Outline Blogs

Universidad Autónoma de Chiriquí
Faculty of Humanities
School of English
English 420
Formal Presentation Preparation Outline
Speakers’ Name: Luz Sánchez - IsabelSaldaña - Eileen Rico - Daniela Villarreal
Topic: Blogs
Specific subject: Using Blogs in the classroom
Specific purpose: To inform my audience about the use of blogs in English
learning classrooms to enhance language learning.
Introduction
I. Attention getter: Have you ever thought about how using blogs
materials facilitate your learning experience? A February 2004 report
published by the Pew Internet & American Life Project noted that at least
3 million Americans have created blogs, with similar numbers being seen
world/wide.
II. Thesis statement: As a teacher, Blogs may be great educational tools
and they give students complete freedom to publish content on the web,
but if you don’t know how to effectively implement them into the
classroom, they’re only as good as wadded up balls of paper in the trash.
III. Preview of main points: In this presentation, we will provide you web
source information about the types, characteristics, usage, advantages,
disadvantages, supplies, and guidelines of using blogs in the classroom.
(Transition: Let us start by providing the definitions of the term blog).
Body

I. There are different definitions provided by authors about the term Blog.
A. According to Sergio Mora(2013) An education blog is a blog
(weblog) created for educational purposes. Offering a huge
instructional potential as an online resource.
B. Axel Burns (2017) affirms, “Weblogs, or blogs, are a particular form
and format for publishing a series of what are usually relatively brief
articles to a website, where they are listed in reverse chronological
order.”
C. The Use of Blog in EFL Teaching by Fernanda Gutter, (n.d),
affirms, “A blog is something rather simple; it is a type of website
usually arranged in chronological order from the most recent “post”
at the top of the main page to older entries toward the bottom.”
(Transition: Now that we explained the different definitions of Blog, we can
continue introducing the types of Blog)
II. As stated in the articles Weblogs for Use with ESL Classes (2003) and
Education Blog (2013) these are the types of blogs.
A. Instructor weblog: these weblogs are written by instructors and are
used as an additional communication channel to share information with
students. Instructor weblogs usually contain course content, course
management information, general commentary to all students about their
learning progress, etc.
B. Student weblog: weblogs written by students are basically learning
weblogs or project weblogs. A learning weblog is a learning diary, created
concurrently with the learning experience, and reporting on the learning

content as well as the process. A project weblog, often authored by a team
of students, documents the project progress and findings.
C. The Class Blog: This type of blog is the result of the collaborative effort
of an entire class. The following are some possible uses:
1. In conversation-based classes it could be used like a free-form bulletin
board for learners to post messages, images, and links related to
classroom discussion topics.
2. With intermediate and advanced learners, class blogs might also be
useful for facilitating project-based language learning, where learners
can be given the opportunity to develop research and writing skills by
being asked to create an online resource for others.
(Transition: After mentioning the types of blogs is time to look for its
characteristics)
III. The article 10 Elements of A Quality Blog Post: Tips for Teaching Students
from the edublogger by Katheleen Morris (2019) mentions some
characteristics for using blogs in the classroom.
A. A Great Title: Encourages students or visitors to read the blog.
B. Short Paragraphs: Many readers will just be scanning your post and if
they are presented with a big block of text, they may not read it at all.
C. Visuals or Multimedia as well as Text: High-quality posts include
more than just text; they have visuals as well.
D. Have Internal and External Links: Hyperlinks are the heart of the
web. They bring together various pages from different websites and your
own website.

E. Using Fonts and Colors: Many students love playing around with
different fonts, colors, and backgrounds.
F. Proofread: Before you publish, it’s important to check your spelling,
grammar, punctuation, and spacing.
G. Digital Citizenship: It’s great for readers tolearn a bit about you but it’s
important to avoid sharing too much information or personal details.
H. Using Categories and Tags: Tags and categories on posts are used to
help readers locate information in different ways.
I. Include Questions: Readers can leave feedback, offer constructive
criticism, or share new perspectives. This can help you grow and learn.
J. Have a Comment Section: This will encourage readers to keep
returning and interacting.
(Transition: Having mentioned the characteristics of Blogs we can talk about
the uses of Blogs in the EFL classroom)
IV. As stated in the article The Use of Weblogs in Higher Education: Benefits
and Barriers (2013) and How ToUse Blogs In the Classroom (2013) these
are uses for blogs.
A. Uses Of Blogs in the Classroom: There are many uses for
weblogs in many fields.
1. Providing commentary and opinions
2. Expressing deeply felt emotions
3. Articulating ideas through writing
4. Forming and maintaining community forums
5. Improving writing skills
6. Encouraging reflective writing
7. Sharing resources and ideas
8. Recording progress and process

