4
several uses like the personal, political, religious, familiar or educational,
just to name few reasons for using this new technological tool.
Before continuing, I will give you some tips on how to create a weblog with
Splinder, the most popular Italian platform.
In the second chapter, I will write about learning theories.
First of all I will outline the development of CALL (Computer Assisted
Language Learning), an approach to language teaching and learning in
which computer technology is used as an aid to the presentation,
reinforcement and assessment of material to be learned. I will then briefly
describe the role of the computer: computer-as-tutor and computer-as-
tool.
The advent of the Internet and multimediality has changed the traditional
scenario, permitting students to communicate with native speakers from
around the world (CMC - Computer Mediated Communication).
When using ICTs there is the need to support interaction and collaboration
among students.
Working collaboratively is a necessary skill not only into an educational
context, but also in everyday life. Blogs can help the creation of a virtual
cooperative learning environment in which students become active
subjects in a new stimulating setting, with the support of computer
technologies, in which the walls of the classroom are demolished.
Obviously, in such a context, the role of the teacher and student changes;
there is a shift from a teacher-centered to a learner-centered approach.
I will then delineate the theory of Constructivism which has got its basis on
the idea that learners have to construct their own knowledge.
The third chapter is about weblogs and education. Here I will talk about
the first group of pioneers who used weblogs in an educational context as
a new way of teaching. The first experiences are those of Peter Ford
(Schoolblogs) and Will Richardson (Weblogg-ed), meanwhile in Italy
Roberto Manfredi is reputed to be the first professor who used weblogs in
his classes. Following these examples, many other teachers have created
their own blogs, and an educational community has sprung up.
5
One of the most important blogs classifications is outlined by Aaron
Campbell, who classifies them as tutor blogs, class blogs and student
blogs.
In the next section, I shall list some of the possible uses of weblogs in an
educational context, explaining why their uses are almost limitless.
Afterwards I describe how blogs can support the learning and teaching of
foreign languages, providing students with an opportunity to use language
“to mean”.
Weblogs used in a foreign language classroom can enhance the
intercultural aspect of learning. Here we will look briefly at the topic of
different cultures and how weblogs, according to the “eTwinning” project,
foster the European dimension.
The blog is overall a writing activity and for that reason I could not avoid
writing about literacy and explain why weblogs may be used in
writing/reading classrooms.
Now I think it is important to give some examples of some of the uses of
weblogs in practice. For this reason, and following careful research on
blogs used in language teaching virtual classrooms, I have chosen to
analyse some of them, with particular emphasis on the teaching of
English.
Therefore, in the fourth and last chapter I will describe some projects used
by three language teachers here in Italy: Melanie Segal (“Spooky
English”), Gaetano Vergara (“Castellanos en Italia”) and Elisa
Spadavecchia (“Sportello Inglese On-line”). Having contacted them, they
gave me the chance to interview them via e-mail and they sent me some
useful information on their work.
To conclude, I will try to answer an important question: “Is it worth
blogging?”, taking into consideration the opinions of the teachers I have
consulted.
6
Chapter 1
WHAT IS A WEBLOG?
1.1 DESCRIPTION AND DEFINITION
A weblog is a real Internet revolution. It is a new way of communicating,
expressing ideas and sharing thoughts and words on the World Wide Web
in a quick and easy way. All you need is an Internet connection, the ability
to open a browser such as Internet Explorer and some knowledge of word
processors. Anyone can use this easy-to-use web-publishing tool and start
blogging and participating in the Internet community thanks to free blog
publishing software.
The word “weblog” is a recent expression, coined by Jorn Barger in 1997,
which derives from the contraction of the words Web and Log. In its basic
form, a weblog is an on-line diary or personal journal organised in
chronological order, but if it uses different elements like still images, video
or audio, we talk about a photoblog, videoblog or audioblog.
One of the first definitions of a weblog, was given by the same Jorn
Barger, Weblog Guru, who defines it as a different form of personal Web
page, as a “log of the web”
1
:
“A weblog (sometimes called a blog or a newspage or
a filter) is a web page where a weblogger (sometimes
called a blogger, or a pre-surfer) ‘logs’ all the other
webpages he finds interesting.”
2
It is difficult to give a precise definition of a weblog since it is a concept in
progress and there are many different descriptions for this ever-evolving
phenomenon.
1
Paquet S., Personal Publishing and its uses in research,
http://radio.weblogs.com/0110772/stories/2002/10/03/personalKnowledgePublishingAndIt
sUsesInResearch.html
2
Journal vs Weblogs, url: http://www.diarist.net/guide/blogjournal.shtml
7
At the very beginning, weblogs were virtual places to list links that one
found interesting about a particular subject or topic. That is why it is called
a “web-log”. But with the development of this new “genre”, more definitions
have arisen, not only from webloggers but even scholars.
I want to start by giving the definition that was included not long ago in the
Oxford English Dictionary. A weblog is:
“A frequently updated web site consisting of personal
observations, excerpts from other sources, etc.,
typically run by a single person, and usually with
hyperlinks to other sites; an on-line journal or diary.”
In order to better understand what a weblog is, I collected a set of
definitions that can help us to have a clearer idea.
On the Technology Focus On-line, they give the following meaning:
“Blog/ WebLog: a web page containing brief,
chronologically arranged items of information. A blog
can take the form of a diary, journal, what’s new page,
or links to other web sites.”
3
At webweevers.com, specialized in website and graphic designing, we
read that:
“A blog is a journal (on-line diary) made available on
the Internet/web by any individual. Most blogs are
maintained by people who know nothing about web
site design or development”
4
Briefly,
“A weblog is a frequently updated website, organised
in a diary form with individual chronologically ordered
entries as posts.”
