Málfríður - 15.10.2008, Blaðsíða 10

10 MÁLFRÍÐUR
few days in order to prevent an overflow of unread, 
uncommented new blog entries.
However,  I  managed  to  get  over  my  fears,  and 
have  successfully  incorporated  a  blogging  assign-
ment into the course component of my undergradu-
ate level courses. 
The language courses I teach at the University of 
Reykjavík  follow  a  continuous  evaluation  process 
which means a substantial coursework requirement 
(in addition  to examinations).  In  some courses  the 
schedule  takes  3  hours  in  one  class  a  week.  So  I 
wanted to use that class “face- to- face“ to empha-
size  their  oral  skills  (listening  and  speaking).  But 
what  about  writing  and  reading?  What  about  the 
essays  they  were  supposed  to  hand  in?  At  that 
point, blogs seemed to be the perfect solution. There 
were no more excuses like: “sorry, I forgot that I had 
to do this for the class…” or no more getting wor-
ried about where I had left that student’s essay. The 
answer is simple: “It is on the blog”. We must think 
about  the  Weblog  as  a  great  course  management 
tool, a class portal where all the tasks are perfectly 
and safely stored.
At first, I set up a class blog at Blogger.com, which 
is owned by Google and it will host your Weblog for 
free. It is also one of the easiest blogs to use and it 
has some levels of privacy that are important for a 
class blog. 
I  divide  it  into  sections:  Nosotros (where  they 
introduce  themselves),  Lecturas: a  Reading  section 
(with  news  and  economy  articles);  Debate (where 
they  express  a  comment  about  some  issue)  and 
Música e Imagen, Music  and  image  (short  films, 
songs,  publicity  adverts  etc.  are  included  in  this 
audiovisual section where they are also required to 
leave a comment) and an anonymous survey (about 
different aspects of  their  learning process or about 
their opinion on the easiest or most difficult parts/
tasks of the course).    I am the administrator of  the 
blog and I subscribe the students, who have previ-
ously registered with a gmail account (most of them 
usually have one). 
The blog tasks and the contents are adapted to the 
course level from A2 to B2 (according to the European
Framework of Reference for Languages).  My  students 
are  mainly  business  students  but  they  also  come 
from other faculties such as Law, Computer Science, 
Engineering  or  Health  Education  and  the  syllabus 
is  designed  as  a  Spanish  Course  for  Professional 
Purposes.  Consequently,  the  Reader  and  Debate 
sections of the blog are focused on economy issues 
and  news  as  a  way  to  give  context  and  practice 
vocabulary and expressions related to their profes-
sional sector.
Approximately a  third of  the coursework marks 
come from the blog. The students have to do differ-
ent tasks on the blog weekly (by creating an entry) 
and  also  participate  by  reading  and  making  com-
ments  in  their classmates´ entries.  I always correct 
the  writing  of  the  entries  (in  a  different  color)  but 
never  the  comments  they  make  because  they  are 
made spontaneously and I do not want to break the 
communication by making them feel too concerned 
about their correctness when expressing themselves 
in  Spanish. 
Once  they  get  used  to  the  blog  dynamic,  their 
participation  and  interaction  is  extremely  frequent 
(although of course there are always some students 
that are more reluctant) and they start considering 
the blog as an extension of  the real classroom to a 
virtual one.
4. Conclusion
The  Weblogs,  like  the  other  new  social  platforms 
that are part of the web 2.0, provide a new educatio-
nal  environment.  Students  create  the  contents  and 
collaborate with each other, they control their own 
learning  process  and  they  can  work  together  and 
exchange their opinions with learning communities 
from  all  over  the  world.  Isn’t  that  every  teacher’s 
dream? To teach our students to become independ-
ent  thinkers  and  be  open  minded  towards  other 
cultures? Let’s meet then in the blogosphere.4
References
Bostock, Stephen  J  (1998)Constructivism in mass Higher Education: a 
case study. British Journal of Educational Technology. 29 (3).
Orihuela,  J.L. 2006. La revolución de los blogs. Madrid: La Esfera de  los 
libros.
Richardson W. (2006). Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and other Powerful Web Tools
for Classrooms. Corwing Press, US
Vygotsky, L. (1978). Mind in society. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University 
Press.
4   Blogosphere  is a collective  term encompassing all blogs and their 
interconnections.  It  is  the perception  that blogs  exist  together as a 
connected community (or as a collection of connected communities) 
or as a social network.