Safe Tips for Blogging

Before referencing to a certain web blog, always check the name and the background of the author by using Google search engine and find out if there's other links pertinent to the author.



Check the ratings and read through the articles and comments of the author’s blog for credibility and legitimacy.


School and parents are responsible for teaching students dos and dons on their blog. For example, personal address and telephone number should not be appeared on their blog.


The amount of freedom for students to blog should be at parents and teacher’s discretion.

Students’ entries on their blogs are supposed to be discreet and prudent. The judgments and decisions they made on the blog of some body else are supposed to sensible and careful.


School and libraries should be under the surveillance of the Child Internet Protection Act (CIPA).

How I Could Use Blogs in My Class

     I barely have teaching experience, so it is difficult for me to think of how to incorporate blogs in my own class. Fortunately, now I have a bunch of ideas after reading the first and second chapter of textbook. In the past, I have seen a couple of good blogs relevant to English teaching . As a teacher-to-be, I would tweak some of the ways of incorporating blogs in teaching and turn into my own teaching method.


     First, what I am intended to do is slightly similar to class portal. By posting a list of keywords singled out from an article, I could do pre-reading activity right on blog for my students. In this case, students would have some head-ups before the class. In addition to the definition to those keywords, I could expand the usage of the words by adding related common phrases or links.


     Second, blog could also function as a forum for students to communicate with each other. For example, students can discuss the fun parts and twists about the novel they are reading as an assignment. Since students who are assigned with the same novel may not have the same thoughts about it, it is interesting to see how the same novel can actually inspire students respectively. In addition, teacher can design some questions like, "What do you like about the book so far?” to get the process of discussion going well. By doing so, blogs not only create initiatives for students to read English novels in ameliorating their reading abilities, but also provide a channel for reticent students to express their ideas.


    Last but not least, blogs can really broaden student’s horizon by connecting students around the world. I have seen many people meet their foreign friends via personal journal sites like MySpace and Facebook. This is not to say that making acquaintance on those sites is imprudent, but it does have risks. One of my professors in my university used to bring her students from Texas A&M University and students from some of the Taiwanese Universities together to work on the same project. The purpose of connecting students who are from different countries is not just to help non-native speakers of English improve their English, but to introduce them the American culture. In my opinion, blogs that are set up by school teachers are the best place to make friends from around the world.