Blogging As A Form of Homework : Teacher and Student Perspectives

In this digital age Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL) is a popular pedagogical tool, with the use of multi-roms, online language learning sites, social networking services (such as Facebook and MySpace) and blogs (also known as weblogs) steadily growing. This project looks at the use of one such tool, blogs, from the perspective of the administrator (the teacher-researcher) and the users (the students). A simple blog project that could be used with multiple classes was set up and implemented, with student feedback obtained through a questionnaire. This paper gives an overview of the implementation of the blog project, with comments on the level of input and monitoring required by the teacher-researcher, and presents data that evaluates the project from the students’ perspective. The teacher-researcher found that the blogs were easy to set up and monitor and did not require unreasonable time commitments in class or out. The questionnaire results were very positive, indicating that the majority of students found it easy to learn how to use the blogs, liked them and wish to continue using them