Enhancing ESL Learners' Creative and Critical Thinking through Blogging

Blog is a type of website functioning as a web-based journal that depicts dated posts about a topic arranged from the most recent to the oldest. Furthermore, it is also a web publishing tool enabling one to publish their thoughts or commentaries. It is arguably the first form native to the web (Blood, 2003) that allows the bloggers – persons who do online journals, to keep records of their daily happenings on websites prior any Hypertext Mark-up Language (HTML) knowledge or programming experience. This shows blogging as simple as sending email, which almost everyone can publish their views online to global forum. Later when web experts like Justin Hall and Adam Greenfield for the first time used Moblog or MoBlog - a contraction of mobile weblog, it symbolised a further dimension in the development of blog. Moblog has the ability to upload posts through mobile technology. In 2003, the first International Moblogging Conference (1IMC) in Tokyo was organised (Döring & Gundolf, 2006).

Publishing Curriculum Vitae Using Weblog: An Investigation on Its Usefulness, Ease of Use, and Behavioral Intention to Use

In this cyber age, the job market has been rapidly transforming and being digitalised. Submitting a paper-based curriculum vitae (CV) nowadays does not grant a job seeker a high employability rate. This paper calls for attention on the creation of mobile Curriculum Vitae or m-CV (http://m-curriculumvitae.blogspot.com), a sample of an individual CV developed using weblog, which can enhance the job hunter especially fresh graduate’s higher marketability rate. This study is designed to identify the perceptions held by Malaysian university students regarding m-CV grounded on a modified Technology Acceptance Model (TAM). It measures the strength and the direction of relationships among three major variables – Perceived Ease of Use (PEOU), Perceived Usefulness (PU) and Behavioral Intention (BI) to use. The finding shows that university students generally accepted adopting m-CV since they perceived m-CV to be more useful rather than easy to use.

Developing a Mobile Curriculum Vitae Using Weblog: A Cross-Disciplinary Survey on University Students’ Perception Based on Technology Acceptance Model

A traditional Curriculum Vitae (CV) fails to highlight the candidates’ strength, skills and achievement effectively. Thus, graduates are unable to sell and present themselves in an interactive way in order to impress the employer. In the digital age, mobile phones and Wi-Fi are ubiquitous; thus, an online CV namely “Mobile Curriculum Vitae” (m-CV) is created and proposed to be the alternative. It uses weblog as the developing platform that comes with both web and mobile versions. It can be accessed using mobile devices such as smart phones wherever and whenever they are. The objective of the study is conducting a survey to investigate the acceptance of m-CV on a group of 200 diploma students in one of the Malaysian universities-Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM), Penang campus using questionnaires based on Technology Acceptance Model (TAM). After conducting a two-hour seminar on the m-CV, a total of 191 questionnaires were collected. Descriptive analysis was done using SPSS based on 4 point Likert scale.

A Cross-Discipline Survey on University Students’ Acceptance of Mobile Curriculum Vitae Developed Using Weblog

A traditional Curriculum Vitae (CV) fails to highlight the candidates’ strength, skills and achievement effectively. Thus, graduates are unable to sell and present themselves in an interactive way in order to impress the employer. In the digital age, mobile phones and Wi-Fi are ubiquitous; thus, an online CV namely “Mobile Curriculum Vitae” (m-CV) is created and proposed to be the alternative. It uses weblog as the developing platform that comes with both web and mobile versions. It can be accessed using mobile devices such as smart phones wherever and whenever they are. The objective of the study is conducting a survey to investigate the acceptance of m-CV on a group of 200 diploma students in one of the Malaysian universities-Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM) Penang Campus using questionnaires based on Technology Acceptance Model (TAM). After conducting a two-hour seminar on the m-CV, a total of 191 questionnaires were collected. Descriptive analysis was done using SPSS based on 4 point Likert scale.

Are You Ready to Blog? In Faizah Mohamad (Ed.), Technology in ESL Classrooms

Journal writing has been proven as an eminent and supportive teaching tool across the grades and the curriculum (Hopkins, 2003). It is also a common pedagogical technique in writing courses (Krause, 2005). Nowadays, the writing of e-journals or blogs is becoming progressively more popular as it is one of the easiest ways – almost as easy as sending an email – to publish student writing on the Internet (Stanley, 2005). Given the nature and characteristics of blogs, educators have the opportunities to employ this innovative tool in the English as a Second Language (ESL) classrooms, particularly to enhance journal writing with their students. In addition, if blogs have the potential for application in English Language Teaching (ELT), an investigation should be conducted to study this new educational innovation.

