ELT Signposts 2005 September 9-11, Brno To Blog or Not to Blog Pavel Kurfürst Institute of Foreign Languages Palacký University in Olomouc

Language pedagogy cannot and should not be immunne to the advantages the Internet offers – in information, in resources and in opportunities for global communication. S. Windeatt, D. Hardisty, D. Eastment: The Internet Oxford University Press 2000, p. 1

Computer literacy in the Czech Republic

New phenomena – new words early 1990’s (public use of the internet): online diaries, personal journals, logs Dec John Barger robotwisdom.com: (World Wide) Web + log  weblog May 1999 Peter Merholz peterme.com: abridged to blog n. blog v. (we)blogger n. post n. blog + stratosphere  blog(o)sphere n.

New phenomena – new words OALD, 7th edition, 2005

New phenomena – new words OALD, 7th edition, 2005

New phenomena – new words OALD, 7th edition, 2005

New phenomena – new words

Blogger.com free blog hosting service 1999: started by Pyra Labs 2001: one of The Guardian’s The Seven Wonders of the Web (Google, Yahoo!, eBay, Amazon etc.) 2003: bought by Google.com July 2005: 14 million blogs

How many blogs are there? estimated 70 million (July 2005) MSN Spaces 15M, Blogger 14M, LiveJournal 9M etc. number of blogs doubles every 5 months 1 new blog/second; 80,000/day about 50% blank or dormant nearly 1 million new posts/day

Blogs – Journalists Christopher Allbritton (freelance, ex AP and NY Daily News) back-to-iraq.com Stuart Hughes (freelance, BBC News) stuarthughes.blogspot.com Kevin Sites (freelance, NBC News) kevinsites.net

Blogs – Writers Cory Doctorow (sci-fi writer) craphound.com William Gibson (cyberpunk/sci-fi writer) williamgibsonbooks.com/blog/blog.asp Noam Chomsky (linguist, political activist) blog.zmat.org/ttt

Blogs – Celebrities David Duchovny (actor, director, writer) lionsgatedirectors.com/duchovny Moby (musician) moby.com/journal Anna Kournikova (ex-tennis player, model) kournikova.com/journal

Blogs in Czech Ladislav “Laco” Bittner (IT journalist) laco.bloguje.cz Zdeněk Škromach (minister) zdenek-skromach.cz “Ostravak” since Dec. 2004, 800,000 visits, 5,000/day ostravak.bloguje.cz

More about blogs Technorati Blog Finder (tracking 16.7M blogs, search) technorati.com The Blog Herald (online journal) blogherald.com Miloš “Medius” Čermák (journalist – Reflex, Lidové noviny) extra.cz

Free blog hosting – English blogger.com spaces.msn.com livejournal.com blogeasy.com weblogpage.com bloxster.net etc.

Free blog hosting – Czech bloguje.cz blog.cz blog.lide.cz brouzdej.cz etc.

A new blog in a few minutes blogger.com create an account user name & password title of the blog graphic template write / edit new posts add photographs include hyperlinks

As a means of communication, the Internet allows students around the world to interact with one another cheaply, quickly and reliably, opening up the classroom to the real world in a way which has never before seen possible. S. Windeatt, D. Hardisty, D. Eastment: The Internet Oxford University Press 2000, p. 6

Blogs in ELT other people’s blogs source of information, amusement search, read, discuss, comment your (groups of) students’ blogs class / school journals or notice boards projects personal diaries

Blogs in ELT teachers’ blogs less formal communication with students additional materials, photographs, links internet presentation of departments cooperation, projects

The Internet is constantly developing and presents many possibilities for language learning that have hardly been explored. Use your imagination, try things out, and take the occassional risks! S. Windeatt, D. Hardisty, D. Eastment: The Internet Oxford University Press 2000, p. 14

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