Blogging and other Writing

When I was teaching in a classroom every day with my own students (which I loved, by the way), I don't think I did a good job of challenging myself. I mean, I always tried new methods and ideas and activities, but I didn't take the time to research and keep up with educational advancements. Now that's part of my job, and I sort of wish I could go back and do it all over again, but do it right this time instead of just trying to "keep my head above water" until I graded all my papers and reached the deadlines imposed on me. (I have to tell you, though, for real--being an English teacher is A LOT of work--tons of papers to grade. Tons. I'm not saying other subjects aren't a challenge to teach, but MAN, those papers!)

I say all that because if someone gave me two articles to read like the ones below, I probably would be so busy grading papers about Hamlet or Othello that I wouldn't take the time to learn from the articles. The information is important, though, and not just for teachers of writing. Well, then again, aren't we ALL teachers of writing?

Why use blogs with your students? Here's a study that says that student bloggers write more and value writing more than their peers who don't blog.

The discouraging part is that the same study shows that students see a disconnect between school writing and other writing. Hmm--I wonder which one is more important to them?

Here's a related video that deals with what we MUST do to prepare our students to live in the 21st Century.

This is a REALLY cool app from Microsoft. (Yes, I said something positive about Microsoft.) I've always been fascinated by space and space travel, so the World Wide Telescope is high on my awesomeness scale. It only works in Windows, though, so boo on Microsoft for that.

Dipity is an multimedia interactive timeline that could be used in a variety of disciplines. Students will have fun creating their own (as soon as SOL testing is over, and they can use our computers again).

Have you ever tried to send a PowerPoint presentation in an email, but it was too big to attach? authorSTREAM takes care of that problem for you by converting your PowerPoint presentations to online flash files. That means anyone can view them anywhere . . . with an Internet connection. authorSTREAM enables you to share you presentations on YouTube, in iTunes, and to embed them in your own blog or website.