About BE (English)

Versión en español

Blogs Exchange (BE) is a community of blogs dedicated to learning English and Spanish. You can write in tandem, in a group or on your own.

It takes just a minute to create your blog, and soon you will be learning Spanish or English. Request a learning buddy (intercambio) if you prefer to learn in tandem. Reflect, write, give and receive feedback. If you are a teacher, sign your students up and ask us for free assessment! At present we are developing a standard format for teachers:

- Two weekly posts published by the tutor, professor or center director
- Two weekly posts published by the student. One can be about any subject he or she is interested in, and the other follows guidelines set forth by the teacher.
- Four weekly commentaries published by the student. One is directed towards the teacher's blog, two towards the blogs of classmates, and the fourth to blogs in English or Spanish, if available, in the student's native language.
- The teacher should make every effort to comment as much as possible since his or her feedback is especially valuable.
- Go on! Start your blog now, and start talking.

BE is based on the principle of collaborative learning and Web 2.0. We learn by reflecting, by writing in the language we are studying but moreover, through the interaction among language students. We’ll explain it with two real cases.

1) Learning buddies
Gabriel has created a blog to improve his English. Of course, that's the language he writes in. Any user can give him feedback but in addition, BE has hooked him up with a learning buddy, a language exchange blogger. That would be Brandon, who studies Spanish, writes in Spanish, and has a similar level. Both have made a commitment to read all their partner’s posts and give quality feedback in each and every one of them through the commentary tool.

2) Student groups
Each of the students at Middlebury College in Spain has a blog. In this notebook, they reflect upon their academic experiences in Spain within the framework of a seminar about Current Events in Spain. These students do not need learning buddies. The seminar's professor, the community of Madrid, BE users or any other person can give them feedback. In fact, they are already doing it!

As you all can see, BE doesn't require writing with a learning partner. But we highly recommend it because our experience has taught use that it is extremely useful when learning a language.

Knowledge without boundaries
BE is and always will be free for individual users, universities, academies and institutions. We are motivated by the principles of reciprocity and the bases of open knowledge. You can find other free, useful tools for language learning on the lower right-hand-side of the menu in the Links block.

Do you want to participate in the Project? Drop us a line at webmaster@blogs-exchange.com. At the moment we are seeking:
-Superusers
-Bloggers
-Web programmers
-Investors

Our Team
Kim Griffin. PhD
kgriffin@middlebury.edu
María Lera. PhD Candidate
www.marialera.com
mlera@nebrija.es
Jorge Jiménez. PhD Candidate
Palabrotas
jorge.jimenez@uem.es
Brandon Ferguson. MA
www.test-prep-madrid.com
brandon@blogs-exchange.com
Gabriel Guillén. MA
gguillen@middlebury.edu

The following people have collaborated and/or are collaborating: Jorge Martínez, María Mendiluce, Miqui Guillén, Kip Tobin, Víctor Alberola, Tony Cella

Institutions

Middlebury College en España
Do you want to collaborate with a BE institution? Send an email to: webmaster(att)blogs-exchange.com

The content on BE is published under a Creative Commons license. Gabriel Guillén conceived and developed the project, which forms a part of a research project on Internet-driven language learning at the Universidad Antonio de Nebrija. This would not have been possible without Drupal. Long live open source platforms!