Teacher: Alexandre Araujo de Siqueira Branch: Jardim Botânico Age Group: Older teenagers (Master 2) Language level: Upper-Intermediate – Advanced Tool: Blog
I decided to join the Digital Immersion Project 2009 because I felt the need to engage my students even more in their learning processes. I believe that technology can be an important ally to that end. Having that in mind, my next step was to choose one of the various tools available, and since I am more at home with blogs, they were my natural option. Initially, I had to decide about which group to invite to the project, and also to draw up a plan beforehand so that when I introduced the idea, the outline of the project would be ready. That way I felt I could involve my students more. I chose to work with a Master 2 group of eight older teenagers (7 boys and 1 girl only). They were generally motivated to carry out tasks that involved technology, and considering the scope of the project, I thought good results might come up. In order to introduce the project, I used a speaking activity in which students were invited to discuss the pros and cons of modern technological advances in education and life. Interesting ideas were brought up, with students debating over the extent to which technology is essential in modern life, and how education can benefit from it. The following step was actually inviting students to take part in a class project. Students responded positively, and the project was launched. I felt that a class blog should include varied subjects through which individual interests could be catered for. The students could add to the list, which included: movies, theater, music, TV, sports, free-time activities, traveling, photography, video, hobbies. As it were, other topics were welcome, although the group felt that the list was already comprehensive, and decided to keep it that way. The project itself consisted of blog posts published by students, with comments also made by them or me. Students from other classes at the branch or from other branches could also make comments. Students were invited to post text, photo or video. The photos could be their own production, and so could the videos (although video embedding was an alternative). In terms of involvement, I must say that students had an initial interest in the project, but as the semester went on, things did not go exactly as I had planned. Although some of the students were actually planning to post, others seemed not to care much about the project. The results of the project showed me that much more could have been done. The group was very aware of that, but it did not turn out quite as it was intended
to. We had a feedback session, and the students commented that the main reason why not much had been published was lack of time. As I see it, perhaps they were really busy, but they might have also lacked extra motivational factors which would engage them in such a project. To sum up, I should say that blogging is a resource that demands more time than had been allotted, and I feel that it should be implemented along a wider span of time, a semester or a year for example. However, I do feel that it has great potential, and I am willing to start anew with another group, with other learning styles and interests. As a teacher, I have to agree that it can sometimes go wrong, or be partially successful, but it can indeed be highly beneficial if more time is given.