To Blog or not to Blog?

Why blog? Getting started - my experience

Recently, I've been thinking about blogging and why people do it. I've been encouraged by the nomination for an award I mentioned in my last post, and by Karenne Sylvester's call for entries to the blog carnival she has organised to help newbie EFL bloggers.

So, what makes someone sit down and write something and publish it on the Internet for all to see? In particular what makes an EFL teacher do this. The main reasons I suppose are self-expression, to communicate with other teachers, to share ideas, reflect on practice. Of course there's also the teacher who wants to try it out because you want your learners to blog and you don't think you should ask them to do something that you wouldn't do or haven't tried . That's why I started.

Let me start with some statistics - I've been blogging at http://blog-efl.blogspot.com for six years (since July 9th 2003), have written 553 posts so far and over 60,000 words.

My first post was directed at a group of teenage learners I was teaching in a summer school in Barcelona. I wanted to try out a new global community my school had set up for learners and had managed to get a daily computer room slot. Then, at the last minute, I was told that my students wouldn't be getting accounts in time, so I needed a backup plan. I remembered that a friend of mine had invited me to set up something called a blog six months previously - I'd joined and written one post and then not returned. But, I had seen that it was a quick and easy way of publishing on the Web and wondered if I could do this with my learners.

I jumped in and all of the learners in the two classes I was teaching se up blogs and started writing about themselves and reading what the learners in the other class had written - their curiosity was provoked, and although few of them wrote much, they were motivated enough to want to write and to read what the others had written, sharing their interests, and asking questions by leaving comments on the other learners' blogs.

I also started using the blog I'd set up to reflect upon the experience rather than write to the learners, as illustrated by the second post I wrote. By the end of the course, I was convinced that this was something that I should look into more, even though the learners had become a little bored with blogging during the course and I decided to do something else (you can read about this here if you like).

Getting Interested in blogging

I spent time after the course finding more out about blogging. At the time, there was little written about blogging and only a handful of EFL teachers were using blogs. One of them was Teresa Almeida D'Eca's Let's Blog. Teresa is a teacher based in Portugal - I'd been introduced to her through my colleague, Nik Peachey (who funnily enough has only recently started blogging himself) and was very impressed with her blog. So much so, I wrote a review of it on my blog.

I started learning a lot from the other educational bloggers out there about how best to use them. Aaron Campbell's article on Weblogging in ESL was very influential and there were tips from other bloggers about how best to encourage participation, and whether or not to correct.

You can tell from the amount I was writing to the blog (48 posts in August 2003!) just how enthusiastic I was getting. In fact this figure only shows a small part of it - I'd also been put in contact with a teacher in Brazil - Barbara Dieu (or Bee), who had been blogging with her students for some time. I wrote a review of her blog, Bee Online and also started responding to some of her ideas she had.

Sustaining Interest in Blogging

One of the many ideas that Bee had for promoting and sustaining learner interest in blogging was the idea of having a mystery guest on her blog. I was one of the two mystery guests in August 2003, and the results were convincing - the students responded well and wrote loads during this period. Bee said that they were all motivated and asking questions, trying to work out who the mystery guests were between classes, trying to get her to give them clues, etc. And afterwards, the conversations continued as we got to know each other. For me, this was the moment when I realised the power and potetnial of blogging with students. You can read the actual posts here - as a sidenote, I think it's wonderful that all of this still exists - it's been great to revisit this now, so many years afterwards.

I went on to run my own blogging experiments with classes that year and several years afterwards. Some of them were successful, others not so much. I kept in touch with both Teresa and Bee. They introduced me to the wonderful Community of Practice, the Webheads in Action, and to lots of other educators around the world. I co-moderated a series of online workshops about blogging with Bee and Aaron Campbell through the TESOL Electronic Village Online. Eventually, though, I found my interests turning more towards podcasting and then to social networking and games and virtual worlds. However, I still believe blogging is a great tool to use with students, and although my own blogging output has diminished recently, I can see how valuable it is for teachers' reflective practice and for sharing ideas and building community. Especially now, that it has started to be used by mainstream EFL teachers rather than just those who are interested in technology. This for me, is the key, and the main reason why I am interested in blogging regularly again.

