I am bit biased in how I think educators should best use web tools. I did a presentation a few years back on "Online Communication" so included the links to the presentation website (site links to external examples may not work).
BLOGS http://www.keithmack.com/onlinecom/ol_blog.htm I'm not convinced that a blog is the best tool for reading response journals (RRJ's). The purpose of a blog is mainly to publish content which then invites feedback. The problem is that it's a bit hard to hold an "extended" conversation either from author to one or author to many or even many to many. As a teacher, you will likely have to monitor ALL the blogs and ALL the blog authors individually which can be unyielding and time consuming. Blogs are also notorious fodder for spammers since for them to be very useful blogs need to be "wide open" for anyone to post comments - you will obviously want to "approve" ALL comments (time, time, time!). I know many teachers make the blog work for RRJ's so I know it can be done successfully. Blogs just aren't my choice for enhancing classroom dialogue, which may or may not be a purpose for your reading responses. DISCUSSION BOARDS http://www.keithmack.com/onlinecom/ol_bboard.htm I host several teachers that use discussion boards for RRJ's and other classroom discussions. With a discussion board a teacher can manage everything as a group rather than individually. This means the teacher has ONE control panel to look at with access to all members and content. The discussion board can also be used for lit groups and class novels/readings and I've seen it used for social studies talk about current events. Discussion boards can also be "members only" which means only registered members of your classroom group can access and reply to content. The nice thing is that you can even choose to pull up all the posts from a particular student. The teacher can choose to moderate everything, one forum, or one student. So a teacher's discussion board might have a separate forum for each student's RRJ, forums for several lit groups, forums for class novels, and a forum for SS content. You have a lot more options open to you with a discussion board and generally a much easier time in managing everything. Plus it's easier to "protect" the board from ne'er-do-wells and their evil spam-bots. That'll keep admin and parents happy! I'd like to show you an example, but all my teachers have their boards set to "members only". We host classroom boards on The Literacy Workshop site http://www.literacyworkshop.org/webtools.htm. Keith Mack [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.literacyworkshop.org -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of H Weise Sent: Thursday, June 28, 2007 12:33 PM To: [email protected] Subject: [MOSAIC] Blogging Does anyone out there use a blog for student responses to independent reading? _______________________________________________ Mosaic mailing list [email protected] To unsubscribe or modify your membership please go to http://literacyworkshop.org/mailman/options/mosaic_literacyworkshop.org. Search the MOSAIC archives at http://snipurl.com/MosaicArchive.
