Teachers Using this Blog
Blogging With Developing Writers
Background: Blogs are a central part of digital literacy in the 21st century. With the advent of RSS feeder technology, the inter-connectivity of the web logs and their authors (bloggers) moved to real time and brought instantaneous news to the everyday blogger for commentary. Every person now had the opportunity to be a published writer, linked to a world wide web of readers and subscribers. Furthermore, every subscriber had a chance to interactively make comments or “review” the written blog article. The blogoshere was born.
Hypothesis: Developing writers lack several tools that more mature writers seem to naturally utilize with a given piece of writing – motivation to write the piece, purpose, critical thinking within the writing, and an innate understanding that a lack of editing gets in the way of the message.
By using blogs, I wish to see if developing writers will:
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be more motivated to write
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be more inclined to edit due to the published nature of the internet
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use more critical thinking in their writing
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find more purpose to their writing.
Students will take a pre and post survey in my class. I will post those as attachments on this page as I use them.
I will teach basic paragraphing skills: topic sentence, support, and concluding sentence.
I will assign the first blog response and teach the technology of posting the comment.
The second one will be voluntary for extra credit.
All remaning posts/comments will be for intrinsic reward only (and thus the hypothesis will stand or it won’t).
You can contact me at my teaching blog – comment to the “digital literacy” post – if you have any questions
Discussion Questions for Students
(You Fooled by YouTube?)
1. What is your overall impression or response to the blog article about Lonelygirl15?
2. Was “Jessica Rose” a liar and manipulator of the public or a smart marketer of her acting ability?
3. Is there a need for video blogs? Could they be useful beyond just entertainment? Explain.
4. What’s up with the “fans” of Lonelygirl15 who couldn’t accept that she was just an actress portraying a role – even after the films producers discussed it on Leno?
5. Why would Lonelygirl15 have millions of regular subscribers (prior to her being outed as a fake)? What would make so many people so interested in the video diaries of a “15” year old – and no, they didn’t have anything “R” or “X” rated in them).
6. Have you ever downloaded or uploaded videos from YouTube or sites like it? What caught your eye and why?
Discussion Questions for Students
(Generation M: The Legend of the Multitasker)
1. What is your overall impression or response to the blog article about Generation M: Legend of the Multitasker?
2. How do you feel about being a part of Generation M? (or Gen X or Gen Y if you are older).
3. Are you more or less social due to technology than previous generations? Explain.
4. What’s up with “downtime”? Why don’t you Generation M’ers seem to like it? Why do you Gen X’ers or Y’ers seem to require so much of it?
5. Do you agree with the whole “toggling” explanation regarding multitasking? Why or why not?
6. Do you agree with the statement about the error rates and multitasking? Why or why not?
To Post a Comment on the Blog
1. Make sure you’ve clicked on the title of the blog to make it the “top” story.
2. Scroll to the end of the story to find the comment box
3. Type in your name (first only – unless you want the world to see your first and last name – think internet privacy…)
4. Type in your email address – it will not show, but is required to be allowed to post. I use it to “moderate” posts. If someone were to post spam or swear words, I would block their ability to post this way.
5. You can leave the URL space blank: This is used by people who have their own web site and want to refer readers of their comment back to their own website or blog.
6. Type your comment in the box. If you want to add a title, you will need to put a little “code” in. You will also use this same code if you ever want to put a blank line in for some reason. <br> means “break” as in break the line. You have to put the < > around it for the computer to recognize it as code and not text. An example is below.
Your Title <br>
<br>
Your paragraph goes here – do not push enter at the end of lines as you type. The words will automatically wrap to the next line.
You don’t have to include a title if you don’t want.
7. Remember, once you post it, you can’t change it and the WHOLE WORLD can read what you’ve written. So don’t click “Say It!” until you’re ready!
8. You can always write in Word, spell check, and then copy and paste into the comment box…