9. Course administration.
10. Group work
B. Other Uses of Blogs
1. Teachers can use blogs to publish assignments, resources, and
keep students and even parents up to date on class events.
2. Teachers can also use blogs to help students’ master content
and improve their writing skills.
3. Students can use blogs to publish their writing and educate
others on a particular topic.
4. Students can also create blogs for the chess club or the
yearbook club, the football team or the upcoming prom.
V. The paper Blogging in the Language Classroom: It Doesn't "Simply Happen"
(2008) remarks some roles of Blogging.
A. Blogs as Conversations: Educators should facilitate the process of
establishing online conversations within oneself, among learners, with
other teachers, and possibly the world.
B. Blogging for Thinking Skills: Another aspect of blogging is the
promotion of higher order thinking skills. In order to establish a
conversation, to encourage people to comment on a certain topic, and to
construct knowledge collectively, students and teachers will have to go
beyond superficialities, posting entries that increase reflection, analysis,
discussion, and synthesis.
C. Blogging for Authentic Audience: Blogs allow all students to
participate in a discussion, opening up diverse perspectives. The
motivational aspect of realizing that one's voice echoes in distant parts of
the globe and is heard by others.

VI. The article Students and the Teacher’s Perceptions on Incorporating the Blog
Task and Peer Feedback into EFL Writing Classes Through Blogs (2016) gives
us some examples of roles of Blogs in the classroom.
A. EFL Writing Classes Through Blogs: Writing skills are supremely
important for students. However, they are not easily acquired, and
students need special training for writing in a foreign language.
B. Blogs as an Interactive, Motivating and Authentic Platform for
Teaching and Learning Writing: Through blogs students have the
opportunity to choose their topics and develop their writing in a personal
way.
(Transition: Now the roles of Blogs are explained we can continue with some
activities with Blogs we can put in use in the EFL classroom)
VII. According toHattie, J. (2017)thereare 10Classrooms Blogging IdeastoBoost
Engagement, which are:
A. Vlogging: Video blogging, or “vlogging,” is a great way to teach students
public speaking skills while engaging with educational material. Ask your
students an open-ended question about the learning material and require
them to record a short video reacting to the question.
B. Scavenger Hunt: Internet scavenger hunts are great for courses that
require students to engage in heavy research, such as STEM courses or
social sciences. Todo this with your students, post the questions that must
be answered for each scavenger hunt on your teacher blog. Students then
post their results on their blogs by the deadline. They are then required to
comment a specific number of times on classmates’posts and publish their
results by another deadline.

C. Online Debate: Choose one topic a weekand twostudents. Post the topic
on your blog. The student presenting the positive argument would then
post a response. The response can be written or prepared as a video.The
negative respondent then posts; so on and so forth.
D. Online Mock Trial: Another twist on a classic speech and debate
technique: put a character in a novel or a famous historical figure on trial.
Using classic mock trial scripts as your starting point, thepreamble for this
activity would be students conducting research to build their cases.
Students then post videos presenting their cases. The other students in
class cross-examine by posting comments on videos. The lawyers then
respond in class rather than online, carrying engagement over from
computer to classroom. The debate could then go on until a verdict is
reached.
E. Telephone: This blogging activity is perfect for engaging creative writing
students. You, as the instructor, start the story with a creative writing
prompt. To get the highest level of engagement and creativity from your
students, choose fiction prompts rather than reflection prompts.
You then write the introduction to the story and ask each student to
contribute a certain amount of words to the story. The first student to
respond must continue the story from where you left off, and so on.
F. Long Term Project: Provide loose guidelines for your students and let
them create blog and vlog posts that reflect their understanding of the
learning material.
Require a specific number of posts and responses for students. Remember
that requiring every student to respond to all of their peers’ posts will
reduce engagement—and you’ll end up with rote answers rather than
thoughtful ones. Always allow them to choose just 3 to 5 to respond to.
G. Creating Writing Portfolios: Encourage your students to set up their
own blog to record their creativity throughout the year in your classroom
and beyond. Teach them the techniques you want them to employ:
journaling, video essays, presentations, etc.; all of which can all contribute

