This is my final assignment for the E-learning and Digital Cultures course organized by the University of Edinburgh on www.coursera.org in February 2013. The assignment consists of two files. The first file includes a PowerPoint presentation dedicated to the use of blogs and blogging activities in the system of teaching English as a second/foreign language. The second file contains some theoretical materials related to the use of blogs in English language teaching, as well as my meditations and reflections on the use of blogging activities in my actual teaching practice. So both files are related to the same topic - the use of blogs as a form of online writing in the system of teaching English as a second/foreign language. So these materials refer to some extent to several important and up-to-date aspects discussed in the given course as "Communication technologies", "Open (and Opening) Education" and "The Meanings of Learning".

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Olga S. Muranova
Saint-Petersburg State University of Technology and Design,
Herzen State Pedagogical University (Russia, Saint-Petersburg)
Online Writing for Students and Teachers. Use of Blogs at ESL/EFL
Lessons
As we know, the word “blog” (short for “weblog”) means a frequently
updated website that often resembles an online journal. So blogs are tools on the
Web that enable people to publish their writing onto a website and allow a wider
audience to interact with it if the writer wishes it.
There are different types of blogs:
1. The Tutor Blog is run by the teacher of a class.
2. The Class Blog is a shared space, with teacher and students being
able to write to the main area.
3. The Learner Blog is the third type of blog and it requires more time
and effort from the teacher to both set up and moderate, but is probably the
most rewarding. It involves giving each student an individual blog.
4. The Photoblog – it implies using photographs in one’s blog (so it
seems to be a very good type of blogs for younger learners).
It’s quite easy to create and update a blog as it requires only basic access to
the Internet, and a minimum of technical know-how. Because of this, it is one of
the easiest ways to publish student writing on the World Wide Web. It’s almost as
easy as sending an email. Nowadays, blogs can also display photos. Therefore
some people prefer to use them with audio and even video. However, even a
simple text-based blog can be used to great effect with different categories of
English language learners.
There are many reasons why more and more teachers choose to use weblogs
with students. One of the main reasons is a possibility to provide a real audience
for student writing. Usually, the teacher is the only person who reads student
writing, and the focus of this reading is often made on form but not on content.
With weblogs, students can find themselves writing for a real audience that, apart
from the teacher, may include their peers, students from other classes, or even
other countries, their parents, and potentially anyone with access to the Internet.
In this article I would like to describe in what way we introduced blogging
activities at our lessons using LiveJournal activities as an example (
http://www.livejournal.com/ ). In most cases students were asked to organize a
blog of their own where they would be able to post the results of their homework,
new vocabulary for their home reading, the texts of their own essays, business
letters, CVs, and any other writing assignments. A bit later, at the stage of their
group work or work in teams, they could have a good possibility to see and
comment on the blog posts and assignments of each other, to ask each other and

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their teacher on-line some questions about the language material studied at the
lessons as well as to consult with each other about the activities and tasks which
they were supposed to do at the lessons or at home. Most of our activities like this
were based on preparing, reading and discussing textual blogs, – although from
time to time some focus could be also made on art (art blog), photographs
(photoblog), videos (video blogging, or vlogging), music (MP3 blog), and audio
(podcasting). When visiting a computer classroom, microblogging (that is
preparing very short posts) seemed to be well-applicable and rather effective too.
At the same time, keeping their own blogs enabled students to find pen-
friends from different cities and countries to be able to practice communication in
English together with them, or to be better-prepared for doing presentations and
participating in student conferences due to the regular opportunity to include in
their reports, stories and presentations different videos, photos, audio records and
other accompanying materials found on the Internet. Besides, organizing and
keeping students’ blogs gave us, teachers, a good chance to monitor and comment
on our students’ activities and their on-line communication with each other. Rather
often our students’ blogs served as a good base for preparing their e-portfolios
while helping the teacher to observe and evaluate his/her students' progress in the
process of learning and communicating in English. Probably, all this proves the
fact that keeping student blogs would make our work with students at the lessons
and especially beyond the classroom much more intensive, diverse and, in the long
run, more interesting and effective both for students and for teachers.
As our teaching practice shows, most of our university students are
especially interested in writing blog posts connected with traveling and trips, their
favorite musical bands and singers, different films which they’ve seen on TV or in
the cinema and their favorite personages of some popular books and films. A bit
more seldom they also seem to be rather enthusiastic about discussing in blogs
their hobbies, favorite football or some other sport teams, ways of spending
holidays, participation in some university events (including student KVN, sport
competitions, and so on) and national celebrations. As a rule, mostly it depends on
their age, future specialty, education and level of cultural or intellectual
development. In many cases using special blogs which are aimed at inspiring free
writing proves to be highly effective too. For example, a couple of years ago my
students aged from 13 to 17 wrote a detective story in the blog not seeing each
other. It was funny to watch how new absolutely unexpected ideas were born, or
how elves crawled into the detective story uninvited. Sometimes, when students
got stuck, I had to give them a hand, suggesting a new turn of a story, or some
minor idea. It was really great!
I should also mention here that at our actual lessons we usually introduce
blogging activities in those cases when we deal with at least intermediate students
learning conversational English. Very often students are supposed to prepare blogs
at home, so that at the lessons we might just discuss and use them for some other
activities. Nevertheless, due to having the Internet access almost everywhere and at
any necessary time the other students of the same groups (as well as their teachers)
can read their group-mates’ blogs not only at the lessons. It enables them to react

