Archive for March, 2004

Joe’s Incredible Journey!

Saturday, March 13th, 2004

Joe’s first post in two months is so exciting! He has been on an incredible journey and it is wonderful to see it all moving forward in the form of a new school for immigrants! His school proposal was approved and Flushing International High School will open in September 2004 with 100 ninth grade students. 

I love the mission:

The mission of The Flushing International High School is to serve recent immigrants to the United States who are new learners of English. Our goal is to help each student learn to read, write and communicate clearly in English while maintaning their native language. We believe that students’ native languages, cultures, and families are a resource for the student, the school, and society. Students will use what they learn at the Flushing International High School to become successful academically and professionally.

Congratulations to Joe!  I know he will make a difference in the lives of many students. It is so exciting!

As for the future of his weblog remaining in doubt, we can only hope that he won’t wait too long to pop back up!  He will certainly be missed! I’m betting Joe will figure a way to make weblogging a relevant part of his school.  I know I will be sitting on the sidelines cheering him along! Way to go, Joe!


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Comments on comments!

Thursday, March 11th, 2004

I just have to share my Wrinkles group comments after reading comments from Will’s journalism students…. (see Commenting Away!)

They’re unedited for now. That comes later. The good thinking shines through!

Derrick appreciates good humor……….

I learned and was astonished that Devin has a lot of comedy in his comment to Matt on the opening to his story.

An aside comment to SuperThinker worth repeating……

Thank you SUPERTHINKER, now go save the internet.

Luz loves the news………

the part I like the most is Dana’s comment on Meredith’s site. I like it because it tell s about news .thats because I love news a lot . I think that making people be entrestey in news is a good thing. because people will know what happen in their state and all over the world . I like the things she put on her paper she did a great !job!

Yoceline is impressed and ready to prove that kids can blog……….

This was a great lesson. It was so fun to know other kids can also have weblogs. It was so impresive how they wrote comments to each other. They use descriptive words. That help me think that I have to use more descriptive words. They are doing a tremendous job with their writings. Now I think that we are ready to prove that kids can have weblogs and write good stories!

Jerry is being influenced……….

Mr. Richardson’s class has done a great job and it influences you to want to include some of those things in your own story.

Emily shares a few of her favorite things……….

Devin’s comment on Matt’s site was one of my favorite though. Enticing the reader, grabbing the reader’s attention, and using great leads. Some of my favorite Writing tactics.

Jacqueline thinks this is so cool……….

I also think that Claries comments on Mallory’s site are real cool because she is saying why she likes it. Lot of people like hearing what other people think.

Angelica sees the value of the collective group……….

Mrs. Davis’s post is about high school students who are doing web logs and they are commenting on their classmates’ posts.It impressed me because all the children learned from each other and used the writings to point out something great to maybe also add to their own writings some times. All of you’ll are all intelligent in a wonderful way. So, if you all work together you will be impressed how intelligent you all are.

Jennifer says we will be blogging like maniacs……….

I really am tickled pink that Mr. Richardson’s class is going to just teach us “indirectly”. I also liked how the students wrote to each other and told their friend in detail how they need to revise their story. These tremendous student voices really helped us to write a very well written comment. I think after this “project” we will be blogging like maniacs! Well this ends our one-of-a-kind blogging experience!!!

Amber find the comments tempting……….

I was particularly impressed by Mallory and Claire’s comments because they expressed how they felt about the other person’s writings. Kristen’s also got my attention when she talked about Amelia’s interview request. All of the writings were tempting for someone to read.

Noe gets right down to the nitty gritty of what we webloggers MUST be careful about……….

I think web log are neat. Because you can communicate with a friend or a relative. It is a better way to cumunecate with another people. I like this web log because. I can communicate with another student. You have to be very careful because some times it will delete it.


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BoardBuzz

Tuesday, March 9th, 2004

<via> U.S. Newswire

The National School Boards Association has a new weblog , BoardBuzz, to provide timely news and analysis of educational issues.