to a full and impressive creative writing portfolio. Then let them run wild
with their imaginations.
H. Get To Know Your Network: Start this project during the first week of
school. Similar to the creative writing portfolio, this one requires minimal
direction. Simply requirestudents topost a minimum number of times per
week as well as respond a minimum number of times in the same period.
The content is also open for discussion and can focus on anything the
students want to talk about. It doesn’t have to be creative writing or art or
a presentation. It can be a video ranting about something that happened
at home. It could be a personal essay asking their classmates to answer a
question.
I. Classroom News Site: Choose a news vertical each week and ask your
students to post an article about a current event in that vertical. It can be
from local, state, national, or world news. You could also choose a subject:
sports, technology, human rights, etc.
J. How Am I Doing?: Asking students to evaluate your teaching methods
in class is one of the best ways to boost their concentration and
engagement. You are, in a way, providing a service, and they are your
customers. Allowing them the opportunity to give feedback can help them
be better students and, in turn, makes you a better teacher.
Setting strict parameters on this project will keep this classroom support
forum from turning into a free-for-all or negative comments. While you
might be inclined to allow students to post anonymously, don’t let them.
Knowing that their comments will be viewed by you and their classmates
encourages students to post constructive feedback.
(Transition: After having addressed the activities we can do with Blogs in the
classroom, it’s time we can move on to introduce the advantages and
disadvantages of Blogs for students and teachers.)

VIII. According to The Use of Weblogs in Higher Education: Benefits and Barriers
(2007) expresses the main advantages of using Blogs as follows:
A. Weblogs are easy toset up and administrate in contrast to other
technologies.
B. Weblogs make it easier to publish all types of resources (text, images,
video, etc.) to the Web when compared to traditional web publishing.
C. Weblogs can be updated easily, from anywhere without having to worry
about FTP connections, web authoring software, etc.
D. Instructor does not need to periodically request the learning logs to the
students.
E. Weblogs have the ability to reach a large audience without losing
information quality and allowing for different levels of detail.
F. 24/7 (anytime, anywhere) access to information posted in weblogs.
G. Weblogs can be updated easily, from anywhere without having to worry
about FTP connections, web authoring software, etc.
IX. The previously mentioned article also refers to some disadvantages that we
may encounter in the classroom environment.
A. Instructors may have difficulty in assessing student participation in the
weblog.
1. There are several indicators to take into account: group grading,
individual posting, quality of posts, etc., as well as subjectivity vs.
qualitative appreciation.
B. If the weblog is public, it may suffer troll infestations, people that
intentionally try to cause disruption by posting messages that are
inflammatory, insulting, incorrect, inaccurate, or offtopic, with the intent
of provoking a reaction from others.
C. The use of technology-based tools may be another barrier.
1. It can be of a structural nature, for instance lack of computers, or
difficult access to the Internet (as happens in Spain where the Internet
connection is quite expensive and slow).

2. Another source of disadvantage would be computer illiterate users,
especially in those countries with a wide digital divide.
(Transition: Next, we have the guidelines for the use of Blogs)
X. Nick Schaferhoff (2020) established some guidelines to start setting up your
own blog.
A. Choose your topic
B. Find the right blogging platform (WordPress)
C. Set up your blog through web hosting
D. Configure your blog
E. Design your blog by choosing a theme
F. Add logo, change colors and structure
G. Add/Write new blog posts and pages
(Transition: Now, let’s continue with the tips for proper Blogs use in the
classroom)
XI. In the article How to Use Blogs in the Classroom (2013) gives us some tips for
blogging in today’s classroom.
A. Guidelines and Expectations: Before starting an outline of your
blogging guidelines and expectations check with your school for a written
guideline. From here you can develop clear goals, guidelines, and
expectations for you and your students.
B. Integrate Classroom Curriculum: Blogging can be used across the
curriculum. From math and science to history and health, blogging is a
great way to take literacy across the curriculum.
C. English is for Everyone: Blogging not only requires subject knowledge,
it also takes good writing skills. Even if you are using blogging in a math
or science class, you should set some time aside to teach a bit of writing
and grammar.

D. The How to of Commenting: The comment section of a blog post is
where students can share thoughts and opinions and have a discussion
about the published content.
E. Be Realistic: Building a blog takes time so set your sights small. For
example, start off with a class blog focusing on one topic where students
can contribute posts under your supervision. Choose something the kids
are passionate about or want to raise awareness about.
F. Read other Blogs: Take the time to read other classroom and student
blogs. This will give you and your students concrete examples of the
finished product and give you ideas when creating your own blog.
G. Be Consistent: Blogging takes commitment. If posts are haphazardly
published, reader base and student interest will most likely decline.
H. Plagiarism: Explain to students that plagiarism will not be tolerated.
Student contributions must be their own work.
I. Network with other Bloggers: Encourage local and global
collaboration by having students’ network with bloggers and follow other
student blogs. Although it is important to give students a choice when
selecting a blog, they want tofollow, it is best toprovide them with a set of
criteria to help with their selection.
J. Dive into Social Media: If any of the blogs related to your classroom
are made public, then you’ll want to get more readership by connecting
your blog with social media sites, such as Facebook, Twitter,and Pinterest.
Word of mouth is always the best advertising.
K. Hang in there: As with most new ventures, there is also a learning curve
with blogging. Maneuvering platforms to create one or more blogs while
also monitoring student and class blogs can be time-consuming.
(Transition:After weknow thetips for a proper use of Blogs, we continue giving
some examples of Blogs).
XII. The site eLearning Industry (2013) provides a top 3 examples of blogging
platforms which teachers can implement in their classroom:

