Objectives:
* To record your personal reactions to the human dilemmas posed by our reading texts.
* To practise and improve your critical thinking and argumentative skills by discussing and debating points raised by our reading texts.
* To keep in close communication with your classmates, other ENG 101 students and your teacher outside of class time, commenting and asking questions when necessary.
* To find and share useful resources for improving your language skills.
* To increase your confidence in using social software.
Do you think these are good reasons? Can you think of any more to add? Please COMMENT on this blog post. (Click on 'Comments' below, add your comment and click 'Publish comment').
72 comments:
Yes, i agree that we can practise our thinkings by viewing crtical dilemmas.
reasons are fairly enough
It's definitely a good application but not beneficial for face to face talking..
Well, i agree with Arda Soydan. It may help us to improve our thinkings, but it would show better results with human interraction. Better in class environment
I won't argue that the blog is more useful than class time, but limited amount of class time require us to us technologies such as blogs.
The blog is also useful for checking the recent assignments etc.
Using blogs is not difficult but checking the blog all the time will be the main problem for most of us.
What Cihan said is interesting...why would it be a problem to check the blog, do you think?
because its not a usual thing..but surely we can use it at the same time with facebook:). it would be really good talking in here.
I think it is difficult to look at this website everyday.
i don't think checking the blog would be a problem. i agree the idea that it is not beneficial for face to face talking but since we don't have much time in class the blog could be useful
I think it is a great idea to use a class blog. As we saw in the video we watched in the classroom, technology and internet really help students to get information and share it.
A good platform to discuss without waking up early in the morning. I mean we dont have to stuck with limited class time thanks to blogs.
it is nice to have a website like that. we can share our ideas and discuss here.
ı wish ı won't forget to look there daily but ı'm agree that it will be usefull for checking the announcements
It may lead to a little problem due to daily-checking as my friends said. But if we get used take a look to blogs, they will be very beneficial for outclass studies.
Well, it saves time, that's for sure (advantage); but using internet just to make comments on such site which looks definitely like a forum of geocities leads the distracting of all the attention from lesson (disadvantage). There are tons of other applications providing this ability (the communication with students) much more easier way, especially without checking every time which is another difficulty.
it is a great opportunity to express your thoughts with this way
Why bother checking this page every single day? I don't like getting stuck to the chair and sitting before the computer all day long, now I have to spend some more time for this blog? And you see that's all virtual, I don't think I'll be able to improve my english by commenting on such blog. The point is, It doesn't feel like the real way of learning stuff. Face-to-face interraction is more advantageous. For example I can ask my questions right away, instead of waiting for some replies on web. And I'd feel restless whether I'll miss some comments, some important notes here or not, which can be significant for the exams and all.
We can use the e-mails to communicate online, don't we all know how to send a simple mail? It's quite common here at the university, isn't it?
All in all, this can work but it takes more than it gives I think.
First I've heard about this class has a blog spot, my first thought is it will be usesless. But as it seems blog will be a useful place that we will share our thoughts. Hope it continues that way.
Through that way we could amend our mistakes or find the logical answers to our questions, because class blogs're useful to justify the final solutions of dilemmas or problems.
I wonder if Mete and some others are slightly misunderstanding what the blog is intended for. The assignments on the blog will COMPLEMENT the work we do in class. In other words, we will *of course* be communicating face to face in class, but the blog assignments will EXTEND what we discuss. You can discuss and debate points for as long as you like throughout the semester. You can also get ideas for your essays and presentations. We will not have time to cover each and every aspect of our texts in class.
This blog is NOT for announcements. It is for critical thinking assignments. Use SU Course for announcements.
This is one of the few places where you can get direct feedback - from me and from other students. Hopefully you will come to see the value of this in time.
And in my experience, unfortunately many students do not listen to other students when they speak in class; instead, they use it as an opportunity to have private conversations in Turkish...sorry but it's true...One student speaks to the teacher. I would love to see this pattern broken this semester.
I love the adjective "useless". This is how I interpret that: Students don't want the responsibility of checking regularly...yet I'm sure most of you use the Internet everyday...
Great debate going, keep it up!
when I heard this class blog, firstly I think that it will be useful but it is difficult to check this blog everyday.
i agree with thinkers like idil because students may not always have opoortunity to use internet to check blog..
The daily checking may lead a problem to some students that do not familiar with technology.
At first this blogspot thing looked useless to me, just like deniz thought. But now it seems like fun and useful. Already thinking about my own blogspot =)
I think this blog is useful as it will complement what we will learn in class.On the other hand though,I may not be able to check it everyday.
This application helps me to get different informations from other mates..
maybe, daily checking is difficult to follow but the blog is useful for improving our practical thinking skills.
this blog is useful to share our ideas and curiousities about lesson. but it will occur a problem in daily checking of blog when other university lectures get harder.
blogs are fun, i think this will be useful, we need to learn how to communicate by using computer anyway
it is a great way to discuss ideas and find new solutions.In my opinion daily checking won't be a big problem as it takes only a few minutes.
Everybody worries about daily checking, me too. But in fact, as ceren said, it doesn't take so much time. This blog is good, because it gives us the opportunity to get ideas from different aspects.
I just realized I've misunderstood the purpose of this blog :(
Blogs are trendy on internet last terms also using this blog for freshman english 101 is advantage for us.