The article quotes Anne Bryant, NSBA’s executive director:

“Now more than ever, advocates of public education need to make use of every medium they can get their hands on, Weblogs are great because they are fast, efficient, readable, and can be very powerful tools to get your message out there.”


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Different Blogging Styles

Friday, March 5th, 2004

This week has been incredibly busy.  I’ve been attending the SITE conference, trying to wrap-up several things here at work, plus being in the final week of the ESL/EFL yahoo sessions

I always find time to keep up with other bloggers and this week Seb’s post really got me thinking about the different styles of bloggers or what we perceive to be the styles. He blogs Flemming Funch - Ming the Mechanic’s post on Blogging Context:

“But for me, even if the actual writing of blog post doesn’t take much time in itself, it has to fit in a context where I’ve had time to explore various things and been able to think about various things. Which requires a certain distance. I can’t go directly from a deep, interesting face-to-face discussion into writing a blog post, even if the subjects brought up are intriguing and worth sharing. I can’t blog meaningfully while sitting listening to somebody speak, as some people can, even if the technology is available for it. But, hey, we have our different styles.”

This makes me think about all the different blogging styles of our community. One of the reasons I started blogging was to improve my own writing.  I’ve never really thought of myself as an especially good writer and it always takes me more time than I wish it would.  I don’t just get an idea and then have the ability to quickly write about it.  I have to think about it, read more, reflect again, and then write.  Then I reread and am never really sure if I got it down how I meant it.  I figured if I wrote more, I’d get better and surely I would be able to do it faster. I’d like to think my writing has improved (although I think I’m still too wordy) and I don’t think I am much quicker (and I would still love to have that skill!).

I love reading the posts like Seb shared because it made me think about all the different writing styles in our blogging community.  Talk about diversity. Don’t you just love it?  Where else could we get so much? I especially love the sharing of the thinking, the different ways we approach things, what is top on our minds, our daily schedules, what is making a difference…….

It keeps coming back to the different voices, and how that adds so much.  We have got to help make that possible for our students and not set in too many rules or guidelines that hamper that. 

Boy, my mind is twirling.  So many things from the conference spinning around in my head, so many great thoughts and ideas from all my blogging friends, eportfolio information for an impending decision to be made at Georgia State is buzzing away in my head….  Yikes! I’ve got to reflect on and sort all these thoughts….back later.


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Good Beginnings from the ESL/EFL Weblog Group

Monday, March 1st, 2004

Here are a few of the weblogs that have emerged out of the ‘Creating and using weblogs in ESL/EFL’ online session:

Blogblossoms
ESOL Learner space — questions posed, fun web links, more! Please Visit! :)
http://www.tabulas.com/~blogblossoms

grankageva
A new blog, hopefully to develop into something more educational
http://www.tabulas.com/~grankageva/

My brand new blog for teachers
Just a start in blogging.Postings welcome!
http://elrebumbio4teachers.braveblog.com

Blog around the clock
The above teacher, Sara, started a new section at her site called “Blog around the clock” where she’ll be trying to provide teachers with ideas to create blog-based activities.
http://www.elrebumbio.org/blogs/blogroundtheclock.htm

Writing Rocks!
This is a writing weblog to celebrate the wonderful writing of third graders at J.H. House Elementary School in Conyers, GA.
http://jeanie.tblog.com

Tattletales This is a place where students tell me what is going on in their classrooms. Through our dialog, I will probe their thoughts to get them to state their opinions on various activities and provide supporting statments to back opinions up.
http://nbarajas.tblog.com

Tolerance and Prejudice
Students from Hunagary and other students from abroad speaking out on a timely issue.
http://www.prejudice.blogspot.com

This final week we are focusing on “Finding our voices and building and community” and then will be “sharing final thoughts and reflections for those entering the weblog world.”  It has been nice to have a period of six weeks and it has been interesting conducting sessions online. I’ll post our evaluation and reflections on the sessions after next week. Plus, some of my observations about the free software programs that were used for weblogs.


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