Blogs

I think that blogs can be useful for teachers and students in the classroom setting. They can allow communication outside of the classroom and I think that they can be very valuable in that way. The discussion board aspect of Blackboard, as is used by Boise State University is a great example of a blog used in a classroom. I find them very helpful in communicating with other students as well as the professor regarding class assignments and any questions I may have.

For a Spanish class, they can be helpful for students to practice conversing in Spanish outside of the classroom. Especially if given a specific assignment, students can converse online, and work with different parts of grammar and vocabulary either as a part of regular classroom work or as part of homework. It would be very valuable for my students to utilize a class blog in order to keep in touch with each other as well as with me and to practice Spanish conversation. I would also use the class blog to evaluate student performance in speaking through requiring my students to post audio files of oral assignments that they had recorded. This would save class time for lessons and questions rather than taking up that valuable time to evaluate each student one-on-one.