Stephanie Wubbena's List: writing

• True bloggers don't only write blogs, they  read them, comment on them, and therefore participate in a community of  ideas.

   
   
  • Interactive; comments and RSS feeds  
  • Ownership; your own space, making your own  decisions about contenct and design, or "agency" as Janet Murray calls it   
  • Authentic audience  
  • Transformative:  write a blog post as a reaction to another blog post and get comments that you  can also react to  
     
    • What can I learn from you & what can  you learn from me?  
       
      • The teacher is no longer the only source of  information; she is not responsible for making all the connections.  
       
    • Blogs can push reading, writing, and  thinking up the taxonomy; students are synthesizing and evaluating!  
     
  • Blogs in Plain  English (a cool video that explains it "all")

• A special Reading  Journal

   

  I wanted a way to differentiate  instruction for my exchange student from Sierra Leone, who comes to the  United States from a vastly different culture and way of life that most of us  can barely conceive. She's an intelligent girl who is used to reciting after  teachers for schooling. Not only had she no electricity in her home, but of  course, she had never seen a computer. Despite this apparent impediment to using  technology, she and I are contributing to a blog: We Read. Right now we are  reading Things Fall Apart. We can work at our own pace (her pace) and  need not worry about what others are doing. We can see our progress.  This Blog also features a page for links  for the novel and a page for vocabulary words per chapter.

• Teachers using  Blogs

   

  Use your blog as a course  management tool. Set up pages for your classes on which you can publish  such things as

   
   
  • assignments  
  • links  
  • general class information  
  • email link to you
   

  Your blog can be accessed anytime, anywhere  by your students and their parents. Parents love that they can have access to  your filing cabinet. Teachers who publish online automatically become  collaborators. Share! You can also edit it from anywhere, making it easy to keep  your blog up to date. You need no special software or really any extraordinary  tech skills to be a blogger.

   

  Parents and students can subscribe to your  blog so they can easily stay up to date!

   

  Samples:

   
   
  • Ms.Hogue's Classroom  
  • Paul Martin, University of Vermont  
  • Jen Breaux   
  • Ted Nellen  
  • Mary H's AP  blog  
  • Ms. Strout's Creative Writing
   

  Many teachers use Blogs for  professional reflection. Ms. K's Teaching  

• More . . .  

   
   
  • Sam's blog for The Da Vinci Code  
  • Bud Hunt's speech students use a  blog to verbalize their ideas and react to each other  
  • Jessica Brogley's site (her Blogs are protected); visit this  site for some good ideas about publishing parameters

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