User:Joao/My sandbox

Blogs with my classes

My Classes

This year I started using blogs with my two classes I am teaching German to. I have only 25 students altogether which is absolutely exceptional. They have 3 lesson per week which are distributed 90+90+135 minutes. Fortunately I managed to teach each class in a computer equiped room in the 135 minute lessons. Each student has access to his own computer and Internet which represents excellent and exceptional conditions.

Blogs and Bloxio

At first I was not sure which blogging software I should use. I know Blogger and Wordpress. After asking for some advice in the Webheads in Action Community, of which I am a proud member, I came across a Wordpress MU blogging software called bloxio. After having a look at the software I found it very powerful, especially because of some powerful features like the forum and the wiki that it includes. So I decided to use this software in spite of some bugs it still may have.

Now, 4 months later, I realize that it might have been a mistake having chosen this blogging software. There were still too many bugs that made the use of it quite difficult for the students in the beginning. I had the feeling that difficulties with the software, together with it being not very user friendly had a negative impact on the students' motivation to use the blog. The fact that there were no templates to choose from giving the students the freedom to customize their blogs was another reason that didn't catch the students' enthusiasm.