Oh, Sandy. Well, you came and you wrote a blog, that I am reviewing today, Oh, Sandy

 A Blog about a blog, are you crazy?

Firstly, welcome to my blog, I hope you will enjoy reading my (hopefully unique take) on various things.

In this first blog post, I will be looking at  and reviewing the blog of Sandy Millin, who currently works freelance in the world of TEFL/TESOL.  Sandy has been active in the world of ELT since 2007, whence she completed her CELTA at Durham University.  

To note- my review system will be a Nik-knack rating out of 5, with 5 Nik-knacks being a perfect score

Upon first clicking on Sandy's blog, it has the unfortunate habit of 'auto scrolling' down the page, which is a somewhat of putting experience, regardless of the content. This happened on both mine, and a peer's laptops so does seem to be an issue with the blog sadly, anyhooo on with the review

Organisation and Layout

Following the initial hiccup, I looked at the organisation and the layout of the blog, with a colourful splash across the page and below Sandy's name, what follows are a number of useful links to the features of the blog, including 'about me, books I offer, workshops, guest posts and many more'. This is a nice set up, with these easily accessible from the top of the page. Below this, is a pinned post detailing everything Sandy has to offer, followed by her various blog posts in order.  I give the organisation and layout '4 Nik-knacks'

Content and Features

Now, it is time to look at the nitty gritty, the meat in the sandwich, the main dish in a 3 course meal, the feature film after sitting through 20 minutes of trailers and.. well you get the picture. The important bit, The actual content of the blog. I already mentioned the clickable links at the top of Sandy's blog, but upon clicking every one of these links, I found well written, informative and useful posts, including information on booking a workshop, writing, presenting and Sandy's books. How engaging are her materials? Put it this way, I'm giving serious consideration to taking her 'take your time DELTA module one course' take a look at her blog and you might also be tempted. Overall, features and content are exemplary, I give them '5 Nik-knacks'

Ease of Use and Navigation

I've already spoke of my main issue in terms of the navigation, the dreaded auto-scroll on first click, HOWEVER, once you have recovered from this and scrolled back up, the blog is well produced, it is clear where everything is- if you are interested in one particular item, it will be oh so easy to find. The only thing I would probably change is the 'useful links' post which is quite far down, although I suppose understandable- you don't want people to click away from your blog to soon :). Sadly I have to go back to the initial 'incident' and award the ease of use '3 Nik-knacks'

Target Audience

For sure, the target audience for this blog is both aspiring ELT teachers AND current teachers (with the opportunity to learn from Sandy via her DELTA module, books and workshops, but also mentoring being offered. No problems at all here and the content is perfect for it's target audience- '5 Nik-knacks'

Summary

To summarise, I've sadly realised I'm such an old git, that I don't think any of my MA classmates are going to get the title reference to the legendary Barry Manilow hit 'oh Mandy', but I digress. This blog, is well written, well designed and very informative. I don't personally like the colour splash at the top of the title page, but it's not enough of a reason to dislike the blog.

Overall I award this blog 4 out of 5 Nik-knacks (sort out the auto scroll and it will be 5)

            

I should note here that this blog is the first post as required by the module ICT in TESOL, whilst I might have been required to set up this blog for the module, I'm hopeful that it will continue to grow and expand far beyond my MA studies and will be with me far into the future as I begin my English Language Teaching journey.

I had a look at several other blogs before reviewing Sandy's and the depth of knowledge freely available to aspiring teachers is excellent, if you are interested, some of the blogs I looked at are:

Sandy Millin (obviously) https://sandymillin.wordpress.com/

Richard Byrne http://www.freetech4teachers.com/

Sam Shepherd - Learning, ESOL and FE  https://samuelshep.wordpress.com/   (really interesting)

and of course, one of the big hitters

Scott Thornbury's blog A-Z of ELT  https://scottthornbury.wordpress.com/

If you have read this and are thinking wow- this blog lark is for me (or more likely- thinking that after reading one of the established ones I have linked- here is a helpful video on getting started on your own blog via blogger (needs a google account- but who doesn't have one of them at this point right?)

That's all for this first blog post, I hope you have found it informative, and if not at least mildly entertaining. Remember, as Moria Rose said "You could be hit by a mack truck or bopped on the head by a tiny piece of space debris."

So go seize the day- have that coffee- write that blog, do your work- but don't forget your down time- take time for you.