Curriculum integration idea: Free writing December 9, 2007
Posted by Captain in Blog2teach ideas, Sample educational blogs, Teaching ideas, curriculum integration.Tags: curriculum integration, free writing, lesson ideas
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Creative writing / Free writing
A picture is more than a thousand words. The multimedia rich nature of blog is particular powerful when it comes to stimulate writing ideas and inspire students to write. Teachers can easily post a picture to stimulate the thought of students. In the following blog post, a picture is used to stimulate students and write. Writing tasks such as free writing and writing the ending of story can be easily integrated in a blog.
Free writing and listening activity December 9, 2007
Posted by Captain in Teaching ideas, curriculum integration.6 comments
This blog illustrates how multi-media can tie-in with blog easily and its impact for learning.
Curriculum integration: News Comment on a blog December 9, 2007
Posted by Captain in Sample educational blogs, Teaching ideas, curriculum integration.Tags: curriculum integration, lesson ideas, News
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Newspaper cutting
Traditionally, newspaper cutting requires students physically cut and paste the newspaper article on their assignment. If you ask students to write news comments using their blogs, they can write their feedback, comments in the blog. Here is an example. The link of the newspaper article is also shown in the same post. You can embed the news link and paste to your blog and start commenting on it. A lot of online newspaper (MingPao) and websites (Yahoo HK) offer instant news blogging function. You can click the blog button at the end of the news and blog right away.
Students can keep all their work in a blog nicely and tidily. They will not lose it again and it will become their learning portfolio.
Discussion
What are other advantages of doing news review using blogs?
A sample lesson idea using blog November 10, 2007
Posted by Captain in Sample educational blogs, Teaching ideas.Tags: Believe it or not, Guiness World Record, Lesson plan
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In Form 2, there is a topic called “Believe it or not”. The passage in the chapter shows a lot of amazing and incredible things around the world. To motivate students, I picked a video clip from YouTube to show my students a Guiness World Record on “Most T-shirt worn at one time”. It is easy to embed a video to a blog. I posted the video on my blog and asked students to watch it at home before the lesson. Some discussion questions were set and posted on the blog. In the lesson, an oral discussion was arranged in class.
The blog used here serves as motivation and a platform for additional reading and provide students with prior knowledge for class discussion. Questions and follow-up task could be set if appropriate.
Most T-shirt worn at one time
curriculum integration idea : Group writing June 11, 2007
Posted by Captain in Blog2teach ideas, Teaching ideas, curriculum integration.Tags: curriculum integtion, group writing, lesson ideas
5 comments
Group writing
Have you tried group collaborative writing with your class? Probably, you know writing as a group has advantages like creating more ideas and promote peer learning. Having a group of students writing on the same topic can promote peer interaction. A blog can also serve as a platform for writing group blog. Multiple users can write on the same blog at the same time. Currently, blogger and wordpress support group authoring function. Students write in the group writing blog can read their peer’s work and comment on others’ writing.
This is particularly good for community based writing.
Here is an example how multi users can write on a single blog. The example is a group blog of WebHeads. They are a group of international English teachers who share a passion on using IT in their teaching. They attended a TESOL convention in Seattle, 2007. They use this group to share and communicate with each other. What is interesting about a group blog is that different people can post, edit and comment freely on the same blog. It is a truely collaborative environment. Although the topic is not about teaching but still you can see how different writers can post their articles on the same blog.
Discussion Questions:
What is a group blog good for?
What application can we use ?
Is there any project possibility with this group blog function?
Curriculum integration idea : TV News June 11, 2007
Posted by Captain in Blog2teach ideas, Sample educational blogs, Teaching ideas, curriculum integration.Tags: curriculum integration lesson ideas, TV news
3 comments
TV news report
Video clips can also be inserted into a blog easily. In this example, a TV news clip is embeded to a blog. In this TV news report blog, Students can reflect on the news and comment on it. This idea can also be used in not only English subject, but also other social science subjects and liberal studies as well. Using current news is lively and authentic as well.
Using blog as a learning activity 1 (reading comprehension) June 11, 2007
Posted by Captain in Blog2teach ideas, Sample educational blogs, curriculum integration.Tags: ciurriculum integartion, lesson ideas, reading comprehension
4 comments
Reading and writing activity
Reading comprehesion is one of the common learning tasks in English classrooms. English teachers assign reading articles and reading activities to students.
Bee in her blog presented a way to use a blog as a reading activity. She linked of newspaper sites in the post ( Rare drop in gun deaths in Brazil, from BBC) as reading materials and asked students to complete a list of tasks after reading. She provided instructions for the reading activity. Background information of the issue and task instruction are given in the blog post. This activity design resembles a conventional reading comprehension activity.
Discussion Question:
Is this kind of blogging activity suitable for your students? Why or why not?
Integrating blogs into the curriculum May 2, 2007
Posted by Captain in Teaching ideas, curriculum integration.3 comments
Educational blogs vs General purpose blogs April 30, 2007
Posted by Captain in blog features, why blog2teach.add a comment
Most teachers first heard of blog from their students or in the media. In public domain, blog is commonly used as personal online journals. Blog users write about their everyday happening, share their life with their friends and peers, exchange information on casual topics. Therefore, blogs give an impression of chit chat and gossip to public in general. I name this kind of blog as general purpose blog. Educational blogs, as opposed to general purpose blogs, have different purpose and audience. Blogs of different uses are illustrated below.
We may further disctinct general purpose blog and educational blogs by its purpose, audience, theme and structure. Educational blogs are designed for learning and teaching purpose. The target audience are students and teachers. Educational blogs are usually tie with the curriculum and more structured as compared with general purpose blog. It aims to increase interaction, participation and promote peer learning.
The comparison of general purpose blog and educational blog is shown below.