5
3
Blogging: creating instant content for the web, url:
library.usask.ca/~scottp/il2001/definitions.html
4
Definition of weblog, url: http://webweevers.com/blog.htm
5
Tosh D., Werdmuller B., Creation of a learning landscape: weblogging and social
networking in the context of e-portfolios, www.eradc.org/papers/Learning_landscape.pdf
8
According to About.com a weblog is:
“A chronologically organized website updated by an
individual (or a group of individuals) with entries/posts.
Each entry typically contains the main body, a
date/time stamp, and title. The contents of each blog
differ, depending on interests and style of the
author.”
6
In the main body we can find commentaries, ideas or stories, usually
written in the first person. The date/time stamp shows the day and time
the entry has been posted. The title gives us an idea of what the entry is
about.
The definition given by Marketing Terms.com, “Internet marketing
reference and index of the best sites and articles” is:
“A frequent, chronological publication of personal
thoughts and Web links.”
7
To widen this definition we can say that:
“A blog is a Web page that serves as a publicly
accessible personal journal for an individual. Typically
updated daily, blogs often reflect the personality of the
author.”
8
The reflection of the personality of the author is one of the main
characteristics of a weblog; as someone is writing about his own
experience, his voice has to come through.
But we can look at blogs in other ways:
- if we consider it from a communication perspective, a weblog is:
6
About.it, what is a weblog, http://weblogs.about.com/cs/blogsglossary/g/blog.htm
7
Internet Marketing Reference, http://www.marketingterms.com/dictionary/blog/
8
Webopedia, the first encyclopedia dedicated to computer technology,
http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/b/blog.html
9
“a web page on which the author publishes pieces
with the intention to start conversation.”
9
- as a personal web publishing community, a weblog is personal (written
by a person or a group of contributors), published on the web (so that it
can be updated frequently) and is part of a community because anyone
can read it and collaborate on it by posting comments, creating in this way
a virtual audience on the stage of the World Wide Web.
So a blog means writing, reading, communicating, participating and
sharing. It is a virtual place where you can “meet” other people, you can
listen to them and communicate with each other, an organised community
in which people are sharing the same interests on a particular topic, their
passions, opinions and reflections. A blog is “somewhere between writing a
column and talk radio”.
10
They are like “salons” which stand between the
public and the private. Or we can say that they are a kind of ‘Speaker’s
corner’ on the web. Speaker’s Corner is one of most famous places for
public speaking and debate, situated in Hyde Park in London. It is an open
forum where, traditionally, someone climbs on a box and starts talking
about a subject, and other people who pass by can listen or take part in the
discussion.
The blog is a valid tool for many reasons. It gives you the chance to
communicate, to take advantage of a device which can be used as box for
your thoughts or ideas, a place to comment on your best work, somewhere
you can publish to the web instantly, and a place to socialise and interact
etc.
9
Wijnia E., Understanding weblog: a comunicative perspective,
http://elmine.wijnia.com/weblog/archives/wijnia_understandingweblogs.pdf
10
Winer D., What are weblogs?, http://www.elearnspace.org/Articles/blogging_part_1.htm
10
At this point, I think it is necessary to brainstorm the features of a weblog.
According to Sèbastien Paquet
11
, together with being on the web, being
published and part of a community, there are five features that a weblog
exhibits:
1. personal editorship;
2. hyperlinked post structure: it is organized by short and frequent posts,
usually time-stamped (using hypertext links you have the possibility of
linking within an individual blog or to other blogs that the blogger visits
on regular basis);
3. frequent updates, displayed in reverse chronological order: the most
recent post appears at the top of the page;
4. free , public access to the content: readers can post of comments,
thereby engaging in a discussion;
5. archival: postings are archived automatically after a certain period of
time, assigning to each post a permanent hyperlink, a permalink.
The weblog community is continually evolving. Just think that hundreds of
weblogs are being created every hour, for many purposes. This is
according to Technorati, a real-time Internet search engine focused on the
“blogosphere” or, to be precise, “the authority on what’s going on in the
world of weblogs”
12
. Since December 2005, it has been tracking over 23
million blogs and more than 1.7 billion links; a new blog is created every
7.4 seconds.
Early communication-media models focused on one-way delivery of
messages, rather than the interaction between people. Therefore, they
were based on a linear model of communication that, according to
11
Paquet S., Personal knowledge publishing and its uses in research,
http://radio.weblogs.com/0110772/stories/2002/10/03/personalKnowledgePublishingAndIt
sUsesInResearch.html
12
Technorati website, http://www.technorati.com/
11
Aristotle’s rhetorical concepts, involved a speaker who created a message
to be delivered to an audience.
Today, the Internet, being an interactive medium supporting two-way
communication and feedback, enables people to communicate with each
other. This circular model allows sender and receiver to change positions
in the communication process.
The Internet supports one-to-one communication (e-mail), one-to-many
(web pages) and many-to-many exchanges of messages (forum).
Weblogs are one of the latest on-line technologies (even though we all
know that technologies become obsolete very quickly) included in a
context of Computer Mediated Communication.
A blog can be considered in many ways, depending on who you ask what
a weblog is.
At first, a blog may appear like any other incarnation of an on-line many-to-
many communication. It is an asynchronous communication tool that
allows people to communicate at different times.
Many people consider it to be like an on-line diary or similar to a webpage,
or to be a mix between a forum and a web page.
Blogs focus on a particular subject and they are accessible to a large
population thanks to automating tools and to free blog hosting services.
As written above, a blog is similar to a webpage.
As a webpage, it is a way to publish on-line, but it differs in many other
ways:
- a blog is dynamic while web pages are designed to be static;
- a blog is updated on regular basis whereas a web page is seldom
revisited.
Other differences concern the community that may grow up around these
tools. A weblog allows a community to be built up around it, much more
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