BP3_2009101_RSSFeeds

Though it is slightly embarrassing to admit, I am entirely new to the world of creating and following blogs. The first set of assignments for the FSO ETC course on creating and setting up the iGoogle site as well as the Blogger and Google Reader has caused a huge learning curve on my part. Still, the process of searching and adding RSS feeds to the Google Reader has brought interesting insight to the use of these feeds.

Before knowing about RSS feeds and how they worked, I couldn't picture how they would be useful to me. In just a fews additions to my subscription list, I have already discovered how incredibly useful these blogs will be to my work at FSO and the improving my teaching methods in general.

I chose the initial 11 feeds that I have added to my Reader for the purpose gaining information that I will hopefully use in the classroom. For example, several of the feeds that I discovered came for the website for the French newspaper LeFigaro. These blogs involve a variety of subjects in French including news and perspectives on French culture, cinema, foreign relations, fashion, and more. All of these will help to inform my teaching on current events and information about the French speaking world and hopefully cause students to become more excited about the real life application of the French language as I share this information with them.

Also, these blog posts and links will help me, most simply, to continue to keep up with my French speaking skills. One of the challenges of teaching a foreign language when it is your second language it finding the ability to use and practice your own communication skills. Especially with French in the US, it is difficult to find many people with whom you can communicate in French or places in which you are immersed in the French language. The feeds that I have chosen for my reader, in ways, replicate the immersion experience through offering several opportunities to see French, read French, and if desired, respond to posts using French.

Some of the blogs also include tips geared toward helping teachers such as French for Fun and The Drama Teacher which offer perspectives for teachers of those subjects on how to improve the time with students in the classroom. I would hope that being able to access this information in a more timely and manageable fashion through Google Reader will render obsolete the issue of searching for information each time I create a new lesson plan.

The next weeks will hopefully bring more insight into the effectiveness of the easy accessible information that the Google Readers will provide and its impact on my work at FSO and my teaching in general.

BP1_2009101_BlogResearch

From just a brief scan of sources on the usefulness of blogs in education, it is very clear that blogs serve many purposes in the instructional environment. A majority of these sites and sources discuss the transformational nature of blogs. It seems that blogs, because they are based on using technology in a way that is different than in the past, are forcing us to rethink the ideas of of how information is sent and received. Moreover, blogs allow us to use information in ways that have not yet been explored.

For example, in the world of education, the concept of blogs could mean that students can have more control of what the learn and how they apply that in their daily lives. As an educator, I find that one of the toughest challenges in making the classroom an exciting environment is having to confront the questions students always ask "when am I ever going to use this information?" Blogs could bring an end to that question. According to Solomon and Schrum in the book Web 2.0, New schools, New Tools blogs are "natural tools for writing instruction" so, as an example, a lesson in-class on grammar, could come to life with a homework assignment involving a blog using that lesson's grammar rules.

In the article Panelists: Blogs are changing eduction (http://www.eschoolnews.com/news/top-news/index.cfm?i=36898&CFID=13543917&CFTOKEN=47085391)

, Pierce discusses how blogs involve creativity, sharing ideas, excitement, and more inclusion of those students who are tech-savvy. Students can begin to feel more involved in the process of learning as opposed to just receiving information and regurgitating it onto quizzes and tests.

As a foreign language teacher, I have also begun to look for examples of how blogs can help to build students' communication in the target language. In the presentation The efficacy of technology in the classroom (http://www.slideshare.net/maheyman/technology-in-foreign-language-education-blogs) it is clear the use of blogs as a way to encourage "ownership and responsibility on the part of the students" is an important part of the foreign language classroom. This implies that teachers could raise the excellence of student work though putting them in charge of the own work. As a result, written communication in the target language would improve as students write, read, and comment on each other's work through blogging.

With the interesting prospects that this preliminary researched has highlighted, I look forward to beginning to delve more deeply into research and gain more practice with blogs in relation to education and instruction.