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to each other’s blogs more or less regularly, without the necessity to have the
access to them during our lessons. Probably, in some cases we have to put grades
and make blogging one of the conditions for getting their test-mark or permission
to take their English exam at the end of the semester, which makes them be more
active about starting and maintaining their own blogs or reacting to their group-
mates’ blogs.
If we speak about estimating student blog writing in more detail, I can say
that in some cases we prefer to assess our students’ blogs in the same way as we
usually do it with essays, personal or business letters, freewriting activities and
other kinds of student writing. This approach works well when students have
already got some experience of writing their own blog posts and reacting to their
group-mates’ blogs. However, very often we estimate not just the blog posts
themselves but the whole work of students based on their blogs. It can include
different preparatory and post-writing language and communicative tasks, writing
commentaries on others’ blogs, replying to the blogs of some other students,
managing blogs, etc. In this case blogs become not only the purpose of our lessons
but, first of all, an important medium which we can use for developing student
writing, reading and partially speaking or listening skills (if we take into account
pre- and post-writing discussions, dialogues and role-plays, etc.) and improving
their knowledge of grammar and vocabulary. Developing student creative and
critical thinking, imagination and logical thinking, or just enlarging their cultural
outlook becomes quite possible on the base of blogs as well.
Alongside with many benefits which blogging activities may bring to our
lessons, it is necessary to realize some difficulties which can arise when using
blogs at EFL/ESL lessons. For example, at first it usually takes some time to make
our students get involved and motivated for creating their own blogs. To be able to
achieve this purpose, we usually try to give our students at first some interesting
examples of blogs. In this case it is necessary to check that they are dedicated to
the topics which can be interesting and prospective for most of our current students
(for example, to the questions of people’s relations with each other, to the
impressions of some interesting traveling, or to various “fashionable” literary
works and films, and so on). It’s also desirable that such blogs should be written by
other students of the same or similar age. As a rule, we also use such examples for
some further discussions, role-plays or dialogues. A bit later they become a good
base for our students to start their own blogs dedicated to the same or any other
similar topic. After that it becomes more “real” and prospective to suggest our
students some new topics and situations on which students can comment in their
blogs. Rather often they are also encouraged to propose their own topics for
discussion in their further blog posts, which corresponds well with the learner-
centered approach. By the way, in this case after some time our students usually
begin to be not so timid about expressing their thoughts and emotions in their own
blog posts (just to some “optimal” extent, I suppose).
Another problem which may arise in the process of using blogging activities
is connected with possible cyber-bulling attacks. However, as we know, spam,
“rubbish messages” or pop-up-windows can appear anywhere on the Internet. So

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this problem becomes really acute in terms of using various Internet-resources and
facilities but not only for blogging. The same refers to using only appropriate blogs
which won’t “spoil” or distract our students’ attention too much. So I can assume
that the optimal way of preventing any dangerous situations connected with cyber-
bullying implies the necessity to conduct special lessons and conversations with
students about WEB-literacy and e-safety. Accepting and following a special set of
rules connected with the users’ safe behavior while surfing on the Internet can be
also very helpful in this case. Installing anti-viruses in all the computers applied at
the lessons is always necessary and up-to-date in such cases too.
One more issue which I should mention here is the necessity to involve
students not only in the process of writing their own blogs but also reading and
reacting to the blogs of their group-mates (otherwise this activity will lose much
sense, probably). They are supposed to agree or disagree with each other, comment
on each other’s ideas, ask and answer questions, propose any additional ideas,
express their attitude and opinion about the questions discussed, and so on. To
avoid the problem with student passiveness about reacting to their group-mates’
posts, we usually include in our tasks and activities such instructions as “Read and
respond at least to one (two, three, etc.) of your group-mates’ blogs”. Later, when
students get accustomed to reading and responding to their group-mates’ posts, it’s
already not so necessary to include this sentence in our tasks (although it’s still
possible to do it later as well, certainly). Besides, students can make questions to
their own blog posts for their further discussion at the lessons, or they can be asked
to make dialogues in pairs on the base of their latest blogs. Sure, it doesn’t take too
much time and energy “to invent” such post-writing group activities, so that
students should be stimulated to read and react to their group-mates’ blogs as well.
At the same time, when introducing blogging activities it is necessary to
realize that the teacher will need to spend some precious time on preparing
students to writing their own blogs, providing them with good initial examples of
blog posts and then – on reading and reacting to his/her students’ posts. It is
obvious that “inventing” and introducing some post-writing tasks will also take
some time. However, all these disadvantages are easily compensated with different
abovementioned benefits which using blogs can bring both to students and to us,
teachers.
In conclusion I would like to add that beside different student activities
blogs can be also used by EL teachers for publishing materials and tasks for their
students. Blogs can also contain information to help students develop their IT and
digital skills. One of the biggest advantages of blogs is that the readers of the sites
where they are posted can edit the content making some changes and additions.
This feature can be exploited by teachers for a variety of educational aims.
“History” of changes made to the content is very valuable in that respect that
teachers can monitor students' participation and contribution. And finally, it is a
free tool for teaching which embraces a wide spectrum of technologies (video,
audio, pictures, texts, PowerPoint presentations and many others). Furthermore, a
blog can become a handy tool to save classroom time or expand learning. It's an
opportunity to create learning beyond classroom situation, which makes blogging

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activities even more valuable and effective in our work with different categories of
English language learners.

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activities even more valuable and effective in our work with different categories of
English language learners.