New Blog, New Focus

Hello. My name is Phil Longwell and this is my new blog.  Although I already have a  blog - TPs TEFL Travels - this one will be focusing more explicitly on ICT (Information Communication Technology) in ELT (English Language Teaching).

Original design for blog logo

As part of my MA course at the University of Warwick, I will look at different, free-of-charge web 2.0 tools and technologies each week,  which can be used by language teachers and trainers. I will describe them, showing what they do and why the particular tool/technology is relevant to language teaching.  I will briefly discuss the research or current practice which underpins the use of each one, how it could foster language learning and any limitations which I can see.


Before I can begin blogging, I have had to design the blog's layout.  A simple design works better for clarity, initial impressions matter.  I don't want to overload the senses.  I chose a picture with 'clouds' in the background, because of the connection to 'cloud computing'.  It is also important to have the latest post topic viewable at the top of the page, without the need to scroll down.  I have added a formatted photo, adding text and using snipping tool to capture the whole image.  I have, for now, added an a Twitter widget, an 'about me' description, a blog archive, a 'blog roll' of relevant, more established blogs and a 'labels' gadget.  This last one is mysteriously absent from my other blog, but it provides readers with searchable topics as the blog grows.

I am using the updated interface,which came out in August 2011, rather than the old interface. See Blogger Buzz video below:

In addition, prompted by Blogger's own design template, I have also added a 'favicon' , which means that my blog has a unique icon that appears in the web browser and next to the bookmark of this page. It is a reduced pixel image of the main photo.  


Finally, I will be making an audio or video recording for each post, primarily using Audioboo (see entry #3) and MailVu (#7).  I will add links at the bottom of each post, and these will act as a brief, verbal companion to the text.  In later posts, I will probably use alternative tools to do this: 

Here is my first podcast for the site: