Session 2 - Literature Circles EduBlogs
This past Tuesday I met with my Literature Circles group. This is the second time that I have met with them. For the first class I met with the entire group and used my Weblog Workshop to provide a good overview and have them think about possibilities. This group will be doing their student teaching in January so this is perfect timing for a class that will be out in the field soon.
The plan is to learn how to transform a traditional genre to an online environment. Postings will focus on the Newbery Book Project which gives students the opportunity to participate in literature circles. If you want to know more about literature circles see literaturecircles.com. Students will read and respond on their EduBlogs to selected Newbery books. Entries will be dated and the department will note the reading role taken by the student. The students selected the following books:
Holes
A View from Saturday
The Giver
Missing May
Number the Stars
Bridge to Terabithia
A Wrinkle in Time
The Witch of Blackbird Pond
There will be four or five students to each book EduBlog. They will post comments to each other after postings have been made on the different reading roles.
So, for this training session we began the process of constructing the EduBlogs. The group is large, 37 students, so I taught two sessions. That was kind of interesting because I did not have complete groups (with the exception of one in the afternoon) in the separate sections. I think it was a little clearer for the morning session as they had more hands on. First, they posted comments on the Literacy & Technology Instructor’s EduBlog. I was pleased with their responses. They’re getting it! Then we created a new site, filled in the About info, and selected a theme. The two separate groups will have to vie for the theme. That should be interesting to see who rises to the top as a negotiator or maybe it’s whoever is the loudest or has the strongest will. Whatever, learning teamwork as we go.
Next we went into prefs and changed the title and tag line. Then added a number for our news items (50 for now), and then created the departments. Then since one student was doing the driving at the computer, others took over and typed in their email addresses in the managing editor slots.
Later, I just changed their sites from discussion to comments. Next week we will go over the Navigation links, go over pictures and maybe stories and review what we learned. Then we’ll be up and going. We’re asking them to make a minimum of two entries on the EduBlog per week and two comments per week. We hope they might do more. We’ll see.
Some had some really good thoughts when they were posting comments on our EduBlog. I told them to save them and post those Learning Reflections on their own EduBlog. We also have a department called Weblog Possibilities so we hope to get some good ideas there.
I’m also teaching this group how to create WebQuests. They’ll do it on the book they have selected. Whew! A busy semester, but I am so excited about working with this group. The instructor meets with me outside of class and I feel like we have set it up well. Hey, please feel free to comment when we get up and going! Suggestions are always welcomed!
—–