Monday, August 30, 2010

Browsing Blogs

Today’s children are growing up in a world where the dominant way of making meaning has shifted from print on the page to image on the screen. Increasingly, young children read and write on screens, and not just on computers but also with mobile technologies, such as cell phones and iPods. Carly Shuler reports that “more than half of the world’s population now owns a cell phone and children under 12 constitute one of the fastest growing segments of mobile technology users in the U.S.” What does this mean for teachers who want to teach children to use the literacies that fill modern childhoods? Are we recognizing the literacy practices that children already know? Are we making space for texting and blogging in our classrooms?
Here's a great classroom blog and a set of individual blogs that allow each student to post and comment on other blogs. It also includes video tips for starting up blogs in your own classroom…
A teacher's blog: http://weblogs.pbspaces.com/mrskolbert/


Kids' blogs: http://kidblog.org/mrskolbertsclass/

Wednesday, August 11, 2010

Writing Check-up

Are you immunized against common "writing viruses"?

Check your prose for writing maladies listed on the Huffington Post...

Check the comments section for other symptoms, like MSMR (multiple simultaneous mind reading)...