My webography Topic: Using blogs to help develop students' interest in writing

Writing instruction in my university, with too much attention being paid on the final product, is far from being effective. It always puzzles me, as a teacher, how to involve students and help them learn to write? Having learned the IT module, I think that this haunting problem can be partly solved with the help of modern technology. To be specific, blogs can be used to help develop students' interest in writing. With more interest developed, learners will be able to write better articles by practicing more with posting and sharing with their peers.

website 7
http://academics.smcvt.edu/cbauer-ramazani/cb/tasks/writonline.htm

• The current website is founded by Christine Bauer-Ramazani from Saint Michael’s college, Colchester, Vermont, USA. Readers can get access to many task-based activities for teaching online writing.
• In addition to the related links, many readings are accessible related to similar topics. In such writings as "Paperless Classroom" and "Writing and Technology", we can learn about some researchers’ attempt in revolutionizing writing instruction with the help of the Internet. Undoubtedly, with modern technology, classroom teaching can be more effective and takes on a new look.
• Instructors can learn about teaching online writing on this website. By better integrating IT into teaching such as creating a blog to involve learners posting and sharing, one of the significant improvements must be students' more interest in such subjects as writing.

Website 6
http://www.cwrl.utexas.edu/?q=node/100

• On this webpage we can read about an article entitled “Welcome to the blogsphere: using weblogs to create classroom community”, published by Tom Nelson and Jan. Fernheimer in August 2003 on CWRL (the computer writing and research lab). This is a website especially dedicated to computer aided writing programs and on-line writing workshops.
• By reading the article, instructors can learn about blogs, their potential uses in the computer-assisted classroom, composition and literature courses in particular. In the article, the author provides some background knowledge and terminology on the evolution of blogs and blogging, the characteristics of blogs that appear to be relevant in classroom teaching, including their interactive nature, their multi-author capacities, and their public presence are touched upon. Based on these features, numerous ways are suggested in which blogs might be used effectively in the CA classroom, as well as some potential problems worth taking into consideration.
• The second half of the article focuses on pedagogical application of blogs which is of practical significance to teachers. The possibilities of using blogs to foster classroom community are being investigated as well.