EduBlog Insights

Once I heard about this assignment, I knew what to say about it. Weblogs are fun to write about things in the news and you also get to have fun with IDIOMS. We do assignments and when we come back we write down our homework on our weblogs. Weblogs are a great experience for people to learn and get better at writing. Do you like to write LOOONNNGGG stories? Weblogs are good for sharing information you learn about in the news or in schools and libraries.When we come to Mrs. Davis’s class, we have discussion going on in the room and we think of things that are really important in the news or whats happening in schools. You can learn from other people if they have weblogs. “It’s the newspaper of the internet.”

Now what do you think about weblogs?

Yoceline shares her weblog with her uncle…..

I love this book, Because Writing Matters, that I am rereading for the umpteenth time. I know I have talked about it before but I wanted to share a few things I read today.  First, two quotes that are great:

“Teachers can have students write to discover, create and explore their thinking, dig up prior knowledge, to cultivate intellectual independence, to conjecture about possibilities, to struggle with difficult concepts, and to engage the imagination as an ally in learning.”

from Tom Romano, Clearing the Way: Working with Teenage Writers

“Many state writing assessments run the risk of undercutting good writing by scoring only for focus, organization, style, and mechanics without once asking judges to consider whether the writing is powerful, memorable, provocative, or moving (all impact-related criteria, and all at the heart of why people read what others write.)”

from Grant Wiggins, Educative Assessment, p. 67

Take a look at the key points in the book. This book is a must read for those interested in the teaching of writing. Any of you administrators out there - Chapter 6 - “What Administrators Can Do to Create Effective Writing Programs”- is really good.  Hear, hear, Tim and Joe!

It puzzles me that we are discussing the worth of Weblogs as a writing tool. In education, I think that is the main worth of weblogs. It is a tool we can use with students to make writing THE focus. It is truly a unique tool that teachers can use with students. It is a quick, easy way to give them writing practice. It gives them an audience, ownership, and that needed writing practice that gets lost in today’s schools. We can make it fun for them and help them discover that their writing matters.

Writing is hard. Doing it well means being both a writer and reader. I still find it a daily struggle to find the right words to say what I mean, and to say it clearly so others understand. Not only clearly but in a way that makes the reader want more. I know I fall short most days, but I plan to keep working at it. Weblogs give me a place to get that needed practice. Some days I really feel good about what I write, other days I don’t. That’s OK. Weblogs give me a place to really think about what I am learning, a place where I can learn from others, and a place to think about how I can take that learning and make a difference with students.

If writing is hard, teaching writing is even harder. Our challenge is to keep working at ways to make it relevant to the students, to let them develop topics that matter to them. and to help them gain an understanding of the value of writing. Weblogs are unique writing spaces. It’s up to us as teachers to set the stage for this learning environment. That’s the hard part. Good writing won’t just occur because they have a different place to write

Maybe it as simple as rethinking these unique writing spaces. Students don’t write a lot, do not enjoy it, and most view it as a chore. Can weblogs change that? I think yes but we have to put the focus on writing, not the writing spaces.

Zephyr Teachout is the director of Internet organizing for the Howard Dean presidential campaign.

Baseline’s article, “The Marketing of a President” says the following:

Teachout is a key architect of one of the most effective marketing efforts in the history of national politics, and the most sosphisticated online camaign to date. Using a variety of Internet tools, from the electronic journals known as weblogs to social networking sites, the Dean campaign has propelled the Vermont doctor from near-anonymity to the front of the Democratic pack aiming to replace George W. Bush as chief executive of the United States.

The lessons of the Dean campaign do not just apply to politics.

I find this fascinating reading but find myself making, or maybe I should say hoping for, educational parallels as I read. Granted a political campaign holds far greater interest than educational issues but how can we effectively heed the lessons they are learning and then in turn put the focus on education?

With the Internet, an effective capaign creates a community that will on its own begin to market your product for you. Properly done, you won’t be able - or want - to control it.

The trick is to turn the buyers on a product, concept or candidate into evangelists, willing to take action on their own to spur demand. And the recrutiment doesn’t have to cost much.

The payoff is a powerful multiplier effect that turns anyone into a potential campaign worker.

OK, we have seen the educational use of weblogs increase this year but maybe we need to think a little harder about what we want to celebrate as more educators enter the arena. When you get right down to it, a weblog is a space on the web where teachers and students can write. And then, publish quite easily! If we educators, make sure there is an authentic audience that is willing to take the time to comment, we can in turn open the door for having a purpose to write and a reason to want to make the writing better. Then critical thinking on issues is a logical follow-up. I use the word celebrate because that’s how I view our job of helping to foster that student voice. My question is how can we work at creating a multiplier effect that gets more students involved in this process?

The two most effective tools for Dean have been a Web site that allows users to set up meetings with individuals of similar interests, known as Meetup.com; and the easy-to-use online diaries known as weblogs, or blogs.

Making these tools widely available via the Internet, reather than husbanding them at campaign headquarters, means Dean’s marketers give up a fair amount of control of messages made on behalf of their candidate.

Teachout says this spreads “ownership of the campaign,”

It’s time for us to give students ownership. We have to be willing to take the risks of giving them a voice so we all can have a dialogue - I think that’s teaching at its best and if we don’t do this, who will? We get the joy of helping then write and think as they learn to be a responsible, thinking, well-informed citizen.

The blog itself is not about getting votes, it’s about activiating people to get votes.

Educational blogs are not about getting web spaces, it’s about how we use those web spaces to get kids writing and thinking.