Blogger's Block

So, what about the so-called blogger's block? Looking back at my blog entries, I can see that I have a lot of unpublished drafts. Posts that I started and didn't finish. And then I remember times when I wanted to write something and didn't. I think the most important thing is to be involved in the blogosphere. If you read other blogs (and nowadays take part in the conversations that are constantly happening in Twitter and Facebook, as well as on mailing lists, etc.), then you'll never be short of ideas for blog posts. Of course, the other thing to remember is that blogging is all about contributing - and no matter what you think, everyone has a unique voice and a relevant point-of-view - you can always add something interesting to the conversation. Just, as Karenne recently encouraged me to to on Facebook, jump in and do it - don't think too much about it.

I think it's also important not to feel overwhelmed - there is so much out there, you'll never be able to keep up with everything that's going on, vever be able to read all the blogs, etc, that you'd like to. Choose a few people to read regularly that you find interesting and then from time to time, let yourself be led by links from their blogs (or by serendipity) to other people. Be sure to contribute to other people's blogs by writing comments - it's very important for bloggers to feel that there's somebody out there reading what we are writing (otherwise, why write it, right?) - tools like clustrmaps are very important to a blogger to see that they have an audience (I prefer this visual demonstration of audience more than looking at a counter or at stats - I have also noticed that it impresses students more too)

Setting goals can be important to keep up interest too. apart from the goals you may set up with students (a good one is to always relate what you are doing in class to the blog and vice-versa), if you blog for other teachers or for yourself, then you might want to use the blog:-

• for reflective practice (write what you think about how a particular class went)
• as a repository for a future teaching e-portfolio
• to sound out ideas that you may want to follow up in an article or a conference presentation / INSETT session
• simply keep a record of your time as a teacher

Finally...

Most of all, treat blogging as something you do for fun that can also help your professional development and you should be able to continue, happy in the knowledge that what you are doing is of value.

Seven Things You Probably Don't Know About Me

Happy New Year everyone.

I'm not even going to say that one of my New Year's resolutions is to start blogging regularly again, as I think I said that last year (and it didn't work out - probably because I was so busy elsewhere). This year, however...well, this year it'll be a different story...

So, wondering how to start the year off, I was going to post more resolutions, but Lindsay Clandfield asked me if I'd write six New Year Web 2 Resolutions for his blog, so I needed something else.

Then I found I'd been tagged by Gavin Dudeney for the ‘Seven Things You Probably Don’t Know About Me’ , which will make a perfect start to the year.

Here are the rules:

• Link your original tagger(s), and list these rules on your blog
• Share 7 facts about yourself in the post - some random, some weird
• Tag seven people at the end of your post
• Let them know they’ve been tagged

Well, here goes nothing...

1. Before becoming a teacher, I worked in London for a number of architectural and design companies, starting off in document control/data management and moving onto administration / office management. This is where I started using computers, and I remember well the green on black screens of the first IBM PCs (I'm still sure it's the reason why everyone working there started wearing glasses) while working at SOM back in 1986. When I first started there, there were five employees. Three years later, when I left, the London practice had grown to well over 350 during the construction boom that saw the practice being mainly involved in the building of Broadgate and Canary Wharf.

It was here that I worked with Mark Dytham, who then won an architectural competition and moved to Japan, setting up his now prestigious company. Years later, I came across his name again as co-creator of the pecha kucha presentation format, which subsequently I've used both with students, at the 2007 ETP Live conference and at the second pecha kucha night in Barcelona. Pecha Kucha is becoming a popular ELT conference event, thanks to Lindsay Clandfield, who has started a special pecha kucha ELT site to help promote this fun experience. I'm happy to say I'll be part of the pecha kucha event to be held at the IATEFL conference in Cardiff in April 2009.

2. The most embarrassing moment of my childhood was when I played Aladdin in the school play (I must have been aged 7 or so) - I was dressed in a splendid oriental costume, complete with make-up and a fabulous Chinese hat with attached ponytail. At the end of the rehearsal performance in front of the entire school, I took a bow and my hat fell off. Everyone in the audience burst into laughter. I think that is the reason I never considered a career on the stage.

In later years, my most embarrassing moment was probably when, as a new player of a company softball team, a gorgeous girl suggested we go for lunch together. I turned up the next day with the whole softball team in tow, thinking that was what she'd suggested. At the end of lunch, she came up to me and said "Hey! That was nice, but maybe the next time we could have lunch just you and me."

