“Reflection on Blogging”

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One of the new methods in teaching, we were introduced by our tutor of English for Research in Spring semester is blogging. It is a disputable activity which raised positive and negative comments between contributors to the blog platform. The term ‘blogging’ will be explained in this essay, I also describe the pluses and minus of blogging from my experience, provide some recommendation.  

The blogging is the way of supporting, criticizing ideas or even adding new information on the internet. Blogging is also one of the methods of using technologies in the classroom, and learning how to employ technologies is a critical skill (Cummins&Sayers 1990, 1995 cited in Warschauer, 1997). The blogging is a great idea of using technologies and raising the issues that are relevant to the current situation, it is the change in teaching, making students to act in the form of writing blogs (Montgomery, 2015, p.2). The blogging in teaching is  “expressive, reflective and collaborative vehicles” (Lai, Chen, 2010, p.949). The blogging brings enjoyment in sharing ideas for others, because some of the information can be helpful (Lai, Chen, 2010). However, Lai and Chen (2010) also consider that blogging in schooling can be dangerous to the intellectual property, to students’ ideas expressing in cyberspace.  

The previous semester we wrote a lot of academic paper and the working schedule was more compressed and more stressful than in this semester of blog writing. What I really like in classes that the tutor works in cooperation with other professors and teach us what we need, for instance, how to apply the Bloom’s taxonomy in literature analysis. But this semester I was spending my time with reading that ‘stuff’ not connecting to the academic research. It seems to me that we are probing in being a blogger more than the academician. Probably, it is beneficial when you comment blog, to criticize or maintain the idea correctly. Anyway, I prefer to write challenging academic writing, practicing my writing skills for the research. Besides, I procrastinated a lot in this semester, as long as we were not obligated by the deadlines, you write blog any time you like and able to do it.

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I like the idea of blogging in teaching presented to us by our tutor. In my opinion, I would recommend the good idea of blogging for school, precisely, for the classes of English language, not for the English for research classes. The blogging is an informal platform where academic English does not need to be used. The school students are good in using technologies, they enjoy it. This is an excellent idea for shy students to express themselves, to be confident. In addition, the blogging should not be the main activity in class, it should be an entertaining, motivating, keeping the interest to learn English up.

In conclusion, I would say that somehow I enjoyed blogging. Definitely, I will practice blogging with my students, if I teach after graduation. The blogging is one of the key methods developing critical thinking in students. It is effective to reveal their potential, confidence, willingness to help with ideas/information.

Reference

Lai, H. M., & Chen, C. P. (2011). Factors influencing secondary school teachers’ adoption            
            of teaching blogs. Computers & Education, 56(4), 948-960.

Montgomery, D.P. (2015, April). Did you read my new post?: Improving autonomy, English

          and engagement through class blogs. Paper presented at The International Conference for         
          Building Cultural Bridges, Suleyman Demirel University. Kaskelen, Kazakhstan: ICBCB

Warschauer, M. (1997). Computer‐mediated collaborative learning: Theory and practice. The

          Modern Language Journal, 81(4), 470-481.