Sharing and refining

Actually, I have never used blog before, but I used to visit other's blogs a lot, like some food blogs, fashion blogs, etc. These bloggers share their experiences, skills, ideas in their blogs, and the people who are interested in the contents can get informations and give feedback through blogs, and then the bloggers can communication with their audiences and develop their blogs. Therefore, in my opinion, the main function of blog is providing a place where people can share and refine their ideas.

As a future English teacher, I think I can use blog for my professional development in the following two aspects. First of all, I will use it as a public diary to record my teaching activities, like the objectives of my classes, the problems I meet during the process of lecturing, the students' reaction in the class and my understandings or findings of some teaching issues. As " seven reasons teachers should blog" says, blogging causes teachers to reflect. Through recoding, I can have a better idea about what happens in my class and areas for improvement. Absolutely, only recoding is not enough to realize reflection, we need valuable feedback, which can also be get from blogging, such as reviews from my peers and my students.

Besides, I can use blog as a platform where I can communicate with my students. In my opinion, some students prefer indirect communication with their teachers, like using e-mails. And blog is a more interesting and effective tool for exchange. I can build a blog for my class and circle all my students in. Then, I can post all related materials on the blog, such as class assignments, useful resources. Besides, my students can tell me their queries, and give me their advices and share their ideas with the whole class. In this way, we can know each other better and make our class more effective.

According to ISTE standards, student blogging meets the following one:
communication and collaboration.
ISTE NETS Student Standard 2007

Students use digital media and environments to communicate and work collaboratively, including at a distance, to support individual learning and contribute to the learning of others. Students:

a. interact, collaborate, and publish with peers, experts, or others employing a variety of digital environments and media. b. communicate information and ideas effectively to multiple audiences using a variety of media and formats. c. develop cultural understanding and global awareness by engaging with learners of other cultures. d. contribute to project teams to produce original works or solve problems.