21classes

I have been blessed with a small class of ESL students this term.  When do you ever get to teach a class of nine students?!   I’m excited because I keep thinking of all of the possibilites and potential these students have with more one-to-one instruction.  Because this is a small class and because I’m new to the blogosphere, I thought I would try blogging with them.  They seem like the perfect candidates, as most of them are international students, far away from home, living with host families and needing to reflect.  I also think that this will be a great way to improve their fluency!

Eric MacKnight at http://www.ericmacknight.com/wordpress/?p=96 uses blogs with his students and recommends hosting class blogs on 21 classes at http://21classes.com/.  This host site allows each student to create and maintain their own blogs, using the homepage as home base to connect to the teacher and other students.

 I introduced my students to the assignment today, and am happy to report that they were able to register and start their blogs!  Some of them are available to the public to view and some of them are for the ESL class only.  It was the student’s choice.  If you would like to check it out, visit http://esl.21classes.com/.

50 Milliseconds!

How long is a millisecond? – 1/1000th of a second! You have 50 of those to make a good first impression on your visitors or fellow bloggers according to Gitte Lindgaard et al (Attention web designers: you have 50 milliseconds to make a good first impression. Behaviour and information technology. 25(2), 115 – 126). What can a reader take in in 50 milliseconds? The visual design of your blog makes all the difference!  Fitcher recommends that you take advantage of the free templates available to bloggers:

1. 83 Beautiful WordPress Themes You (Probably) Haven’t Seen at http://tinyurl.com/35bumy

2. The Style Archive (Moveable Type) at www.thestylearchive.com

3. Blogger Templates at http://blogger-templates.blogspot.com

These popular blogging platforms are recommended by Fitcher (Top tips to build a blog readership. Intranetlibrarian. 31(5), 50 – 53).  Are there any other sites that you would recommend to someone who has to make a split second first impression on their readers?

Getting Started!

The hardest part is getting started.  It’s all the white space!  I’m a freshman blogger and I have very little confidence in my ability to engage or enlighten others by blogging.  But, as a teacher-librarian in training, I take heart in an old Chinese proverb: Be not afraid of growing slowly, be afraid only of standing still.  Over the next few months, I’m going to record my questions, frustrations, and successes in learning about and using wikis, blogs & podcasts.  Stay tuned for time-savers and resources as I journey into a virtual vortex of technology jargon.