To blog or not to blog, that is the question!

Lately some people have asked me if I use blogs in my classes, and the answer is yes and no. I teach both Norwegian and English, and I use blogs in my Norwegian classes and my goal is to start using it in my English classes, too. I was first introduced to blogging by my colleague Ingunn Kjøl Wiig in January 2008, and we decided that we wanted to try it out with our students. The project was met with some scepticism, but we nevertheless got all our first year students to create their own blogs and to use them in the Norwegian classes for roughly five months. When analysing the response from the students, we saw that the majority of the students were positive to blogging, and that quite many liked blogging as a means of communication. We therefore decided to continue using blogs with the first year students this year. Most of the time I give my students various assignments on a blog called DigiTalt, and ask them to write their answers on their blogs, but I have also told them to write about things that interest them. Personally, I like this way of working. It gives the students a chance to write more freely than in the traditional papers, and I also believe I get to know them in a different way than through ordinary classroom activities.

Having used blogs in my teaching for about a year, I am now ready to start using it in my English classes, too, but I have put it on hold until the next school year. There is simply too much going on right now, and neither I nor the students have the capacity to start new projects at this time of the year. My colleague Ann S. Michaelsen, however, has had all the students in her English class use blogs this year, and I recommend you all to have a look at their pages (you find links to their blogs on Ann's page). If you consider using blogs with your students, I just want to say: give it a go! It is great fun!

Picture: Blogging Readiness