Guest piece- Blogging for teacher development

By Darren Elliott, TEFL.net Book Reviews contributor and the man who inspired my 15 Tips for People Attending TESOL Conferences

“I can remember my first email account. It’s still out there somewhere, full of spam. I also remember running all over Katmandu to find the football scores, finally tracking them down to a tattered copy of the Guardian in the British Embassy. At university, I typed my essays on an electric typewriter, using scissors and tippex to edit.

Now we all live in a virtual world, and as teachers the opportunities for self development are immense. If you are reading this you may have stumbled across it whilst looking for something else. Or you might have clicked through from another link. Perhaps you subscribe to Alex’s blog through an RSS feed to an aggregator (as I do). But how can we best utilize the web to help us learn as teachers?

The first incarnation of the web was (and still is) like an enormous library, but better. This replicates the way people worked before the web; the user goes in and finds what they need, but interaction with material is limited. Sites such as onestopenglish provide excellent resources, but in the same way a collection of well-produced magazines would.

What separates newer technologies from the old is their malleability and the potential for collaboration. At the same time, it’s important to remember; just because you can do it with technology, doesn’t mean you have to! I’ll give you an example. I’m a keen photographer and user of the photo community at Flickr. I recently read a post on the forums from a guy who was sending tweets to Twitter using GPS technology to record where and when he changed his film canisters. At this point you are probably clapping your hands with glee, or shaking your head with confusion. Well, it was pointed out that a magic marker would do the job just as well, which rather burst that bubble.

I am quite skeptical when it comes to technology. I’ve used Twitter, and Second Life, but I’m yet to be convinced that reporting your trip to the newsagent’s or flying around bumping into walls has enormous merit. What I’ve been looking for is something that can do what I want it to do, but better than before. I’ve long struggled to keep a reflective teaching journal, but I have never been able to keep it going using a pen and a Moleskine. Part of the problem has been the lack of feedback, so I decided what was needed was a teacher development group, which I decided to form online. It’s in formation now, as a collection of linked blogs, using the Tumblr platform.

If you visit the blog (http://teacherdevelopment.tumblr.com/), at first sight it might appear to look like any other blog. The difference is probably conceptual rather than practical – most blogs are written for the readers, informative, entertaining or illuminating. These blogs are initially written for the writers. The benefits come from reading and responding reciprocally within the small community. For me, the act of writing in itself is helping me put things straight in my mind, but the feedback and insights of others has made it more valuable.

if you are interested in joining us, we still have plenty of room for others. Get in touch at darrenrelliott@gmail.com, or comment via the blog. Thanks to Alex for the opportunity to get a plug in, and for writing a proper blog ; )

Links referred to in the piece
http://www.flickr.com/groups/ishootfilm/discuss/72157616986780690/?search=twitter+film

http://www.onestopenglish.com/”

It occurs to me that Darren’s model would be another good way of organising the TEFL mentoring system that I mention two posts down- on a members only collection of blogs people mainly write for themselves but also comment on each others and maybe eventually “hook up”

Any other thoughts on this?

Tags: guest writers

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 28th, 2009 at 8:13 am and is filed under CPD, links, Onestopenglish, Teacher associations, Teacher training, TEFL, TEFL blogs, Twitter. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.