MODULE TWO

Post on this week's reading:

Based on Wang & Fang's study, as an online communication technology, the advantages of educational web logs are:
1. The learners are able to evaluate their own learning, learn to manage their own time, process information. Their learning arch can be clearly displayed by using a journal format.
2. Blogs is an effective tool for group projects. The students are able to work together to accomplish a shared learning goal.
3. Based on the study, the students who used the Blog for class discussions have increased their confidence in learning and help developed their social skills.

The Wang & Fang's case study has not discussed much about the disadvantages of using weblogs for teaching. The downsides of blogs which have been mentioned in this week's another reading "7 things you should know about blogs." are the biased or inaccurate information, highly volatile and unmediated.

As a Chinese language instructor, I haven't figured out how to use the weblog for my current students' interactive activities yet since the Blog is pretty much limited to communication in writing. My students need to do activities which help them mainly with improving their listening and speaking skills. But I can try to use it for my culture courses which students can use Blog to write reflective journals.

Reflection

This week I have learned how to use Edublog to evaluate learning. I have experienced setting up Blog which is a brand new for me. Before I thought Blog is only used for journaling. Now I realize I can use Blog to upload images, audio, video. I also realize that I can use Blog to my teaching.

One of the final projects which I ask my students to work on is a group skit presentation on video. A group of students create a situational skit with the conversational skills we have learned. After the skit is recorded, the whole class will receive a link on ‘YOUTUBE’. Since Blog has a feature to upload video, I think I can have students to upload the video to the Blog which is set up for the whole class and have students to make comments on the skit presentation and evaluate it.

I will explore more in Blog in the following weeks and add more features to it.