A key way of carrying on a campaign-wide converstion is the comment area on Blog for America. More than 100,000 comments have appeared on the weblog since June 10.

If the campaign can’t handle the volume of comments as it grows, how will it get meaningful impact from the conversation?” (The staff admits they don’t know yet, but they’re working on it.)

The parallel for us is that we don’t know yet either and we’re working and thinking about it. We sure don’t have those numbers so here is where we can learn from them. I’ll be following that thread.

The whole is smarter than the sum of its parts, says Johnson. Teachout wats to know what the parts are thinking.

In the end, the weblog gives the candidate, his staff, and all the people in the field a chance to conduct something like a clueful conversation.

Indeed, we have parallels here. Never before have we had a chance for such clueful conversation. The question is, where do we go from here?

The common theme of all the technology used by Dean, says Rowe, from the weblog to the wiki, an information pooling tool that lets staffers post reports on media coverage of the campaign, is a focus on building community.

Let’s keep building our educational community. Let’s keep finding others and keep on sharing all we are learning and thinking. We can make a difference!

Zephyr Teachout has no interest in technology for technology’s sake. “We want the simplest, dumbest tools we can get,” she says. The idea is to get people working, not to dazzle the,, and to get their feedback on what could be done better as quickly as possible.

That’s what we need to remember. I think we will get lots more educators on board if we just keep it simple. I am still in awe of how much you can do with a weblog in which students and teachers are writing, posting, thinking, creating, and responding on subjects they care about. Yep, keep it simple! It works!
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Most Writing Scores Up  is an article about writing that caught my attention. 

The nation’s fourth-graders and eighth-graders have become better writers, but fewer 12th-grade students can convey well-organized ideas, a new national assessment shows.

I have been thinking about this article for the past week. While I certainly agree that it is the responsibility of every teacher to lead students in their struggle to become writers, that is just too simplistic of a statement to suit me. We know that, but we also know that in order to become good writers the time to practice and pursue that is critical.  The statement that some educators say writing has become the forgotten fundamental really hits home.  We all need to think about ways to make every teacher a writing teacher.  (Hey, how about weblogs?)

As I grapple with my thoughts about the process of writing, I keep coming back to giving students ownership as a key factor. I love to hear my students talk about what they do and don’t like about writing. I learned so much from the group I worked with this year. Listening to their insightful comments and watching them struggle through the hard process of writing a good piece is what teaching is all about. I like to think of writing as a tool for learning.

Usually good writing would come in our groups when we had lively discussions about things they cared about. That’s another key factor - writing about what is of interest to them. 

Weblogs are such a perfect place for students to reflect on their learning, discover gaps in their knowledge, and make connections between what they are learning and what they have learned. I’m working on a handout for using weblogs for “Writing to Learn” that I can use for future projects/workshops. I am going to focus on ways the weblog writing can be used to help in this whole writing process. This can range from quick writes to longer, more structured writing assignments. I think it might be helpful for those just beginning to discover weblogs to think about ways to use them with their students. 

Weblogs give ownership plus an audience.  That’s the third key factor - someone caring about what they write. They know their teacher cares but when other students and interested readers comment, you can feel the electricity in the air.  Students sit up and listen.  They are engaged.  You can see the wheels turning.  It’s a dynamic writing place where the writing is alive and inviting.  Your writing is out there and causes others to react.  Wow!  You just can’t get that kind of ownership so easily in the classroom. 

Yes, writing is fundamental!  In the hands of good teachers, weblogs can be the gateway for teachers to give students ownership, a forum to discuss issues they care about, and an arena that has an audience that cares about what they are writing.

I read an interesting article this morning (via MiddleWeb). How does wriitng affect learning? A review of the research by Robert Bangert-Drowns, Marlene Hurley, & Barbara Wilkinson.

MiddleWeb says: This  brief paper on the onnections between writing and student achievement summarizes a review of 45 studies that compared normal classroom instruction to writing-intensive instruction on the same content. Key finding: “When writing prompts urged students to reflect on their learning processes - the challenges they faced and the strategies they employed - the educative effects of writing were substantially improved.” (From “English Update,” Spring 2003, National Center on English Learning and Achievement.)

I like the focus on getting students to reflect on their learning processes. I tried to do that with my NewsQuest student group as we wrapped up the year.  This is crucial for them to make connections to their learning and to improve.  I think this is one of the reasons I love weblogs so much - a space for students to write, reflect, and think.  I want to keep striving to keep the focus on writing tasks that will stimulate thinking, both for myself and the students.

I’ve always believed that teaching writing was one of the most important priorities for teachers, regardless of what content area you teach.  I’ve also seen the teaching of writing go by the wayside as more and more demands are put on teachers for accountability based on one achievement test!  It’s not that teachers don’t realize the importance of teaching writing,  they do!  However, because of the time required, many times writing gets put aside.  This is frustrating and alarming!

Other relevant blurbs from the article:

What appears to matter more than the amount of time given to an assignment is the nature of the writing task, the kind of thinking that gets done. One factor reliably enhanced the effect of writing-to-learn: When writing prompts urged students to reflect on their learning processes - the challenges they faced and the strategies they employed - the educative effects of writing were substantially improved.

and

In general, these studies and other research suggest that writing can benefit learning, not so much because it allows personal expression about subject matter as because it scaffolds metacognitive reflection on learning processes. And the cost need not be great: even relatively brief tasks can boost learning. Additional research and classroom investigation should further clarify how writing benefits learning.