitter in an EFL classrooms

 "Feedback, Collaboration, Community"

  In this post I will try to outline a sample EFL project that makes use of blogs and twitter as learning tools. My hypothetical situation is a group of teenage EFL learners who attend a course that develops learner's creative writing. Learners would be asked to read Margaret Mitchell's novel "Gone with the Wind" and write a sequel to it afterward . Each group of 3/4 students would write its own ending to Mitchell's unfinished novel and would post the sequals in a blog created specifically for this project. Learners of the group would have to read the sequals of other groups  and leave feedback be either adding comments in blogs or making updates in twitter. Each students would have to post at least one comment for each sequal. The sequals will be both peer-assessed in the form of peer comments and tutor assessed. The latter will mainly be in the form of comments on the content but will also include some feedback on the accuracy and the organization of the narrative. 

  The main challenge might be to overcome the learners' fear of writing creatively in a foreign language. Activities of pre-writing stage, such as introduction and practice of free writing, narrative, descriptive writing, may help to lessen the anxiety related to writing in English.

  This project would be aimed at fostering collaboration among the students and would help them to have a first hand, authentic practice in creative writing. The technology used would help to realize the project in a cost and time efficient manner.

Blogging and Microblogging

 "Blogs are much more than a diary",Will Richardson

    We live in a world where every person from every part of the world (where internet is accessible) can share his ideas with the rest of the world without having to pay anything. This is what blogs and microblogs have done for us. What's more, blogs have enabled us to comment and to discuss each others' ideas. Finally, we can spread  the information via as many channels as we have (Twitter, Facebook,etc). The world has never been flatter. 

  The potential of blogging for teaching purposes has scarcely been researched. However, the changing world requires changes in the way we view education as well. Bellow are some of the benefits and caveats I see in using blogs as a learning tools. 

Benifits 

a) authentic, worldwide audience

b) improvement of research skills

c) the opportunity to make choices about what to read

d) improvement of reading skills 

Caveats

a) a lot of messy, sometimes inappropriate content

b) distracting factor of social networks

c) the need to work a lot in front of the computer screen and not paper, which some people (including me) find demotivating

No one knows what the future holds. However, it's relatively easy to assume that blogs will most probably enter the field of education as well. Will they prove to be effective triggers of learning? With all the irrelevant but attention-grabbing and easily digestible information floating all over the net, I am a little uncertain of whether the learners will be able to concentrate on more serious and intellectually demanding topics.  In any case, time will show.