WHY ??

A vision of students today

BecauseBlogs are…

Free Environmentally

friendly

Easy!Can be done/accessed

anywhere at anytime

Flexible!

Done collaborativelyPromoting a sense

of belonging

Fun

Varied (multiple intelligences + digital competence)

Challenging

A way of sharing with others

BLOGS CAN…

Present material to digital natives in a way

that is familiar

Provide more learning opportunities.

Increase exposure to authentic language Teach higher order

thinking skills(see Bloom’s taxonomy)

Provide students with a real audience

Allow for self-directed and

independent learning.

Share information with school community

(family, friends, teacher, heads, etc)Keep a record of

resources and activities.

Your blog can become a multimedia coursebook.

HOW???

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1. Establish clear guidelines

2. Choose your Layout

Pluginsfonts clipart

3. Use different pages

They give your blog a“website” look!

Some ideas:Our class

Who we areHomeworkE-library

4. Organise your Sidebar Make your blog’s layout as clear and easy to navigate as possible. Make sure students know how to access information. Use tags!!

Use tags

Usecategories

How can I find

what I want??

Some possible categories Videos Links of interest Grammar practice Fun zone! Our blogs

4.Make it collaborately

You can disable them Or you can moderate them.

Iif you want your blog to be more interactive, allow for sts contributions.

B- Make students take an active role

Polls, Opinions, Messages, Riddles, contributions, announcements

A- Profit from Comments

5. Add widgets & gadgets

www.thewidgetbox.comwww.googlewidget.com

Dictionarieshttp://dictionary.cambridge.org/freesearch.html

A class calendarwww.google.com/calendar

News flashWeather

CountdownsSearch options within blog

Some ideas:

www.Polldaddy.comwww.Wallwisher.com

www.photobabble.comwww.slideshare.comwww.webquest.org

www.maps.google.es/

6. Make full use of the web

I. Upload the material you want o use

II. Select sources for sts to look for information

I. Organise sts work

Use Webquests

7. Make it a place to learn

8. ADD Awards

Star Student Helpers of the weekWord of the day

Voice recordingsMaps

Messages Videos

Webquests/Questionnaires

Grammar/ vocab practice

Fun activitiesSounds (Tongue twisters!)

Jokes Riddles

GamesSongsLinks

Powerpoint presentationsImagesMore…

8. Become…

Digital teachers

Bloom's Revised Taxonomy Sub Categories

Creating - designing, constructing, planning, producing, inventing, devising, making

Evaluating - Checking, hypothesising, critiquing, Experimenting, judging, testing, Detecting, Monitoring

Analysing - Comparing, organising, deconstructing, Attributing, outlining, finding, structuring, integrating Applying - Implementing, carrying out, using,

executing Understanding - Interpreting, Summarising, inferring,

paraphrasing, classifying, comparing, explaining, exemplifying

Remembering - Recognising, listing, describing, identifying, retrieving, naming, locating, finding

Bloom's Revised Taxonomy Sub Categories