One of the most innovative technological means that exists in the world and that is being inserted with more boom in educational environments is the Blog. According to del Toro (2009), a blog can be defined as a website for the publication of news or articles (called posts) in reverse chronological order (the most recent ones above), with space for comments and discussion.
This phenomenon is present in almost all societies worldwide since it determines navigation and direct exchange with specialists on various topics and through contact the contents are enriched.
The present work aims to explain the design and importance of a blog for educational purposes and exemplify its creation through a video. The blog entitled Videos and activities to improve the English language is taken as a sample.
The designed blog is made up of some examples of videos that can be used in English classes according to the objective and the communicative functions that you want to achieve in classes, a group of activities for students to work with in video classes. Most of the selected activities were filmed with a group of students from the University of Westminster and demonstrate in practice how the English teacher could lean on them when using the video in class. The designed activities that appear in the Blog, present a detailed explanation of the objective that the students must fulfill, how they would carry out each activity and the role that the teacher must fulfill. A video lesson was assigned for each activity, to show teachers,students and teachers in training in practice performing each one. The blog also shows some interesting articles written by the author who wishes to socialize with users, calls for international and national events, a version of the Curriculum in Spanish and English, among other materials.
Increasingly the blog is making people need to know what it is about and how to use it to exchange with other people regardless of where they are, because the technologies are in a literary language, even faster than the wind itself and transmit information in seconds, which makes it possible to be constantly updated and this has only been possible due to the development achieved by science.
Cada medio tecnológico que surge es producto de profundas investigaciones en el plano teórico y su realización en la práctica que hace que la propia teoría se retroalimente. Según Polanco, A. (1997) “hoy en día, estamos convencidos de que una de las características del momento actual es la conexión indisoluble, la muy estrecha interacción y el acondicionamiento mutuo de la sociedad con la ciencia. La ciencia es uno de los factores esenciales del desarrollo social y está adquiriendo un carácter cada vez más masivo.”
That is why the Blog as part of the development of research has emerged to respond to existing problems that needed to be resolved. The Blog is taking a growing boom in society and in education systems. In higher education centers, the Blog is being used throughout the world as a newspaper, because once created they can perfect the content that appears in it and thus enrich it.
The Blog designed is the practical result of the Master's thesis carried out in the United Kingdom. The blog is entitled “Videos and activities to enrich English in the classroom” and has two main objectives, first to train teachers in the use of video in English as a Foreign Language classes and second to teach teachers a different way of assimilation and improvement of English through videos and a series of activities organized in three stages: the activities that are carried out before the projection of the video, that is, the preparatory ones, the activities for understanding the video and those that are carried out as extra-class work, that is, after the projection of the video.
One of the most important aspects related to the design of a blog is that it allows teachers to keep it as a journal, because once it has been created they can improve the content that appears in it and thus enrich it. The Blog therefore has no limits in terms of knowledge, since teachers can constantly expand each of the topics that appear in it, through the search for new information, subsequent research and through contact with other specialists. The Blog has designed two different ways to establish a contact with the readers and thus know their opinions and experiences regarding the topics that appear on the Blog and about it in general.This has a link that allows them to write their comments on the Blog and the author / author's email also appears as a means of communication.
Another aspect related to Blogs is that it can be used as a Web page, giving teachers the possibility of enriching and developing their knowledge about the use of video in English classes through the Internet. Therefore, through the Blog teachers, students, teachers in training and professionals in general can access it from anywhere in the world they are.
When the design process of the blog entitled “Videos and activities to enrich the English language” began, taking into account the bibliographic review carried out, everything seemed to indicate that it would be a simple process, however the instructions and the methodology regarding its design were not were very clear.
Steps for your design
There are different ways to design a Blog, but one of the easiest that allows you to access your design because it is totally free and accessible is through a google account.
Therefore, the first step that must be carried out is the creation of a google account. To access this step you can type in the google server the blogger.com or blogspot.com site and the blogger site will appear. On your right you will see an orange link with the title Create a Blog and when you access it you will be able to start creating your google account where you will create a new user and password.
