Blogging as a teaching tool

I'm about to use blogging as a tool in my English lessons. I intend to have my students blog about our classroom activities during an up-coming intense and alternative grammar course to see if that new way of teaching might turn into a permanent feature in my lessons.

I cross my fingers that they will embrace these new elements (blogging and performing grammar), so that we will all find ourselves less frustrated about this otherwise less than thrilling part of learning English.

As a welcome bonus, I hope to open their eyes to the world of blogging, which is an interesting, fun, educational and new way of speaking your mind and have others join in the debate.

Seize your cell phone

Through an interesting presentation by Global Voices' Solana Larsen, aka Solanasaurus, we were introduced to the wonderful world of blogging, and more specifically the way blogging can be a gateway from one corner of the world to another.

The presentation made it clear that while blogging is often highly subjective and personal, it is also a useful tool in gaining first hand impressions of current events all over the world. As long as you have a cell phone, a computer, a blackberry, a camera etc. you can share your views and experiences with everyone with very few clicks.

The phenomenon is even spreading to countries that have previously had a hard time getting their points across because of limited accessibility to the internet either because of government policies limiting freedom of speech, or because they live in underdeveloped countries or extremely poor, secluded areas. We, and they, can thank organisations like Global Voices for that.

As an interesting bonus to blogging, it has also become easier to question official positions on key issues in different countries by browsing through blogs and reading, watching or hearing the positions of everyday people in those countries on those same issues. We have actually made it more difficult for politicians to get away with lies and cover ups. Sherlock Holmes go home, we've got this covered!

So my suggestion would be: seize your cell phone and get blogging!