A. Edublog.com is the number one site for education blogs. It lets you
create and manage teacher and student websites. You can customize your
design and even add photos, videos, and podcasts.
B. Kidblog.com is a safe, secure publishing platform designed for grades k-
12. It’s free for up to 50 students per class. Some of the features include
no advertising, privacy, password-protected, no personal information
needed from students, and simple to use so students spend more time
publishing.
C. WordPress.org is a free blogging site and a good choice if your blogs go
public. There is no need to purchase a domain name (every blog has
“wordpress” in its title; for example myblog.wordpress.org. Although not
as simple to use as platforms designed specifically for educators, it has
some good features,such as numerous plug-ins that allow youtodo almost
anything you want with your blog.
(Transition: Now we are going to mention the equipment we need to create a
blog)
XIII. Based on our research the tools we need to create a blog are:
A. Electronic Device
B. Internet Connection
C. A blog generator
D. Navigation skills
(Transition: After addressing the equipments, we are now ready to know the
steps we need to follow to create a blog)
XIV. According to the article How to Create a Blog with Edublog, these are
steps we have tofollow to create a blog.

A. Go to the edublog website.
B. Sign up – provide a username, an email address and other details and
agree on the terms of use.
C. Click next and a new window will open where you can fill your blog's
details – title, address, blog type…
D. Then sign up
E. Go to your email to activate the account.
F. You will be directed to your page on edublog.
G. Type your password
H. You are ready touse your blog
Conclusion
I. ThesisStatement: As this essay corroborates, Blog as educational tools give
students completely freedom to share their experience in the language
learning process. Implementing blogs in the right way will allow students to
promote their autonomous learning.
II. Main points summary: Over this investigation, we show different types of
blogs with their characteristics, advantages, and disadvantages. Also, we
explained about guidelines to follow, activities and tips for blogging in today's
EFL classroom.
III. Opinion: For us as future teachers it is very important tofind different ways
to involve students in the learning process, and blogs are one of the best ways
to do it.

References
Arena, C. (2008). Blogging in the Language Classroom: It Doesn't "Simply
Happen".
Retrieved from https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ898140.pdf
Bruns, A. (2017). Blog. The Wiley-Blackwell Encyclopedia of Social Theory, 1–3.
Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118430873.est0578
Campbell, A.P. (2003). Weblogs for Use with ESL Classes. Retrieved from
http://iteslj.org/Techniques/Campbell-Weblogs.html7
Güttler, F. (2011). The use of blogs in EFL teaching.
Retrieved from
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/277043515_The_use_of_blo
gs_in_EFL_teaching
Hattie, J. (2017). 10 Classroom Blogging Ideas to Boost Engagement. Retrieved
from http://blog.whooosreading.org/classroom-blogging-ideas/
H.E. James (2017, February 28). 10 Classroom Blogging Ideas to Boost Engagement.
Whooo’s Reading Blog. http://blog.whooosreading.org/classroom-blogging-ideas/
Huang, C. (2016). Students and the Teacher’s Perceptions on Incorporating the
Blog Task and Peer Feedback into EFL Writing Classes Through Blogs.
Retrieved from https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1118492.pdf
Kamali, N. (n.d). The advantages and challenges of using blog in EFL writing
class. Retrieved from
https://www.academia.edu/1778054/The_advantages_and_challenges_
of_using_blog_in_EFL_writing_class

Luján-Mora, S. (2007). The Use of Weblogs in Higher Education: Benefits and
Barriers.
Retrieved from http://desarrolloweb.dlsi.ua.es/blogs/use-of-weblogs-in-
higher-education-benefits-and-barriers
Morris, K. (2019). 10 Elements of Quality Blogs Post: Teach for Teaching
Students. Retrieved from https://www.theedublogger.com/quality-posts-
students/
Pappas, C. (2013, September 26). How To Use Blogs In the Classroom. ELearning
Industry; eLearning Industry. https://elearningindustry.com/how-to-use-blogs-in-
the-classroom
RHALMI, M. (2010, February 16). Blogging - How to create a blog with Edublog. My
English Pages. https://www.myenglishpages.com/blog/how-to-create-a-blog-
with-edublog/
Scharferhoff, N. (2020) How to Start A Blog. Retrieved from
https://websitesetup.org/how-to-start-a-blog-guide/
Stannard, R. (2018). Using Blogging in Education in 2019-Full training #Blogs
[YouTube Video]. Retrieved from
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Y2K6tIk3mY

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