Then you will select the platform that you like the most which will be the basis of your blog. When you have already created the platform, then the design process will begin. Among the first steps is to give your blog a title and insert personal data about who you are, what you do, your preferences and tastes, among other information that you want to share with users who visit your blog. In addition, it could insert a photo so that users know it.
Once your profile is created, you will begin to add the materials, articles, videos, activities, in short, everything you want to publish on your blog.
To perform this step you must access the New Post site and then a window will appear where you will see the title of your blog. In this window you will see two elements (Edit Html) and (Compose). If you access (Compose), you will have the possibility to copy, change and refine a text format, but if you want to add videos, you must access (Edit Html). Let's imagine that the videos you want to insert are on the YouTube website, because you will access the video, copy the link that appears on the right side of the video and paste it in the text already created, providing brief information about the content of the video. In this way, you can save the work done and publish it later, you should always access (View Blog) to check if the video was successfully published in the main menu of your Blog.
It is important to write a title for the article to be published and another title for the label, which is the format that appears in the lower right, since the organization of work by label will allow you to incorporate all the materials that you create not by date but by thematic. That is, if the author writes an article about the use of video in the month of September and returns to the subject but with new ideas, two months later, he would insert the new article within the previously created label. Following this form of organization, users can more easily find published works and in terms of (web page), web page is more profitable for the author and users to access the works in the Blog, which will appear in alphabetical order or according to the priority that the author wishes to give them.
This aspect of the organization of work by label was one of the most difficult aspects for me to learn, since when writing the article to be published, the author must name the label in (Labels for this post).
Then access (Layout) and add a page element (Page Element). Then you will see a window titled choose a New Page Element (Choose a New Page Element) and you will access Labels where you will see the following (Add to Blogs), add a Blog and finally you must save the work done.
At the end you will see that the work has been saved automatically. But you must always save by accessing Save and then you must access it in Publish Posts, in order to publish the information. If the information has been saved correctly, it will be successfully displayed on the main screen of the Blog by accessing View Blog.
Another important aspect is how to remove the already designed label. To perform this operation, you must access the created label, go to the site (Edit Post), then access (Layout), select the label you want to delete and click (Edit), a window will be displayed asking if you want to delete the label and finally after removing the label will save the changes made.
Using a blog for educational purposes
The Blog is considered a very valuable tool to use in developing and refining the EA process of the English language in classes. This can be used by both teachers and students because teachers from anywhere they are can access it and comment on published materials, such as activities to work with students in or outside the classroom., videos that would contribute to support the classes, among other materials. In addition to that teachers through the blog would enrich their work from the theoretical elements and practical experiences presented by others.
For example, the novelty of the Blog entitled "Videos and activities to enrich the English language" is related to the theory about the integration of different technological means, with the aim of teaching teachers and training teachers how to improve the use of video through a group of activities taking into account the type of class designed, favoring the teaching-learning process of English in any university, but in particular in the Universities of Pedagogical Sciences of Cuba, a theory that will be enriched in subsequent research.
As for the use that students could give to the blog, one of the main ones would be its use as a website. Through this, the students would have access to different activities and videos that the teacher would leave inserted in the blog. In addition to linking pages that if students have access from where they are to the Internet, their scope would be even greater in terms of knowledge, although there will always be a risk of wasting time because the Internet offers so much information to the user, that in occasions if they do not have the clarity of what is sought they are lost in the attempt.
On the other hand, students can write comments on the observed videos and send messages through it to their classmates and teachers. This is a way that stimulates them and allows them to develop writing in English.
At the moment, the author is working to add other technological means to the blog in order to achieve an integrated use of some ICTs to raise the quality of the teaching-learning process of the English Language in university students.
Bibliography
Del Toro Rodríguez, M. (2009). Blogs and their use for educational purposes. Portal of the Varona.
Polanco, A. (1997). Science Technology and Society. In Monografía.com
