What can you do with a blog (4)?

Example 4 is not in fact a blog -- it's an idea for a blog.

Someone on our trainee support group, teaching "a group of Brazilian teenagers here in the U.S. on a sort of pseudo educational vacation", asked the following question:

"This group is driving me insane! I've never come across a group of less behaved, unmotivated and basically spoiled brats in my life. (... ) most of these kids come from very wealthy families (...) and are generally accustomed to having everything done for them (...) How do you teach someone who not only hasn't a desire to learn but seems to refuse to?!"

My suggestion was:

"Being a total geek, I think I'd go for a geeky technological answer. I'd put them into smallish groups (3s?) and say they have 48 hours to produce the first issue of an online paper (I'm assuming their pseudo educational vacation in NY includes decent Internet access). They'd have to decide on sections, content, headlines, images -- the lot. And then produce it as a blog. Then they've got to produce the next issue 48 hours after that."

Questions as before: would you want to do such a project with your learners, why (not)? And would it work in this particular case, do you think?