What is a blog and why should we use it in our ELT classroom?

This blog was created in the context of an ICT appllied to ELT subject at UTN
What is a blog?
According to David Cristal (2006) a blog "takes the form of a personalized web page where the owner can post messages at intervals. Many blogs are personal diaries, ranging in lenght from brief notes to extended essays".
Apart from personal blogs, there are class blogs, with entries from multiple students, or edublogs which cover a lot of information regarding education, educational policies and developments (Dudeney and Hockly, 2008: 87)

Why should we use it in our ELT classroom?
Blogs can be used for a wide variety of activities: teachers can use blogs to set homework, provide summaries of class work, include reading or listening material with links, give their students study tips, publish their students´work or even discuss educational issues with other teachers.
Moreover, using technology in the classroom is first of all motivating: learners enjoy doing the tasks while learning or recycling language. Secondly, they can proceed at their own pace and make their own choices.
Thirdly, the interactivity that web 2.o encourages can be very beneficial, it offers students to review language in a different way, catering for different learning styles and different intelligences. Besides, technology has an additional benefit: it´s flexible in time and place and it can be time saving: by posting things on the net, teachers can save time and money. Activities can be re-used with different groups. Finally, technology outside and inside the classroom can help students become autonomous learnes (Sharma and Barret, 2007:10)