3. My most famous private student was Spain's 2002 Eurovision candidate, Rosa Lopez (Rosa de España) , who I was introduced to by a friend of a friend. She had been catapulted to fame as the people's favourite in the first edition of Operación Triunfo (OT), the music reality show.

I met her after the show and after Eurovision. It seemed then that she was the most famous person in Spain - there wasn't a magazine or a newspaper that didn't feature her on the front cover. Everytime you turned on the TV she was there, and the paparazzi staked out her flat waiting on her every move. Her management's idea was to rework what they saw as an uncut diamond into a dazzling gem, and among other things, this included extensive dental work, daily gym workouts (she was the only OT candidate who was over-weight), elocution lessons and English classes!

Before I could start, her brothers and bodyguards had to give me the once over (presumably to make sure I wasn't a journalist in disguise) then I went up to her flat in Barcelona to start. The first couple of days went well. She was almost a total beginner, which is difficult to find in Barcelona these days. And this, despite the fact that she had sung in English during the TV programme. Later I was to find out that she had learned the words phonetically. This was one thing in her favour - she had an excellent ear for music and sounds.

A very kind and sociable person, each class, before we started, she insisted on making us breakfast (usually a turkey salad sandwich and coffee). Once we started, I found that she was easily distracted and getting her to turn off the TV during class was a trial. I tried to reach her with music, and brought in Delaney & Bonnie's 'Superstar' to listen to in class. She loved it, and asked to borrow the CD. At one point, the word 'something' came up, and she started to sing the George Harrisson song (which she had learned phonetically) , belting it out as we sat at the table. I was blown away, both by how well she could sing, and also the fact that she remembered all of the lyrics without being able to speak much English. Shortly after we started, Rosa mentioned she now had an English teacher called Graham when she was interviewed on TV and in the magazine Que Me Dices - the first and probably the last time I'll be featured in a gossip magazine.

Unfortunately, things weren't working out for Rosa in Barcelona, and the pressure soon got too much for her - she had some kind of breakdown and returned to Granada in the South of Spain. We'd made little progress - cancelled classes, others that were spent with her in tears, unable to speak any English. Once, she told me that the moment she decided that she wanted to learn English was when she was at a party in New York. Introduced to her idol, Whitney Houston, she realised she couldn't say a thing to her, not even "I love your songs" - a missed opportunity that she didn't want to let happen again. However, there was just too much going on in her life. The last time I saw her, I turned up for class and she was in the middle of a photo-shoot in her apartment. She was sorry, but she would have to cancel. A week later, she was back at home suffering a crisis.

Fortunately, she's back on track now, and seems to be doing well, despite the fact that many people in Spain thought she'd end up giving it all up and going back to her family. Good on her. I sometimes wonder if she's managed to learn any more English.

4. I've been an extra in a Woody Allen film (Vicki Christina Barcelona) - read more about the experience here. It's now out and I'm on screen for about half a second towards the end, buying flowers for my film-wife behind Rebecca Hall as she's on the phone to Javier Bardem.

Since then, the agency has called a few times asking if I could do more extra work. At first it didn't work out, but I finally got to do more extra work last November - this time it was for Suspicious Minds, a Spanish psychological thriller. I played the manager of a garage and spent three hours signing receipts on film in the middle of the night in an industrial estate in Barcelona. Hmmm, the cinema world isn't as glamorous as people make it out to be. With a bit of luck, though, I'll be on-screen for a second - if things continue at this rate (doubling my on-screen appearances every year), I reckon I could be a star by 2016.

5. Hundreds of hours of my teenage years were spent rolling dice over my parents' dining room table with a group of three friends. We mainly played AD&D and Traveller, and met to do so most Wednesdays (13.00-23.00), Fridays (19.00-23.00) and Saturdays (13.00-23.00) for at least a couple of years. At 24 hours a week, around 50 weeks of the year (allowing for holidays, etc), that makes around 240 hours. Phew! My parents worried that I wasn't going to school discos and classmates spread rumours that we were meeting to perform 'strange experiments'. Strangely enough, that time spent playing role-playing games has paid off creatively, especially as I was usually dungeon-master, mainly involved in creating the story for others to follow, writing and imagining scenarios for the others to follow.

