Results of Blog Use

I have just finished reviewing the results of a survey I gave to my students of 'Sound and Image' in the last computer class we had.

The students were taking English as a subsidiary subject, as part of their Professional Studies diploma in 'Sound and Image'. A lot of these students go on to work in the world of TV, theatre, cinema, as photographers or in other audio-visual contexts when they finish their two year course.

The English teachers' job is to help prepare them for this offering a mixture of general English and ESP. My class was upper-intermediate level.

We had a computer class programmed every third week and I decided to introduce learner weblogs as a way for them to submit assignments and record the things we looked at in this class.

As this was the first year we had regular computer room use and also the first time I had used weblogs consistently with a class, at the end of the course, I gave them a short questionnaire to see how they perceived the experience.

I am happy to say that it was very positive, and the majority of the students took to the computer classes (and using the weblogs) with enthusiasm. Obviously, this is what I thought I had perceived during the course of the year, but it's always nice to hear it from the horse's mouth.

As a result of their survey, I intend to use weblogs with the Sound and Image group next year, taking into account their comments when the course programme is designed.

Here are some of the findings of the survey

A more detailed analysis can be found at the Weblog in ELT group at http://searchenglish.britishcouncil.org/, the British Council Search English website.

1.Did you like using the computers frequently?

Yes: 14 No: 4

Sample comments:

Yes...At first I feared them, but slowly I begun to understand Its way of "thinking" or "programming".

Yes, I like a lot, because it is a way to change pen and paper of a typical class.And it is an easy way to give you our homework.

2) What activity did you like most using the computers?

Sample comments:

The best activity was explain a photo because I passed a great time choosing my photography. Another great activity was the review of a film because I talked about Tim Burton, one of my favourite directors of cinema, as you know.

The activity was the red herring, the interactive history was funny.

3) what activity did you like the least?

Sample comments:

I really hate film's reviews. I think that a reviewing is a very very personal think and people never could be in agree. So, and exemple is the Big Fish review because all classmates liked the film.... except me. It could be that I am a little ... strange.

Now I don't remenber an activity that I hated during it realization or after.

4) Did you like using the weblog? Why? Why not?

YES:10 NO:4 MIXED REACTION:4

Sample comments:

Yes, I did! I liked it so much. I think that it is a good way to connect to other people as another country or just classmates. More of people believes that weblogs are more more similar than kind of "net post-it's" but, I really know that weblogs are a way of communication in internet.

I don't like so much, because I only use to do my homework and it's obvious that to do the homework is not very funny. But I think that's a good sistem to do the homework.

5) What do you think students should do next year that we didn't do this year?

Sample comments:

Future students.... jeje. I will be a future student. In weblogs students should do a great many things like write a photography session; write about them lineage; write about them first love; an assessment about them ideal holidays; what they searching stdudying Image or Why they are studying Image; etc.