ESL/EFL/ESOL Social Media Learning Tool: How to Set Up E-Notebooks

Learning ESL/EFL/ESOL with an E-Notebook helps students actually work with new media. While younger students take to the social media like bees to a flower, older people in the business and professional world can seem a bit mystified by all and overwhelmed by social media.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, E-Notebooks are a a joint electronic website where students can keep and monitor their English language learning efforts:  written work, as well as audio and video recordings.

So how can you go about creating these e-notebooks?

It is not that difficult a process. This is how I did it. There are various other possibilities as well which we will discuss in later posts.

1. I purchased a domain name.
2. I got a web hosting provider.
3. I installed the free WordPress.org onto my main site.
4. I created a sub-domain for each student and installed the free WordPress.org onto each sub-domain.

The e-notebook is basically a WordPress.org blogging platform. I chose WordPress.org because I am familiar with the platform, and it gives me and my students the control that we need to use it as a learning tool.  

Some of the strengths in WordPress.org that I found particular useful for creating e-notebooks are: 

• it has a WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) word processor;
•  it has both blog and static pages (which are website-style pages);
• it can be adapted and expanded with widgets as and if needed;
• each student can decide if they want to publish, password protect or keep private for themselves and their teacher whatever they post in their e-notebook. I found that giving students the power to keep their language learning efforts private gave many a sense of ease with this new form of communication.

In setting up their sites, I asked each student to focus on something they enjoyed talking and writing about: hobby, interest, passion. Then, I walked each student through the basic steps of setting up their site, answering any questions or concerns as we went along: username, passwords, personalizing their site with a free WP theme, giving it their own title and tag line, and writing a post.

Most chose to keep their first posts private, which was fine. I fully respect my students’ feelings and needs. This is, after all, an ESOL language course, not a website/blog creation course. However, I found that before the next class a number of students had gone home, signed into their dashboard, explored the site, played around with the name of their site, categories and tags; some even chose a different theme. I saw this as a good sign as they were becoming comfortable with this new medium on their own turf.

A few brave souls decided to publish their posts for the world to see. I asked these students if they would mind if I showed their sites and posts to the other students and if these could write comments. All happily agreed – after all, they had made their posts public because they wanted others to read what they wrote.

As students have begun commenting on these public student e-notebook/websites, as the original writers have begun replying to their fellow students’ comments – I have seen a “green light” go on. They are getting it: these English language learners are experiencing what social media is all about – sharing ideas, stating opinions, creating relationships – and they are doing it in their target language!

As I mentioned above, this is one method to create an e-notebook. Can you think of others? What would fit with your students’ needs and the equipment you have available?

If you are interested, here is another example of a student’s e-notebook.

Enjoy using social media in ESL/EFL/ESOL lessons,

Eileen