Hey Irm! I was so glad to see that you had joined the conversation here! I want to get the time to read the blog your students wrote over the summer! Is it the same blog you invited me to join last year? If not, do you mind sending me an invitation? Deb talked about how well the sumemr blog was working out too!
I subscribed to livejournal.com; only to learn that the "technology know-it-alls" in our school district has blocked it!! It makes me positively nuts the way that individuals who are NOT teachers, and never will be, make those kinds of decisions!! And then folks like myself have to fight tooth and nail to get them unblocked, if we can argue strongly enough! After getting that out of my system, I can say I don't know if you can trust it or not. As far as I know it is ok.
One thing you could do though, perhaps as an alternative, is set up a free wikispace at: http://www.wikispaces.com/. You can control who gets to contribute and who doesn't and they can write away in that space just as they would in the journal. Those folks at wikispace are giving away free spaces to teachers and when I last visited their site, there were about 30,000 left. You might even want to check out this brief video, very cleverly done, about wikis: http://www.commoncraft.com/video-wikis-plain-english. You will see some other sites at the end of the video that also offer free wiki signup.
I think it is exciting that you have set up blogs for each of your classes. Are you using blogger in Google, or another blogging source? I look forward to knowing more about what your students end up doing with the blogs. Please also let us know here what you decide about the wikispace, and/or livejournal. By the way, do many spots get blocked at your school? Were you able to access livejournal from the school? I don't think I have even revisited the site since I learned it was blocked by the district control freaks!
I always love learning about what all of you are doing!
Thursday, August 16, 2007
Sunday, August 12, 2007
A New View?
In many ways I find it hard to believe we are beginning our second year of school since we first started our conversation about new literacies, new technologies, and new ways of thinking about literacy in our classrooms--and in our world--in the summer of 2006. Last year was definitely a challenge for me, in so many ways, but I can tell each of you that working with you on this new literacies project was the highlight of all that I juggled and endured. As we embark on a new year, and hopefully the last few months of my "official project" (for I fear I may never cease to follow my interest in this topic) I hope we can extend our conversation of new literacies in this space.
Initially I am setting the blog up as a private space, so that we can all feel at ease about posting our thoughts, questions, discoveries, ideas, challenges, successes, and anything, really, that we wish to share. My own personal journey into this endeavor has taught me there really aren't any wrong or silly questions, that there are far more questions than answers (no matter how much I study), and that our individual understandings are enhanced so much more through our shared understandings than when we try to "figure any of it out" on our own.
So, my new post here is titled, "A New View" because I really wonder if any of you have a view that is slightly new. I can tell you that I definitely have a new view of new literacies after a year of focusing on this topic. Not only did my work with all of you over last year shape and mold my view significantly, I also read some wonderful resources that helped with my understanding as well. I will be most happy to post some of those titles here (if anyone is interested) and/or send pdf files, or urls for others.
Other professional experiences have also greatly extended my view of new literacies. I look forward to sharing more in this blog. I have several new ideas for this school year and look forward to implementing some of them in Patrice's classroom, hopefully some others in our school as well, and introducing them to the rest of the faculty as Patrice and I plan professional sessions for the faculty at our school. Heck we might even present one of them at GCTE!
So how do you view new literacies these days? What kinds of ideas do you have for teaching new literacies in your classroom this year? Please jump into the conversation! We don't get to converse nearly enough about this topic, or any other for that matter!
Initially I am setting the blog up as a private space, so that we can all feel at ease about posting our thoughts, questions, discoveries, ideas, challenges, successes, and anything, really, that we wish to share. My own personal journey into this endeavor has taught me there really aren't any wrong or silly questions, that there are far more questions than answers (no matter how much I study), and that our individual understandings are enhanced so much more through our shared understandings than when we try to "figure any of it out" on our own.
So, my new post here is titled, "A New View" because I really wonder if any of you have a view that is slightly new. I can tell you that I definitely have a new view of new literacies after a year of focusing on this topic. Not only did my work with all of you over last year shape and mold my view significantly, I also read some wonderful resources that helped with my understanding as well. I will be most happy to post some of those titles here (if anyone is interested) and/or send pdf files, or urls for others.
Other professional experiences have also greatly extended my view of new literacies. I look forward to sharing more in this blog. I have several new ideas for this school year and look forward to implementing some of them in Patrice's classroom, hopefully some others in our school as well, and introducing them to the rest of the faculty as Patrice and I plan professional sessions for the faculty at our school. Heck we might even present one of them at GCTE!
So how do you view new literacies these days? What kinds of ideas do you have for teaching new literacies in your classroom this year? Please jump into the conversation! We don't get to converse nearly enough about this topic, or any other for that matter!
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