Li_Blogger

= // Using Blogger in the ESL Classroom // = ** Welcome to Sha Li's Technology Presentation! ** ** Meet the Presenter! ** Hello, My name is Sha Li. I am currently a full-time doctoral student at the College of Education in University of Akron. I completed my masters' degree in Educational Foundations at UAkron in 2013. This is the last course I am taking in Instructional Technology Master's Program. My areas of specialization for my Ph.D program is TESOL and IT. I enjoyed finding ways to implement different technology tools to promote learning and teaching for English language learners. This is also my main focus in my dissertation in which to investigate how sheltered instruction teachers use digital technology in their classroom to teach language and content to English learners. In the future, I want to apply what I have learned through this program together with my knowledge and experiences working with English language learners to better assist ELL's learning in language and content.

** Topic ** The technology topic I would like to present will be Blogger. Blogger is a free Google-powered weblogs that provides a platform for people to create blogs, post text and pictures, and generate comments in minutes. The reason why I decided to use Blogger for my presentation is that I have some experiences of using it in my Ed Tech class and I would like to explore more creative and practical features and uses of Blogger for the ESL classroom. Blogger makes it easier for teachers to create their own homepage to extend course information, post homework assignments and resources, and keep parents up-to-date on class happenings. Also, Blogger makes it easier for students to share school works with peers, parents, and teachers. It allows students to collaborate on projects with peers. Teachers can create a specific content related blog for instruction or classroom activities. An ESL instructor, for instance, could post some images and some writing guiding prompts on the blog to guide students for practicing their writing.

Presentation 3 videos will be presented here. The first video is to introduce you the basic features of Blogger, and the second focuses particularly on possible ways of using Blogger in the ESL settings by examples.

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Articles  [|Blogger in the classroom]   Using Blogs to Promote writing skills in ESL classroom   Blogging in the ESL/EFL classroom  Creating and using a blog to enhance Math & Science

Content uses of this technology Webblogging has been widely used for many years since technology has been highly encouraged by school and education departments. So I believe there should be a great deal of ideas of how to use it in your content area. This video shows how I have used it in my classroom and another example of how an ESL teacher used for the writing class.

Teachers' personal blog- Teachers can set up a personal homepage, a blog that can function as a method to communicate with other teachers, exchanging ideas in teaching. It also can be used as a method to his or her students with announcements, school assignments, comments, questions, etc.

Class blog- teachers can generate a content specific blog for a lesson or a project based class activity. Students can work collaboratively on projects with peers. It can also function as extending course information, assigning extra practicing materials, etc. Students can post and comment on each other, and provide constructive feedback in a safe learning community.

Student-generate blog- once students are familiar with the features of Blogger, they can write their own blog entries and share it with peers and new friends.

Webquest- Teachers can create webquest on blogger where students go investigate different resources online and practice their problem solving skills together.

Pedagogical Considerations for this technology   __ISTE Standards for Students: __

 Creativity and Inovation: Students demonstrate creative thinking, construct knowledge, and develop innovative products and processes using technology.Use models and simulations to explore complex systems and issues.

Communication and Collaboration: Students use digital media and environments to communicate and work collaboratively, including at a distance, to support individual learning and contribute to the learning of others.

Digital Citizenship: advocate and practice safe, legal, and responsible use of information and technology

Critical thinking, problem solving, and decision making: students collect and analyze data to identify solutions and/or make informed decisions. Blogger is free and connected to Google account. It is easy to set up. The greatest part of it is that you can customize it to meet the purpose of your lesson objectives. It is not only a platform to present the information, but also a place where it allows for teachers to create a safe social network, use project-based learning pedagogy, and provide great distance learning opportunities and learning community online.

Where to purchase or acquire. As far as I know, Blogger is completely FREE to anyone and connected with Google account. As long as you have internet access and Google account, you can easily sign it up and design the blog in your way.