Notes from Millie D

Cover it Live seems to acting up (or bandwidth). So let’s try it the old fashion way…here are my notes.

She believes we don’t have a choice about old literacy vs. new literacy.
She looks at tools to figure out how it can amplify students’ learning and not just trying the newest tools.

Her story, back in the classroom after a 4 year absense in academia. She had a room that didn’t fit the students she had. She asked about the tools they used to write…after 6 minutes of silence “pen”, “paper”.

The kids eventually mentioned computer and then the rest of the list generated, blog, imovie, video games, cell phone, wikipedia, post-it notes,digital cameras, highlighters. Kids pushed back when blogs were mentioned because that was their space and they saw it separate from school spaces.

Writing “non negotiables”
development of a unique voice, strong voice
concise, packed, lively writing (forced language)
authority and confidence
immediate and specific examples and details
organization
REAL WRITING FOR REAL AUDIENCES

She needed to answer the question why we need to do this…

How do we get there?
deal with student’s emotionsurrounding writing
expose students to a wealth of lagnuage
Frequent writing opportunities

1981 “the three things to do with final version of writing are post, print and publish” James Moffett Before the Internet and Blogs.

Strategy that Sara used: Author Quest
Select a livign author whose work you admire
Read at least two books by that author. Ask questions in your reader’s log.
Research your author and write a 3 paragraph reflection on the search. (Process of your search, what surprised you, what you want to ask)
Using these questions as a basis, write a letter to your author
Revise and edit your letter
Publish your letter

Storyboard using GoogleDocs. Her wiki http://promiseintoprices.pbwiki.com has some tools.

Using pictures to enhance the creativity process.
Google MyMaps as a way to visual
Showing the Flip
“This we believe”

Tools that that are in play now in her classroom…
podcasting (audience goes beyond the classroom)
Jing (The kids reading their own writing and commenting/marking up text)

Nice job Sara.