Readings for March 8

It’s hard to comment on these articles since most of us recently took Beach’s class – I feel I’ve already talked the digital reading/writing issue to death. What I like most about using digital writing, is the student freedom that I believe it promotes. When using blogs in terms of literature circles or book discussions, students have the freedom to comment on parts of the book they found interesting. This is in converse to the typical teacher-lead discussions where students may feel as though they are “missing something” or are “way off” because they don’t find the details highlighted by the teacher appealing. In addition, students have the freedom to peruse other’s blogs without their knowledge, they can decide which blogs to comment on, and they can decide which responses they want to keep on their own blog. In a broad sense of freedom, students can choose to their blog layout and personalize it as much as they want. In addition, they can most likely choose when and where to blog. Thus, they are free to work when it bests suits them.

I think blogs could work particularly well for peer editing. While it seems unlikely that students would post entire papers to their blog, they could post ideas for or sections of their paper. Whereas a student may not feel comfortable critiquing a fellow classmate’s work in a face-to-face setting, blogging may put those students at ease. It would give them time to articulate their concerns in a situation that is not as stressful as a face-to-face interaction. Blogs could also provide a way for students to participate in discussions that they otherwise may not. Those students may be extremely shy, not work well under pressure, have trouble articulating their thoughts quickly or perhaps an ESL student is embarrassed about her accent. Blogging would eliminate most or all of these concerns.

Here is a website with loads of teaching ideas. Obviously many of you were in Beach’s class with me so we’ve all posted our own ideas here. However, I figure we should get as much use out of our work as possible. http://teachingmedialiteracy.pbwiki.com/IntegratingMediaintheCurriculum