Friendly Friday: Organizing the Blog Roll

Wishing for a blog roll? Hoping to compile a list of blogs from friendly colleagues that you want to share with the world?

If you do, you know that it's always a work in progress. Sparking my action here, Amy Palko in Bye Bye Blogroll - Hello Links! explains how it quickly becomes a very long list on your blog page. You can organize them under one link where people can view and explore.

While you're at it, you can even provide a tiny blurb about each blog or website that you include in this link.

Check out my burgeoning Blog Roll.

Tuesday Trait: VOICE

hacia dónde? by movimente
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VOICE! Mine or yours? Immediate or Distant? Weak or Powerful? Voice is as potent as Venus when she took pity on Pygmalion. She spoke and brought his beautiful sculpture to life.

What awards such cachet to VOICE? A colleague's blog, of course. While reading Ken Allan's blog, Blogger in Middle-Earth, I found his first-class blog post One Voice? A Post for Bloggers. Teachers can be guided by his ideas and tips as they develop their lessons on Voice. I'm sharing this post for them, especially secondary teachers who may be looking for ideas for writing in the content area.

Over the years, I've written essays and guides, as well as shared professional development about the Six Traits of Writing. I've discovered that many teachers would like to know more, so I'll focus on the traits in the future. For now, I've found two posts from my blog. One is Six Traits Still Rule, while the other is It's delicious.

I hope these will encourage your thoughts on the topic. I believe you can provide expanded opportunities to help your students find, define and refine their Voice as they develop their writing.

Making the Rounds of the PLN!

Be seeing you by Olivander
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It never hurts to be reminded of the basics of learning, just as was pointed out by members of my Professional Learning Network. 10 Steps to Becoming a Better Writer is a humorous homily for this simple idea about deliberate practice written by Brian Clark.

Get to the Point....PLEASE!

Inside the Monument - London by nick.garrod
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Today's post is an editorial statement that professional blogs should be written in a professional manner!

Have you ever had a teacher who took half the class time for their lesson introduction, aka anticipatory set? Well, it seems that can also happen online. Today, I read an author's post that rambled across the topic throughout half the blog, and the introduction still didn't INTRODUCE the main focus of the article.

I am wondering if I should have higher expectations for a university official with a doctorate than a high school student?

What could the author do to more effectively get to the point? I think the wandering blogger should eliminate the top part of the post, it wouldn't have been missed. Minimally, the author could let the post rest and look at it again later. Maximally, a university official could enlist an editor.

This experience taught me a good lesson today. Every story should have a beginning, a middle and an end, and the author should not make you wander in the desert before they get to the point. It takes time to read or even scan recommended articles, and TIME is a fixed parameter, even in the virtual world.

It's del.icio.us!

Del.icio.us was the first social bookmarking web application I ever used. As a teacher, I thought, "Wow! I could really teach my students to paraphrase with this tool!" Yes, I love the online bookmarking part of del.icio.us, and I love the sharing, the social networking part of this bookmarking system.

Unfortunately, the research part of writing; the paraphrasing, the note-taking, the quoting of sources, can be a tremendous stumbling block for students in middle and high school. As soon as I was introduced to del.icio.us, I knew I could teach this to students and they could use it effectively to learn and practice these skills. Since I am always on the lookout for web applications for use with effective instructional strategies that will greatly boost student achievement, I knew del.icio.us fit the bill.

Over the years, I realized that my students could write fairly well, and I credit that to the commitment Kansas has made using the 6 Traits of Writing in a systemic immersion from Kindergarten to high school. Parents, teachers and students know it is a good system. I can depend on students knowing the basics of writing because of it.

Often, students believe this idea, or misconception really, that someone else's words are better than their own. In its pure form, I have to admire that idea, because it means that students honor authors, books and reading. The misconception lies in the idea that THEY can't really learn how to research and write well, but they can. Once students learn to take notes and paraphrase, their writing always takes a great boost in quality.

Another problem for me, as a teacher, was helping each student stay organized throughout the research/writing process. In a way, it seems rather odd that writing or looking for sources is not the beginning writer's downfall, the difficult part is keeping lists of resources, notes, and quotations throughout the writing process. As soon as I saw how del.icio.us worked, I knew it was the solution for this developmental milestone. The wonderful folks at CommonCraft do also, and here is their excellent video, Social Bookmarking in Plain English.



All the organizational problems are solved with del.icio.us and other social bookmarking networks. Students can bookmark their sources and take notes as they find them. First impressions are always helpful to remember. The writer can easily edit, yet it is often difficult to remember just what attracted you to a particular resource. Using del.icio.us, a student can quote, paraphrase or note future areas of research.

As a teacher, I can access all the students bookmarks because I put them into my class network, a social educational network. I can use del.icio.us to check student organization, progress, quality and reliability of resources on the fly. This makes it easier to give timely feedback which encourages students and increases their overall achievement in writing.

That is the beauty of social bookmarking. It's del.icio.us!

New View

Teaching could be compared to sailing a dinghy across the ocean. When the weather is good, teaching is fairly straight forward, but any change in the weather brings a totally NEW VIEW.

It's often the context of learning that causes a change in the weather that trips up our students. Until we guide them through the transfer of learning required, rowing our dinghy will be treacherous. Teachers may think they are rowing by themselves at first.

As teachers guide students through new learning vistas, students will help us by rowing the dinghy of knowledge through the rough waters. Soon they will zoom through the new learning venue like a precision rowing team. Because we are so proud of their accomplishments, teachers may forget how difficult the weather was and how the students almost swamped the dinghy in the rough weather of learning transfer.

Often, as teachers, we need to remind ourselves to be patient with ourselves, as well as our students. When we experiment and take risks, we will need to constantly evaluate our process and product, until we are happy with the results of good teaching and learning.

A very gracious colleague of mine, Gabriela Sellart, teaches her students to write in her EFL class. She is using a wiki, so students can collaborate in editing each others' work. While the student stories are interesting, my colleague was not satisfied with their collaboration. I thought this was a great project, and I know she will guide them through this storm. I believe that the teacher and students will all be very happy with the results.

I have quoted my comments on her blogpost, More on Collaboration. If you are interested in trying this excellent teaching/learning technique in your classes, check out Gabriella's blog and read more about her project. You will learn more about uses for a wiki and how to implement an interactive application that will improve student's writing, as well as your teaching.

Using a wiki to write and edit is an excellent idea. From your posting, I noted that the students wrote and did some editing. IMHO;D You should be very proud of your first effort with your students. In the beginning, participation is a plus. Some teachers try such an activity, and not all the students even participate.

You have analyzed your project startup and the student's ability to edit each others language and discovered that they can make the language corrections as a group. Using the wiki to survey the mistakes from their writing is probably the most powerful use of the wiki itself. By using a wiki, you have a history of changes and you can get an idea of their level of competence and participation. That was a great idea;D

When starting new projects, it is not unusual for students to "appear" to have lost some of their skills. IMHO, the skills are not lost, but need to be "reorganized" within the new format, por ejemplo, the wiki. They will improve each time you do this project, and I think within a few practices, you will be very happy with your students' progress.

I am very impressed with Gabriella's project, and I want to share it with you,my colleagues;D