Digital Tools for Literacy

Add a Comment

Comment by Jennifer Casler on April 22, 2009 at 8:14am

I use blogger for a class blog. The students are able to post but I have to approve the post before it goes live.

Comment by Tammy Gillmore on August 30, 2008 at 9:29pm

If you are blogging with your students, which blog are you using? Why?

We had hoped to use Edublogs but are having trouble accessing to set up an account.

Since we are setting up gmail accounts, I am thinking we may use Blogger.

Thoughts?

Comment by Lisa Huff on August 2, 2008 at 6:55am

Excellent questions--ones I've been struggling with myself.

1. I'm researching about adding other texts. I agree: it would be awesome if they could track EVERYTHING they read. Does anyone out there know about this?

2. As for monitoring, we talked about this yesterday at a workshop. My first thoughts were how to assess. Having explored more--still exploring, actually--I'm not sure I want to go overboard with the assessing. I think attaching grades can dampen, sometimes kill, kids' enthusiasm and earnest interest. As lifelong readers, we aren't assessed. We don't worry about someone grading our book conversations or checking our reading log or... If my purpose is to instill tools and strategies to help kids become lifelong readers, to introduce kids to a community of other lifelong readers...should I assess this? I'm leaning, at present, toward assessing some but not everything: perhaps, I'll assess the reading list, but not every conversation they have about books. As for the monitoring, in truth, it is impossible--when an online community takes flame and begins to spread--to read and monitor every entry. Look at this ning (wow--30+ members in less than two weeks). Perhaps, the bigger idea is to teach kids what it means to be a digital citizen (one of the NETS for Students), to be responsible and ethical. Part of that responsibility is in being a watch-dog, in flagging inappropriate content--either with site tools or by contacting an administrator or, in this case, alerting me the teacher. What say the rest of the community?

Comment by Tammy Gillmore on August 1, 2008 at 8:47pm

Okay, I like this.

Is there a time or a place for maintaining a log of poems, short stories, articles? So many more of those will be read.

Young adult novels are so popular, though. An active, captive audience would exist for such reviews. (Just purchased some very good new young adult novels!)

Okay, here's a red flag I see (hope I'm not sounding like an administrator!), but how will this all be monitored, and I'm not just talking about no-no's (which probably so rarely happens due to the exposure one receives when something is posted), but what about the amount of time involved on the teacher's part spent reading/reviewing/grading?

Of course, if this gets one more kiddo reading so he/she can "play" on the computer this is all the for good!