Week 1 - reflections

In the beginning I was a bit worried about this task. My last blogs, which I had to create, turned out to be a bit complicated and I spent many nights on the PC for getting to know the program and basic functions.

So I rather felt  a little bit unmotivated with 
this task due to my negative experience. That's 
not me on the pictures, but these pictures expressed my experience and feelings that 
came up first.

                                                                                                                                                             After I had had a closer look at Robert's 
blogger instructions, the worries seemed 
to be ungrounded. Thanks to Robert's clear instruction paper, it turned out to be fairly
easy to start a blog with blogger.com!




If I had given this task to my teenage learners without a clear instruction paper, they would have managed after some time, maybe in peer-groups. But! If I had given this task to learners, who are busy at work,  aged between 50 and 65 and no regular PC users, who do struggle with computer, programs and enough time to prepare for English lessons  without any clearly written instructions, they would have felt unmotivated and also would have been overtaxed. The precise instruction guideline step by step gives it a good start and motivates learners, who need it,  to explore and find out more!  



End of week one - summary, 13 Dec 2013

I read almost all the blogs and was overwhelmed by a long list of useful weblinks, ideas, ideas of classroom rules and teaching expertise. I appreciate being a member of such a wonderful and diverse webclass.

I would like to point out interesting issues, that I realized as the most important ones when starting an web skill based language class:
1) clear rules need to be set up and discussed with the learners
2) well prepared and precise instructions for creating a blog
3) positive feedback and permanent technical support in the first week

Nicenet is a very useful, easy to handle and clearly structured discussion platform or lets call it an 'academic chat forum'. Learner don't need to worry about design and the function, it works similar to the explorer on the pc, so I think, learners no matter which age, would scarcely have  any problems to with the use of nicenet.

Before I didn't think about using blogs for teaching as a writing tool in class, I used to search topics and and just passed on the links to the learners for extra reading material,... 
Now I thinks blogging is like writing into an exercise book. By the end of semester one can review the personal development and improvement from the beginning to the end. Blogging documents the language learning progress and its improvements like a web magazine!