We are now starting our well-deserved Spring Break. I would like to add some comments on the year so far. First of all I am impressed with my students efforts in writing and technology. I made the big leap into allowing my students to create their own blogs of which a few did and relinquish control of their wikispaces. So far the students have done quite well with a few glitches as to be expected. They enjoy publishing their own work and are quite adept at it. I also have been able to collaborate via video with Terry Parent at St. Patrick’s School in North Hollywood as our classes have discussed topics such as factory life and slavery. Terry’s class worked with my 6th period US History class twice during the last two months and I have benefited from observing how he prepares his class. I hope to add some clips from our video conference within the next couple of weeks. I would like to extend thanks to the many teachers whose ideas from their blogs, wikis, and other technologies have inspired me. In addition, a thanks to my immediate colleagues onsite and to those at UCI who have assisted in the Academic Literacy project. This project has greatly increased my student’s ability to write in the content and all of my students have made siginificant progress. I hope to post some of their work also.
I encourage any teacher who is considering to take the step into utilizing blogs, wikis or other media to go for it. It is challenging, but rewarding as a teacher can readily observe how savy our students are. Moreover, students become engaged when they are allowed to create and publish.