6. While in my twenties, and living in the UK, I was called to do jury service. I spent the best part of a week in the waiting room, then was called to sit on a case. At the first session the judge told us that because of the nature of the crime (armed bank robbery, policeman shot) and the fact that a gang was involved, each juror would be assigned 2 armed bodyguards 24-hours-a-day. So, I went home on the bus with 2 policemen following me and that was the case for the rest of the week-end and week afterwards. At first it was a novelty, and I delighted in turning up at a friend's house and telling them to look out the window. But after a few days of this, it became a real pain - I became self-conscious and everything I did I had to keep in mind that there'd be two coppers following me. I went to a pub to play pool and there they'd be, at a safe distance (I had been told not to approach them) keeping an eye on me. After a week of being followed I was really cheesed off.

On the Friday, some of the jurors asked for permission to go out for lunch. We'd been cooped up all week (so that the bodyguards wouldn't have to be called), and really needed to get out. We were told to go as far away from the Old Bailey as possible, to make it less likely that family members / friends of the accused would bump into us. Four of us (and our 8 bodyguards) went to have lunch in a pub. On return, one of the jurors I was with said that he thought he'd spotted someone from the visitor's gallery in the pub. The judge heard about this and decided to suspend the case. The four of us who'd been to the pub were told that we'd almost been charged with contempt of court (even though we'd had permission) and the front page headlines in the national newspapers turned the court case into a 'gang tries to reach jury' story - I still can't believe the rubbish they wrote about the case...

7. My great unfulfilled ambition is (like so many other people) to write a novel. I wasted a good part of my twenties standing around in pubs boring the pants off the people who were kind (or stupid) enough to listen to my ideas for plots. In my thirties, I stopped talking and actually started writing this rubbish down on paper. Then, I discovered NaNoWriMo, and, as I'd become a blogger, actually started blogging a novel, trying to put down a minimum 60,000 in 30 days. Soon, I discovered I'd actually built up a readership (of four!), which inspired me to continue. After 20,000 words I gave up, unable to persuade my dull and earnest main character to leave his flat. I suppose Sandy's right - I should've injected made it a comedy. Maybe the next time...

Now, in my forties, I find the sum result of these long hours: the last section of a blog post about 'Seven Things You Probably Don't Know About Me'. Still, I have recently been given a new glimmer of hope, after seeing the success a colleague, Adam Dalton, has had with his novel, Necromancer's Gambit. If you like metaphysical fantasy, I can highly recommend it.

And now I'm tagging, Lindsay Clandfield, Bee (Barbara Dieu), Sean (EFLGeek), Nick Noakes, Dennis Newson, Isa F Munn, Language Lab (Grammar Girl)

Playing with Presentations #1

So, my question is, 'What's the best way of displaying a presentation online?' Not only if you want to give people access to your presentation after the event, but also when you are giving the presentation live.

There are now so many different ways of doing this, that it's difficult to choose which one to use.

For example, we used the Elluminate virtual classroom for our live presentation on Gaming & Language Learning last Friday, using Learning Times. But, it might not have been the best way of showing people our slides (see post below). Of course, there are advantages to using this type of platform - the recording is done automatically, and the images are shown at the same time as the audio.

However, you cannot access the recording or attend live unless you are a member (it is free to join, and an easy process, but, even so, it is another barrier), and you cannot simply download the audio only to listen to when on the move (i.e. a podcast)

During the WiAOC, this virtual classroom option seems to be the most popular option, but there have been various alternatives used. For instance, Leigh Blackall's excellent keynote used a Flickr slideshow. The audio was provided by a World Bridges webcast & Skypecast, and it seemed to go very well.

Barbara Dieu (Bee), later today is also going to be using a Worldbridges webcast/Skypecast option, but she's going to use a tool called Zoho Show for her slides. The difference with this is that Barbara can control who sees what because the show is invitation only (by email) and she chooses which slides the participants see at which time from her end. It's a very interesting way of doing it, and I'm looking forward to seeing how it works in practice (I had a trial run with her a few days ago)

Apart from this, there's Bubbleshare and Slideshare too, and I'm sure many other tools (you can provide the slides as a video, with a voiceover).

So, I'm going to upload our presentation to a few different tools to compare them. I want to see how easy it is to upload the files, and look at the quality and feel of the presentation when using them. This will make it easier to decide the next time I have to do a presentation.


Here's the Flickr Slideshow:



Obviously, what's missing from this is an audio recording (I'll add this soon)