Blogs
Next course dates: 14 February 2009 - 28 February 2009
Term: 10 hours over 2 weeks
Fee: € 135

Future course dates:
01 May 2009 - 15 May 2009
15 July 2009 - 30 July 2009

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CONTENT
A blog (or web log) is an online diary or journal that is regularly updated by an individual, or by a group of people. A blog used in education is known as an ‘edublog’, and include teacher blogs (a blog set up and contributed to by a teacher or lecturer), student blogs (blogs set up and maintained by individual students) and class blogs (one blog contributed to by all the members of a class). This short online course looks at teacher, students and class blogs, and how they can be used by teachers both in and outside the classroom with learners. We also examine RSS (Really Simple Syndication) and learn how to use this to subscribe to blogs. The practical, hands-on course explores:

• free web-based software for blogs - what it looks like, how it works, where to get it
• real examples of blog projects, set up by language teachers from around the world, for young learners, adults, Business English learners, teacher trainees, and a range of other disciplines
• RSS (Really Simple Syndication) and how  this can be used to subscribe to blogs
• how course participants might use blogs and RSS with their own learners.

Course participants will design and produce their own blog during this course, using free Internet-based blog tools.

AUDIENCE
The course is aimed at all teachers of English and/or other languages worldwide interested in learning how to use an ICT tool such as blogs in their teaching. It is suitable for newly-qualified teachers wishing to increase their employment opportunities and develop their ICT skills, as well as experienced professionals looking to expand their teaching repertoire at the same time as they gain some experience in online learning and ICT.

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TIMETABLE
This course covers two weeks (see dates above). You are expected to spend approx. 5 hours per week (a total of 10 hours per course) on online individual and collaborative group work, including offline reading and reflection. Deadlines for task completion are weekly, and you can log on at any point during the week to work on the course.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES
During the course, you will:

• learn what a blog is, and the difference between teacher, student and class blogs
• explore a number of blogs especially developed for language learners
• learn about RSS, and how to use it to subscribe to blogs
• take part in a short blog project as a participant
• create your own blog, for use in your own teaching context with your own learners, using a free Internet-based blog tool
• learn to effectively use the VLE (Virtual Learning Environment) Moodle as a course participant
• experience an online video conferencing session

SKILLS
The course is taught entirely online, using the VLE (Virtual Learning Environment) Moodle. You won’t need any prior experience or knowledge of online learning, although basic experience of email and Internet use would be helpful. Technical and pedagogical support is available for the entire duration of the course.

LANGUAGE REQUIREMENTS
Competence in written and spoken English, whether English is the applicants’ first, second or foreign language: successful applicants’ levels of competence in English must be of a standard sufficient to enable them to fully understand and complete the course work.

WHAT YOU NEED

• An Internet connection, preferably broadband
• A headset (best is with a USB connection) or stand-alone microphone and speakers
• A webcam is optional
• An up-to-date browser
• Adobe Acrobat Reader
• An up-to-date media player (e.g. Windows Media Player or similar)
• A word processing package (e.g. Microsoft Word or similar)

You will use our video conferencing platform at least once during the course; before taking part in the first session, we advise you to run the online system check here to ensure that you can take part fully in the session.

CERTIFICATION
The Consultants-E will issue participants with a Certificate on successful completion of the course. Successful completion of the course is defined as completing 80% of the course work to an acceptable standard.

ENROLMENT/FEES
You can enrol online by following this link. The course fee covers all chats and tutorials, guest speaker sessions (where appropriate), evaluation of final project work and certification from The Consultants-E.