Citation (APA 6th ed.):

Mah, B. Y., & Liaw, S. C. (2011). Are you ready to blog? In Faizah Mohamad (Ed.), Technology in ESL classrooms (pp. 33-54). Selangor, Malaysia: University Publication Centre, Universiti Teknologi MARA

Expanding ESL Classroom Horizons with Weblogs: Educators' Perspective

In this information age that brings about the telecommunication revolution, education is also constantly shifting – new technologies have redefined educational emphasis from content to learners and their learning processes. Based on The Development of Education National Report Malaysia (2004), the use of technology has become one of the objectives and principal characteristics of forthcoming educational reforms. However, not many studies have been conducted to determine students’ perceptions of one of the revolutionary Web 2.0 applications – weblog as a language learning tool in spite of its immense potentials in educational context. Owing to the substantial benefits of blogging and to reach ICT-enhanced teaching and learning, the main objectives of this study are: (1) to describe the overt instructions of creating a weblog with Blogger (a free blogging service); (2) to provide a preliminary report about the implementation of weblogs in English as a Second Language (ESL) classroom; and (3) to suggest the techniques for educators to use weblogs in classroom. By using convenient sampling method, the study involves 58 diploma students from one of the universities in Malaysia.

Writing Web Logs in the ESL Classroom: A Study of Student Perceptions and the Technology Acceptance Model

The web log is an exceptionally valuable tool for the teaching of second language writing, particularly written communication skills (Johnson, 2004; Wu, 2005). More and more international educators have applied this easy-to-use technology to classroom instruction and language learning (Campbell, 2003; Johnson, 2004). However, what is largely unknown is Malaysian students’ reaction to writing web logs in English as a Second Language (ESL) classrooms. Therefore, this study aims to investigate the perception of writing web logs among Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM) HM115 diploma students who took the BEL311 English course in their third semester based on the three Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) variables. Specifically, the study sought to identify whether the two TAM determinants, Perceived Ease of Use (PEOU) and Perceived Usefulness (PU), affected the students’ behavioural intention (BI) to use web logs for specific writing tasks. This study employed Davis’s TAM (1989) and its questionnaire-based measurement instrument and three hypotheses were formulated based on the objectives of the study.

An Investigation on Students' Acceptance of Writing Web Logs: A Test of Technology Acceptance Model

The application of computer in education is on the rise recently. However, using web logs in English Language Teaching (ELT) is rather new in Malaysia since the students’ acceptance of writing web logs has not been extensively examined in previous studies. Therefore, the objective of this study is to measure students’ acceptance of writing web logs employing the Davis’ Technology Acceptance Model (TAM). Two determinants–Perceived Ease of Use (PEOU) and Perceived Usefulness (PU) are used to determine an individual’s Behavioural Intention (BI) of writing web log. To investigate the relationships among PEOU, PU, and BI of users with and without hands-on experience of blogging, pre- and post-questionnaires were administered on three intact groups of undergraduate students as the target sample. Three hypotheses were formulated based on the objectives of the study. The result of the study shows that with the support of hands-on experience, the students accepted to write web logs because they found it was more useful rather than easy to use.

Measuring Students’ Perception of Writing Web Logs in ESL Classroom Employing the Technology Acceptance Model

Web log is an exceptionally valuable tool for the teaching of second language writing, particularly in written communication skills (Johnson, 2004; Wu, 2003). More and more foreign educators have applied this easy-to-use technology to classroom instruction and language learning (Campbell, 2003a; Johnson, 2004). However, what has remained predominantly unknown is Malaysian students’ reaction to writing web logs in English as a Second Language (ESL) classroom. Therefore, the study aims to investigate the perception of writing web logs among the Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM) HM115 diploma students who were taking BEL311 English course in their third semester based on the three Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) variables. Specifically, the study sought to identify whether the two TAM determinants-Perceived Ease of Use (PEOU) and Perceived Usefulness (PU) affect the students’ behavioural intention (BI) to use web logs for specific writing task. This study employed the Davis’ TAM (1989) and its questionnaire-based measurement instrument and three hypotheses were formulated based on the objectives of the study.

Bringing Blogs into ESL Writing Classroom

In recent years, the use of web logs or blogs in education is on the rise. Even though it has immense potential as an extremely valuable tool in higher education learning, writing blogs in Malaysia is still in its infancy. Therefore, the objective of this study is to introduce a new ICT and CMC (Computer Mediated Communication) application – blogs, and investigate undergraduate students’ perceptions of using blogs as a tool for journal writing. This study employed the Davis’ Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) (1989) and its questionnaire-based measurement instrument to evaluate and justify users’ attitudes and behaviour. TAM posits two determinants–Perceived Ease of Use (PEOU) and Perceived Usefulness (PU) to determine an individual’s Behavioural Intention (BI) as a mediator of actual technology use. To explore the relationships among PEOU, PU, and BI of blog users to accomplish a writing task, questionnaire was administered on 78 undergraduate students as the target sample. Based on the objectives of the study, three hypotheses were formulated. The results from the pilot test had confirmed the reliability of the modified TAM-based questionnaire.