Some of you say students may not always have the opportunity to use the Internet...hmm...Sabancı gives you a laptop and we have a wireless network... :-D
For anyone who is unsure about technology, please make an appointment for a tutorial as soon as possible.
reading all comments is really hard because in one day lots of comment are sent so to me, we couldnt follow them but its aim is very nice and usefull.
daily checking should be the last thing we have to consider about.according to me, this is a good opportunity but not an obligation. If it seems very boring or hard to check this blog, well the answer is simple : don't do it. It's just like attempting to the lessons in auditorium. if you want to raise your marks, or if you just want to improve your intellectual knowledge, you do attempt in the class, but nobody forces you to do it. It up to your decision. on the other hand, i strongly guess, that most of the students in our class use facebook, msn messenger and individual e-mail. In order to use those opportunities, you have to spend some time on your lap top. If we spend our time in front of the computer with the permission of our will, why don't we do the same for this blog?
There will be a lot of comments on the blog. So I suggest you employ your skimming and scanning reading skills in order to cope...
And I think Arda makes an excellent point: If you don't want 20 (easy) points to improve your grade, and you don't want to be prepared for class, just don't visit the blog. Your choice. :-)
It exactly worth to visit for 20 points:)
do we have to read the short story "A Rose for Emily" before next lesson???
Yes you have to read "A Rose for Emily"
ı guess teacher will ask some questions so you have to read carefully:)
this is a beneficial study for us to improve our discussing skills.reading all comments is difficult but u can use skimming techniques that we have learned last year. cansu =D
I think the most important thng is regularly check. so it can be beneficial.
I think the answer of the question 'why do we use a class blog?' is not related with improving language or using a social software with a great confidence. However, practising and improving our critical thinking and sharing it with our classmates is very essential for us and that should be the reason of why we use a class blog
I think using blog assignment is usefull because we both improve our english and checking out internet for new assignments by using blog and this makes us much more organized
Well, i think we use a class blog because we don't have enough time to argue about issues.Thank to the class blog we can share our ideas and talk about them.However,like many people said it's not really easy to check the blog and follow the arguments.
At first, I thougt using a class blog would be very useful actually it is but checking the blog all the time and responding to other comments ,to make this possible we should read all the comments, are too difficult. In fact, I prefer to discuss those arguments face to face and can't ignore the fact that we have little class time and doing this stuff in class isn't possible. Somehow we are going to find a way to handle with these blog difficulties.
It is a good practice because we can think and write our viewings. sometimes we cannot be courageous enough to say everything we have in out mind. But we can write.
It may help us to improve our ideas,but it may lead a problem because of daily-checking.
It makes us to debate our ideas as in an assembly. We could compare our rights and viewpoints with our classmates' so we could easily realize that who is much more accurate and whose idea must be taken into consideration most. Moreover, we could amend our mistakes and benefit from thoughts of others. In my opinion it is useful however not as much as class interaction and communication.
It is a good application for improving our writing skills. We can share our ideas and debate them in blogs. Blogs are good opportunity to see other comments and enlarge our viewpoints.
it is useful to share our various opinions and contribute our knowledge in different areas.
DENİZ D KİPGE
the reasons are good enough but it is really hard to check it kind of difficult to check it out every day
I think blog is useful for learning and also improving reading and analyzing skills.It provides opportunity to share ideas, especially in other class. In this way, we could have chance to recognize new aspects which we do not catch in texts or films by discussing our ideas.
Checking orderly is a problem but it doesn't make the blog useless and I don't believe that face to face discussion is enough to improve our skills and gain an academic write style. In our final essay, we'll search about topics that we discuss in the blog and now we've just discussed the topics before final exam so I believe we are more well-prepared than other sections.
Class blog is very useful for improving language skills but we already have too much that we have to keep up with on internet. I think handwriting homeworks are more practical.
It is very useful. The reasons are enough. Also, using blog will helpful to us because we can have different points of view.
i found the reasons good. i also think that blog assignments are realy helpful for analyzing the texts and the short stories that we read.
we can use this blog to find diffrennt view also this is a duty so we have to write something in blog:)
At the beginning of this course, I did not realize blog assignment's all advantages. It is not only mediator to maintain an everybody's opinion, but also very useful to keep going on concentration at lessons.
I it is very beneficial for students because sharing opinions helps improve our thinking skills. Furthermore time flexibility makes class blog more encouraging.
class blog is useful, but sometimes we may have cheking problem. also i think its not beneficial as hand writing homework.
I think class blog is useful, but checking it regularly makes a little bit nervous, because we are responsible for it. Having different ideas from other students are very good, since we can find out the information or points which we did not think for the texts. We have new aspects for the texts and it is very useful.
I dont like it because it is not recomended it is required and we graded for it
Loco, if you would like to receive credit for this post, you need to include your name. Thanks.
I think it is a good way of discussing things, but it would be better if we discussed them much more thoroughly during class time since people could elaborate on the topics much more willingly during class.
Using a class blog is beneficial for us to share ideas and to think more critically . It help us to realize some points that we can not see before. But sometimes İt's hard to write blog , you can not think detailed always .
Using a blog is beneficial to making writing practice or getting different ideas from a text but it is hard to make it regularly. I preferred the shorter questions to make it quicker but its just my personal laziness. I would be happier if this blog was a kind of direct dialogue thing. I mean with direct questions and answers and then another question related to our answer. Because i did it once in a rose for Emily and i enjoyed while i was writing the answer more than writing to the blog directly.
Using a blog is beneficial to making writing practice or getting different ideas from a text but it is hard to make it regularly. I preferred the shorter questions to make it quicker but its just my personal laziness. I would be happier if this blog was a kind of direct dialogue thing. I mean with direct questions and answers and then another question related to our answer. Because i did it once in a rose for Emily and i enjoyed while i was writing the answer more than writing to the blog directly.
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