about blogging

Sharing my thoughts with others on the web, why? I have never thought of blogging before either for personal or professional use. Look at me now, I’m a member of the” blogosphere”. Just thinking about it, makes me smile. I’m now like a novelist or a short story writer in front of his blank page asking himself or herself what s/he is going to write about today. Because though I’m new at it, I already have an audience relying on me to write interesting things, so I will try not to live up to their expectations.

E-mailing,”skypeing”, and instant messenger have been my favorite means for communicating with my students out of the class, so far. These were some of the computer applications I knew I could use easily for educational purposes. I created an email for my classes where I post additional resources to the course , complementary instructions to assignments, or answers to individual students’ questions I would like to share with them all, but out of all the students I have I can count on my fingers those who seized this opportunity.

After reading the resources for this week’s topic and some of my fellow students’ posts on the forum, I said to myself:”why haven’t I thought of it before?” Blogging would have been a better option for involving more students. Emailing,”skypeing”, and instant messenger remain individual and somehow confidential, but reading others classmates’ posts and comments is more likely to foster a will to join in and become an active member of the community.

Moreover, despite all the possible reasons presented for the educational use of blogs, I think that the most important one is to carry on discussions out of the class i,e use them as an extension of the class. Indeed, that is why blogs were created in the first place, to allow individuals to express themselves freely. Out of the classroom, they can give students a voice. Classroom time being managed within minutes, teachers cannot extend class discussions endlessly even if these are used to achieve the objectives of the lesson, so some students don’t have a chance to give their opinion. In this case, blogging can be a good option.

Hassina

PS: sorry friends ,I couldn’t post this before.My internet connection at home is out of order for a while