Blogs in language learning: Maximizing students' collaborative writing

Abstract

Educators have engaged with Web 2.0 technologies such as blogs or podcasts, to make learning more personalized, more interactive and more dynamic. Blogging has emerged as one of the most popular forms of online discourse. Blogging is seen as a learning platform in providing opportunities for learning English which can improve the students' knowledge about their language performance in writing. The unique nature of the blog's architecture and the low cost have not only affected how students can publish and distribute their work to a wider audience but also how the students see themselves as authors. This paper focuses on the use of blogs in a language and IT course which can help to maximize students' collaborative writing. Findings from the blogs include the perceptions of ESL students of how blogging can contribute to the development of the students' writing. © 2010 Published by Elsevier Ltd.