MAGICAL TOOLS FOR BLOGGING
Blog is a web page which contains information or opinions of particular person or about certain topics and is typically displayed in reverse chronological order. Blogging tools are devices which makes posting of content easier while people are blogging. For example, WordPress and Blogger are some of blogging tools. Thanks to these tools, blogging spreads all over the world. These tools are not just used for posting personal opinions but also can be used for educational purposes. What about integrating the blogging tools into education? If the students use one of these blogging tools, it can provide students with excellent opportunities like reading and writing. They can discuss whatever they want thanks to effective forums for discussion. It can be motivating for student who may not be active in classroom discussion.
As an example case scenario, Miss Yazıcı wants to integrate technology to her course. She chooses Blogger as her online blog for the advanced grammar course. First of all, she signs up and creates a blog for her course. Then, she wants her students to sign up and create their own blog. She gives reflection tasks about different topics to them. The task for them is that they write a reflection about a topic and publish or post it on their blog. The next step of their task is to read the reflection tasks of their friends and find the grammatical mistakes. They should correct their mistakes, as well. Even if they did not do the same mistakes with their friends, they have an opportunity to see what kind of mistakes might be done. As students realize their writing tasks will be published, they are more motivated to produce better writing. The other opportunity of this activity is that students can benefit from the peer review.
