ETAS
The English Teaching Association Switzerland is a non-profit organization dedicated to bringing English teachers in Switzerland together, providing them with informal training, information and library services. It’s main website can be found under the links or HERE.
The aim of this bog is to bring members of the ETAS and others together in order to explore and discuss the nature of learning and teaching, especially in the context of learning technologies, and other discussions initiated by current topics in the media or our classrooms.
This blog is run by Illya Arnet-Clark, the SIG learning-technologies head.
(SIG = special interest group)
ETAS learning technologies 
Jeanne said
I missed your blogging at the AGM but I’m definitely showing up for your session on SIG day in Wil 🙂
I clicked on your reflective blog adn it was reassuring to see that you too were once a newbie-ish and feeling experimental. At least you know how it feels to be starting sthg new as an adult.
I’d like to find out how to use blogs with teenagers. So one of my worries is sthg you referred to as ‘clickability’? and the teachers’ resonsibility to make sure they are safe in cyber-space.
I’ve worked for a school that is involved in CLIL (content integrated language learning), which means teachers are teaching subjects in a langauge that is foreign to the students. That’s where it became obvious that in order for the kids to have plenty of materials to develop their thinking skills in English, they really needed the internet. I want to help them develop their analytical and critical thinking skills and thought blogging would be one way of doing it. I had also hoped the ‘gimmick’ might make them want to practice more. However, when I made a very weak attempt (I admit), they looked at me like a dog with three heasds. They were more used to ‘chatting’ on line than blogging.
And now I want to know more, for myself, because I love writing 🙂 You may have noticed at the length of this entry.
Jeanne
illya arnet-clark said
I think it’s a great idea to start blogging with teenagers and there are mayn possibilities. The key to being successful lies in giving them a readership, and I hope that is where we all from the ETAS and beyond will come in – to support each other in our efforts to use such things in the classroom. My suggestion is really to set up a blog and play with it so you will have experience before convincing your class to use it. I would love to add your blog to our (as of yet) humble blogroll!
Jeanne said
I’m afraid that blog disapeared into the ether. I’d started to use it with a class I had for 3 weeks and it at a stage where it was sort of limping into being when their ‘regular’ teacher arrived. I informed this person of the idea, and that it was experimental and aimed at getting ss involved in reading and writing more than they currently were doing in English.
Unfortunately the regular teacher was not enthused by my idea and ‘tried’ it out with the ss 1x but the technology that day was a major disappointment….:-( too true alas. To this teacher’s credit, they did give it a 2nd go.
I was speechless when the feedback on that 2nd attempt was…Well they really didn’t know what to do with it?
I didn’t get an answer when I blurted..’Well what kind of task did you set up?’
I think this teacher was under the impression it would be an ‘easy’ lesson with no preparation required. Anyway, that was the end of that….
illya arnet-clark said
It’s sad to read that your first attempt failed. But I have to admit that my first attempt also failed. Afterwards I realized that you need a clear purpose for your blog, at least at the beginning, and it needs to be encorporated into the lesson, especially at first, as well as playing a part outside of class. Many class blogs I have seen begin with a writing project and are extended with comments from others from the class. Ideally, you will find a readership outside the classroom that will comment, as this is the cream topping that will bring your students back to write more.
osnacantab said
I’m visiting this site for the first time, and I like the look of it very much indeed. I’ll be back.
Osnacantab = Dennis Newson, an Englishman living in Germany.