Technology is MAGIC.

Hello Everyone!

Here I am again for the 4th posting. Last Wednesday (18hb Mac 2009), I have a trip to PNB Darby Park Hotel, Kuala Lumpur for the E-community Conference that is " Seminar E-Komuniti, Merapatkan Jurang Digital: Masyarakat Berpengetahuan , Model Malaysia " with my course mates . Actually this conference was conducted by the knowledgeable speakers from various fields to talk about E-Learning. There is a lot of topic has being discussed but I really attracted to topic about: how blogging can reduce writing apprehension. For me, this topic really interesting because it related to our courses; Language for ICT and give a little bit information about apprehension.

- Scared to write
- Hand cramp
- Hate writing
- Mental blocking problems

- Produces a shorted essay
- Ideas hardly developed

There are also some factors that contribute toward a writing apprehension.

Ø Lack confident – some people have a low confident level. This also contributes toward writing apprehension because the person with the low self esteem will scared to write. They have no confident to write something because they scared to get any comment to anybody. Some comment might be encourage them to write and some might be not. So lack of self confident also contributes to these problems.

Ø Teachers' comment - teachers comment also contribute toward writing apprehension. That because, some comments were given maybe will give encouragement to the student but some may not. A bad comment maybe can lose students confident and they become scared to write. In my opinion, I agree that a bad comment maybe can improve their writing skill because they will work hard for it. But in the same times for other students who faced a confident problem, they will feel scared to write because the worried if they get bad comment teachers. But it depends to individual how to define it.

Ø Culture face saving
Ø Proficiently level
Ø Audience
Ø Lack role models
Ø Examination

But weblogs also can help fostering positives writing attitudes. That is:

Promotes brainstorming and peer review activities.

- Students centered
- Face saving – blogging activities allows other people from around world to leave their comment. So by this activities, others people can leave their comment without losing their faces and identity
- Increases involvement among passive students – by blogging, it can increase a participant among students to write online. Passive students can sit and write their ideas by online writing
- Huge audience – writing in the blog it doesn’t means only us in our country will read its. A people from around the world will read it and give comment. By these activities, it will improve our writing and give us chance to share our thought with the other students from different country.
- Boost up confidence and motivation – for me, blogging can push up my confidence level because I can write anything I want. I don’t need to scare to write because no one will know me. So by reading others comment in my blog, its give me motivation to write more and more. That because when others leave their comment, I will give my self reflection too.

** For me, I agree that blogging helps us a lot in writing. But nowadays, I realize that a lot of blogs nowadays using informal language on their writing. Some people said that they more comfortable by using informal language on their online writing like using a short form, slang and trailing dots. Letting them using informal language will give motivation and encouragement to them to continue writing. However, in the same time, it means us letting them to continue their mistakes. I think it better for us to write using a proper language so that we will bring ourselves to be good writer. But every people have their own opinion. I just give my opinion about their topic and I totally agree that blogging can help to reduce writing apprehension problem. ^^^