Blogs

A **blog** is a type of [|website] or part of a [|website]. Blogs are usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in reverse-chronological order. Blog can also be used as a verb, meaning to maintain or add content to a blog.

Most blogs are interactive, allowing visitors to leave comments and even message for each other via widgets on the blogs and it is this interactivity that distinguishes them from other static websites. Many blogs provide commentary or news on a particular subject; others function as more personal [|online diaries]. A typical blog combines text, images, and links to other blogs, [|Web pages], and other media related to its topic. The ability of readers to leave comments in an interactive format is an important part of many blogs.

You can create a blog account by signing up with a host domain company with a set fee or you can create a free site with companies such as Google. The link ends with “blogspot” for Google instead of “blog” with other paying companies. It is not designed specifically for K-12. Anyone can have access to blogsite as long as you have the site address such as [|www.us-chinainformation.blogspot.com]. This is a website for information related to the cultures of US and China. Education is the focus point and it is certainly very useful for my high school students who would like to know more about the difference of US and Chinese cultures and other related information. Some of the examples of the blogs are about etiquette of US and China, Chinese dragon, Chinese New Year, different business practices, travel tips and more. One thing that I like a lot is the ability to be interactive. The readers can leave comments or ask questions and the writers can go back and answer questions or write a new post. I can see creating a site for my high school students about learning Chinese and it may further engage my students for learning Chinese language.

[|EduBlog] ([|edublog.org]) It is easy to create an account with an email address. It is designed specifically for K-12. There is a a the free version, but there is another version available, Edublog PRO. There were many issues with the free site, including inconveniently placed ads in every post. The type of the post was much smaller than the ad, and easy to miss when looking at the blog. There was also no option to type accent marks in French, so you have to copy and paste accent marks from Microsoft Word or Open Office. Even downloading a French dictionary specifically for the blog and changing the spell-checker to French did not work 100% of the time. You can combine the Blog with a Voki Avatar of the vocabulary that your students are currently learning. However, uploadin this Voki to the EduBlog, also requires the PRO version. The PRO version costs $3.33 a month and provides more layout options, the option to upload a Voki on the sidebar, and 50 free student EduBlogs. The Pro version of EduBlogsmight be worth enough to warrant the cost. The free version is NOT recommended because of the issues above.

[|Blogger] ([|blogger.com]) Another option is to created a blog through Blogger (now owned by Google). It was easy to create an account with a gmail address. Although this website is not specifically for K-12, it is much easier to use than EduBlogs. You are able to upload videos from YouTube about vocabulary or other subjects. You can also upload my Vokia and Glogs. Whereas EduBlogs overwhelmes with constant tips and reminders of how to create the blog, Google was very simple and straightforward. Using EduBlog can be very stressful because there is too much to navigate, but when creating the Google Blog is a lot of fun. Blogspot.com is also free. One concern is whether students will be able to see the YouTube videos at school if that school blocks Youtube.

Here is an example Google Blog: [|http://mlleirwin.blogspot.com]

Creating the Voki for this blog was also very easy. You need to create an account with an email address. To record your voice, call a phone number and leave the vocabulary after a tone. Recordings can last for up to a minute. It's fun to choose the avatar and background. The whole process took about 5 minutes. It is free.

One activity to implement using these tools to meet the Cultures and Communities standard is to upload videos about French-speaking countries to the Blog. Students can watch the videos and compare the featured culture to their own. On your blog, you can also provide links to other websites that highlight other cultures or communities. For example, there is a community of Senegalese in Pittsburgh. You can provide the link to their website on a blog. Another idea is to create a shared blog between my class and a class in a french-speaking country. Both classes could upload information about their daily lives and cultures. Or, the teachers could post a question that students from both schools could respond to by posting a comment.

[|Wordpress] ([|www.wordpress.com])

WordPress.com, a weblog provider created in 2005. They describe themselves as “underdog” because larger services are available on the internet and this product derives from another weblog provider called WordPress.org. WordPress.com provides users with an easy tool to create a blog even if you don’t know anything about it (as compared to WordPress.org). This blog provider requires a hosting account, easy to set up and entirely free. However, you can upgrade your account and have access to a la carte paid services. It is very easy to use, just one application form to fill in, requiring the name of your domain, a username, a password and an email address. It is very easy to navigate and you don’t need to register to have access to and comment on the content of other blogs, although it is possible to change the privacy settings so that you can control who sees it. This blog provider is not specifically designed for K-12 and, so far, I have not found any K-12 version of it. However, this service is provided in a variety of foreign languages.

An example of a blog created on Wordpress.com is [|pittinnantes.wordpress.com], created by a teaching assistant who works with me in the French and Italian department of the University of Pittsburgh. This blog was created last summer as some Pitt students were spending the summer in Nantes, France, on a study abroad program. One of the articles on this blog deals with a very popular French cultural event “La Fête de la Musique”, a music festival taking place every year around June 21. On this blog, the students were responsible for writing the articles, thus sharing their experiences and their understanding of a particular event taking place in the program. People in the program but also friends and families at home could then read the blog and post some comments.

This article would be interesting to use in a classroom, possibly using a cube activity during which students would be asked to describe, compare, apply, associate, analyse and argue about this cultural practice, after reading the article. I think it would lead to an interesting discussion about this cultural practice and hopefully, after the lesson, students can start to understand it. Moreover, it would be interesting to show this to the students taking part in the program the following year to prepare them with examples of cultural practices they will be in contact with. Then, maybe, the new students will continue the blog and compare their experiences in Nantes, thus creating a “study abroad students” community who share common experiences about France.

Peace Corps Blogs