Emerging voices
“Ten months later, I can say that voices did emerge - my students
realized that this was a community based on different values. That
little number in brackets beside the “Comments” hyperlink grew, and
sometimes it didn’t. The most important thing is that they all realized
that communities are not built on the number of comments one receives
on one’s blog but on the quality of engagement with topics that are
personally relevant. (In fact, most commented on the work of their
peers in their blog entries and not by writing comments, but that’s
another entry.) It helped them realize, to use a grade eight student’s
words, “how much can happen when you work with others.”
The above is the ending summation Konrad Glogowski gave on an excellent post, “Cliques and Comments.” The blog of proximal development
is one of my favorite blogs to read. He had gone back over his notes
from the school year and remembered this incident when students were
disappointed about not receiving comments. It seems that most comments
on the first wave were going to the “popular” crowd and it appeared
that social cliques had turned digital. Read the entire post and if you haven’t added this blog to you daily
reads, you need to.
What a great post and thoughtful sharing of what happened in the
classroom.
Emerging voices….. by both students and teachers. I love it!
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