For my second session in the Virtual
Digital Writing Conference, I watched the presentation titled, “Increasing
Student Engagement & Voice with Digital Writing." The moderator was Troy Hicks, which sparked
my interest as I read his book Crafting Digital Writing, for a class I
took over the summer. The discussion panel included three teachers: Paul
Allison, Dawn Reed, and Chris Sloan, all English teachers at the middle or high
school levels. The panel members were discussing Youth Voices.net, a blog set
up by educators to connect their students with other classrooms on the World
Wide Web. Seeing Troy Hicks as the moderator was one reason for my clicking on
this session, but I was also intrigued because so many of my classmates watched
and responded on their blogs about this session.
Two of the panel participants started
Youth Voices.net about twelve years ago with the hopes of giving their students
a digital platform to express themselves, ask questions, and connect with other
students who had similar thoughts, views, and questions. The three teachers sharing all mentioned how
much they liked having an “open” classroom, a place where their students could
authentically write to a large audience. Lessons on digital citizenship,
leaving behind your digital footprint, and belonging to a personal learning
network were all lessons the teachers incorporated into their use of Youth
Voices.net. The blog was created by educators, and is also maintained by
educators. Students’ posts and replies are monitored to be sure students are
interacting in an academic fashion. The panel members have all had great
success incorporating digital writing through blogging into their middle and
high school English classes.
I think the
Youth Voices.net blog is a great place for older students to connect with peers
their age across the country. I do not think it is appropriate for my nine/ten
year old fourth graders. I’m thinking a class blog is a more appropriate way to
incorporate digital writing into my classroom. My students write weekly in
their journals in response to prompts that have been generated by our team of
teachers. We try to make the prompts engaging and interesting for the students.
My thoughts are to post these prompts to a class blog, and have my students
digitally respond. That way, they can read each other’s responses and comment if
they’d like to. Students often share their journal writing in class with their
peers, so this class blog would be a way for all students to have the opportunity
to share and respond every week. If our class blog is successful, perhaps we
could branch out and have a grade level blog. Or maybe reach out to other fourth
grade classes in the district to see if they’d be interested in becoming
digital pen pals!
I think you are on to something when you point out that a classroom blog would be a way for ALL students to share. Sometimes I find that I am hearing from the same voices in my class, but a blog like you describe could give voice to the quieter or more introverted students -- a worthy goal, indeed.
ReplyDeleteHi Ann,
ReplyDeleteYouthVoices.net was mentioned in the conference I watched last week, so I was very interested in your blog post this week. I would have never thought to plan lessons on digital citizenship or learning networks. Those are things I think we assume our students already know, but instead need more practice with.
I teach 8th grade learning support, and believe that YouthVoices.net would be a great site for my class to participate in. We are all so familiar with one another in our small classroom, but this would give the students a way to read what others are writing and become involved in a digital community.
Thanks for sharing!
Hi Ann:
DeleteI agree with the idea of reaching out to other voices in a blog to promote a classroom discussion. It would breathe fresh views into a classroom discussion which could become overpowered by the same voices. It is also true that based on what I have read about YouthVoices.net from you and others it would appear to be more appropriate for older students and not elementary.
I liked how you are considering reaching out to other classrooms or across the district to create the variety in your discussion. Perhaps you would consider a debate strategy where one class supports one point of view and another class takes the other point of view. It would force them to consider all parts of the argument and look for supports which would defend their view. It could be related to topics in literature or even in district or community issues. It would be an interesting beginning and I, for one, would love to follow your experience.
Vera
Annie, I watched this video conference and agree with your opinion about Youthvoices.net being for older students. Many of the topics are developmentally not appropriate for younger students. Doing a class blog and possibly branching out to other grades in other schools to be digital pen pals sounds like a fun and engaging activity. (Plus, you may get some great ideas to using in your teaching from the teachers blogging with you! Sounds like a new way to network.) I'm hoping to introduce Twitter to my young writers when I return to school, then move to a class blog; starting out small and growing in digital literacy. I'm anxious to hear how your blogging goes. Any words of wisdom with regard to introducing Twitter and/or blogging would be welcomed.
ReplyDelete