Presentation Slides on 'Students' Blog Project' Presented at TEFLIN 2012

1. By: Dr. Maria Teodora Ping, M.Sc.
Paper Presentation
59th
TEFLIN International Conference
2012

2. Background
Computer and internet have become one of the
important parts of modern day people’s lives
The undeniable existence of educational activities or
programmes supported by the use of computer
technology, including blog (weblog)
The current situation at the English Department
Universitas Mulawarman Samarinda, in which
students have started experiencing “Computer
Assisted Language Learning”

3. Objectives of the Study
General Objective: having an insight to the students’ ELT
blog projects done under the framework of CALL Course
Specific Objectives:
1. Describing and analysing the students’ ELT blogs by
focusing on the two following main aspects:
- Organisation & type of blog content
- Peer commentary/ feedback
2. Finding out how students promoted/ introduced their
blogs to their classmates by using a particular social media
platform, namely “twitter”
3. Finding out students’ personal opinions on blogging
activities related to their own learning process and interest

4. Related Studies
Pinkman (2005)
- action research investigating the benefits of using blogs in an EFL
class.
- findings: increasing interest & motivation; improving reading &
writing skills
Blackstone et al (2007)
- an implementation of a cycle of blogging activities
- findings: blogging motivated students to interact meaningfully
outside the classroom
Ahluwalia et al (2011)
- students’ perception of using blogs as a means to supplement in-class
language learning activities
- findings: an overall positive attitude towards using blogs in their
learning of English

5. Research Methodology
Case Study (Qualitative Approach) investigating
some presumably important aspects of the students’
ELT blog projects
Participants: Students who enrolled at 4 classes of
Computer Assisted Language Learning in which the
researcher was the lecturer-in-charge
Data were taken from 24 students’ blog
Additional instrument: a simple online survey/
questionnaire created on surveymonkey
Data Analysis: Content Analysis; descriptive

6. Procedures for the Students
After being introduced to blogging activities as one
of the topics discussed in CALL course, forming a
small group (consisting of four people) and creating
their own blogs that could facilitate English Language
Teaching and Learning
Promoting their blogs via twitter
Completing an online survey concerning the blog
project

7. Findings
Students’ blog content: organisation & type
- Most posts were organised based on the
differentiation of language skills (i.e. listening,
speaking, reading and writing). Most groups posted in
a random order and only a few separated the posts in
a separate folder for each language skill
- Type of content included a variety of articles, tips and
strategies as well as exercises. All students used
different modalities such as texts, pictures,
animations and audio-video files.

8. Example of the student blog posts

9. Findings cont.
Peer Commentary/ Feedback
- Not properly used by the peer groups
- Mainly complimenting, and a few times criticising
Example:

10. Findings cont.
Incorporating twitter to promote the blogs
- Working out rather well. All groups were observed to
tweet at least once to promote their blogs
Example:

11. Findings cont.
Online Survey on Students’ Personal Opinion
Item 1:
“Did you experience writing a blog before the CALL
Final Project?”
Out of 12 student respondents, 8 answered “Yes” and
4 answered “No”
Example of a response:
“Yes, I did since 2009 but it had nothing to do with teaching or learning. I made it to
share all of my artworks back then.”
7/11/2012 10:09 PM

12. Findings cont.
Item 2
“If you experienced having a blog before the CALL Final
Project, what language did you use to write your blog
posts?”
Out of the eight students, three students answered
“English”, three students answered both Indonesian
and English, one student answered “Indonesian” and
the other one answered Indonesian, English and
Korean.

13. Findings cont.
Items 3- 10
Notes: AA = Absolutely Agree; A= Agree; D= Disagree; AD = Absolutely Disagree
Item Statement AA A D AD
3
“The experience in creating a blog made CALL course
interesting” 41.75 % 58.3 % 0% 0%
4
“I enjoyed writing and reading blog posts created for CALL
Final Project” 25.0 % 75.0 % 0% 0%
5
“Blogging Activities for CALL Final Project helped me learn
some writing skills” 33.3 % 66.7 % 0% 0%
6
“Blogging activities for CALL Project helped me learn some
reading skills” 25% 66.7 % 8.3 % 0%
7
“Blogging Activities for CALL Project helped me improve my
grammar” 33.3 % 25.5 % 41.7 % 0%
8
“Blogging activities for CALL final project helped me develop
some knowledge about English language teaching and
learning material development” 66.7 % 25.0 % 8.3 % 0%
9
“Blogging Activities for CALL final project helped me learn
some new words” 25% 50% 25% 0%
10
“Blogging Activities motivated me to complete CALL final
project” 50.00 % 41.7 % 8.3 % 0%

14. Conclusions and Suggestions
Conclusions:
The findings of this study provided an insight of
students’ ELT Blog Content, in terms of type and
organisation
The findings of the study also confirmed the findings
of previous studies, especially concerning students’
opinions on the usefulness of blogging activities
related to their learning improvement and interest
The students did not seem to comment much on
their peer’s blog

15. Conclusions and Suggestions
The students made use of twitter as a media to
promote their blogs quite well
Suggestions:
For researchers: using the findings of this study as
preliminary data to develop larger, more extensive
studies
For EFL teachers & students: making more use of
online platforms such as blogs and twitter for
educational purposes

16. THANK YOU! 