Internet-based technologies
for teaching LOTE
Using Blogs
What is a blog?
By definition a blog is a website with dated entries, presented in reverse chronological order, and published on the Internet. The word Blog comes from an amalgamation of the two words "web" and "log", which was the original name for a blog.
Paquet (2003) outlined the key features of a blog as:
- Personal editorship
- A hyperlinked posting structure
- Frequent updates
- Free public access to the content via the web
- Archived postings
Blog terminology
- Blogger: A person who maintains a blog
- Blogging: The act of contributing to a blog
- Blog-o-sphere: The collective world of blogs
Using a Blog in the LOTE Classroom
Group Blogs
Set up a blog that allows contributions from multiple users. It could be used to facilitate discussion, in the target language, by the students. They will also be able to link through to relevant websites and share ideas in a public space. Your responsibility would be to monitor the blog (you should be one of the users and the person to set it up), generate points of discussion and ensure it is being used properly. The blog may be used for one topic, unit of work, or even for a whole term/semester/year.
Publishing writing
A blog could be used as a forum for publishing students writing in a public forum, providing them with a real audience for their work. It is also possible for them to then receive feedback from users of the site. It is a great way to practice writing skills in their target language.
Journaling
There are a number of different journaling formats that could be used in a Blog format. If students are attending an excursion, going on a study tour or something similar, they could keep a journal detailing their experiences and critically reflecting on what has occured.
They can also use a Blog as a research journal, tracking the research process throughout an activity. Or they could use it as a learning journal, reflecting on their learning throughout the year.
To learn more about using Blogs in the classroom, read the following great articles:
- "Blogging to Learn"
- "On your mark, get set, Blog"
- "Teaching and Learning with blogs"
- "Guide to Blogging"
Some other valuable research that supports the use of Blogs in Language Education specifically include:
- "Web journals in lanaguage education"
- "Using blogs in the foreign language classroom"
- European Centre for Modern Languages study into using blogs in language classrooms
Where to blog
A number of secure blog sites have been established within the education sector for use by students and teachers in their blogging activities. These will often be the only blog site that are readily accessible through a schools secure server.
Visit Global Teacher to find out how to set up your own blog, and through that access Global Student to set up student blogs. Another alternative is another educational focused blogging site called Edublogs which provide you with the option of setting up four different types of blogs. Use the following document to guide you through the process of setting up your own blog.
Examples of LOTE blogs
- Cher my langs!
- Egg Deutsch
- Notre p'tit coin a nous
- Les formidables adventures d'un groupe de peluches
- Kirklandneuk Primary School
Using Wikis
What is a Wiki?
A Wiki is a website where the user can become the author. The term wiki is from a Hawaiian word meaning "quick", "fast" or "to hasten". This is in general reference to how quickly the content of a wiki can be changed and updated.
The most famous wiki is the online encyclopedia Wikipedia. Wikipedia has sites in English, French, German, Polish, Italian, Dutch, Spanish, Portuguese, Swedish & Japanese, a valuable resource for a LOTE teacher. However, always warn your students that the content of Wikipedia may not always be 100% accurate!
Wikis in the Classroom
Wiki's are a great tool for collaborative work. You can create a wiki based on a theme or topic that you are currently studying. You organise the layout of the wiki with relevant headings and some basic information for the topic you are studying and create a number of pages. Have your students contribute to the wiki as they discover new things about the topic, and in the end you will have not only a record of what the students have learnt, but evidence of how the learning occurred.
Some teachers may be a bit hesitant about using a wiki. There is some concern as how to prevent it from descending into chaos. You need to let go a little, a strong community ethic amongst your students should prevent things getting out of hand and you can monitor what is going on!
The key to the wiki is a strong sense of ownership by the students, this is their work. Should anything go wrong, you can roll back the wiki to a point before it was messed up. Wikipedia works in this way, with volunteers regularly monitoring changes, nasty contributions are prevented from getting through.
Where to Wiki
A great free wiki sites to use is Wikispaces. Wikispaces allows you to set up a wiki that is up to 2GB and allows you to set up a protected wiki where only those who have been given rights to the wiki can edit it's content. This means that you can be rest assured that your wiki cannot be vandalised, but it will still be able to be viewed by the wider community.
Another new site that provides free wiki's for education is PBWiki. It has all of the features of wikispaces, but is also advertisement free.