Beyond Pockets of Excellence in Blogging

There are many, many pockets of excellence in classroom/student blogging out there. These blogs are driven, coached and nurtured by educators who “get it”. They get how blogging makes a difference in student learning, supports 21st century modern learning skills and literacies and at the same time basic reading and writing skills. These educators understand blogging FOR their students.

[insert a screeching sound of breaks] …then it STOPS!… Why?

The students move on from those teachers classes to the next grade level or school with a teacher who:

• has never heard of blogs (hence does not use them)
• sees blogs as an add on and too much work (Who has time to moderate and comment on so much student writing???)
• uses blog posts as a digital space to collect typed up homework assignments (Instead of a new writing genre, capable of multi-layers, higher order thinking/writing skills and multi-dimensional)

You can visibly see the engagement, ownership and learning curve when you look at pockets of excellence, such as Linda Yollis’ 2nd/3rd grade blog or Kathy Cassidy’s 1st grade classroom and student blogs.  We can assess the learning taking place of a set of students (during one grade level) with a committed-to-quality-blogging teacher.

What we CAN’T do with pockets of excellence is to track and identify LONG TERM gains in blogging as a LEARNING PLATFORM.

I see how the  Yokahama International Middle School  (Grades 6-8), has laid the foundation with their student blogs for a CONTINUOUS effort to document, reflect and assess their students progress ACROSS time. My current school, Martin J Gottlieb Day School also has an opportunity to implement student blogfolios across ALL grade levels (K-8) and build on skills from year to year. George Couros on The Principal of Change blog wrote in a post titled 5 Reasons your Students Should Blog about his school division and effort to developing blogs as portfolios with their students. They are bringing blogs to approximately 10,000 students!

How are they/we:

• coordinating efforts across grade levels to help teachers and students BUILD ON  skills (ex. hyperlinked writing)
• continuing to weave a thread that CONNECTS reflections (ex. self-portraits art pieces with a reflective text/audio/video piece attached)
• giving evidence of learning at one particular moment in time and show growth ACROSS TIME  (ex. presentation skills, math number sense, gross-motor skills, etc.)

In an effort to provide a framework for our teachers from Kindergarten to 8th grade, I attempted to make my own thinking visible in regards to our classroom blogs and student blogfolios.

Each page addresses one grade level. I have divided the page into 2 main sections with the following subsections:

• classroom blog
  1. teacher responsibilities
  2. student responsibilities (on classroom blog)
• student blogfolios
  1. skills (new skills introduced at particular grade levels are highlighted in yellow)
  2. categories (trying to standardize categories to be used across grade levels. Ex. writing, reading, presentation, Science, Math, etc.)
  3. Reflection (examples of media that could be used to create a reflection in response to learning artifact)
  4. Examples of learning artifacts (Ex. Science fair presentation, About Me page, Self-portrait art work, visible thinking of solving a Math problem, etc.)

This framework was not created to be written in stone, but as a starting point for teachers to refer to, as they students are building skills of writing in digital spaces, become reflective learners and establish a positive digital footprint. It is meant to allow a progression of learning artifacts coupled with reflection paint a picture of each student’s learning journey throughout our school. The framework is to guide teachers in providing a smooth transition from one grade level to another and ensure a continuation AND growth in skills.

Where are other schools who are creating maps for continues use of the blogging framework for learning, reflecting and sharing? Can we put our heads together, as we are tracking and assessing the continued use of blogs FOR learning? Please connect with this blog or via Twitter.

Download the Blogging Framework as a pdf file.

Anatomy, Grammar, Syntax & Taxonomy of a Hyperlink

Hyperlinks make the World Wide Web what it is. If links did not exist, EVERY web page would be a stand alone. Let’s take a close look at these “clickable thingies”

I  like the metaphor of thinking of hyperlinks as the “wormholes”, that transport us from one section of the universe to another, which is being mentioned on the Web Writing Style Guide 1.0 on the WritingSpaces.org site:

While U. S. Senator Ted Stevens’ metaphor of the Internet as a series of tubes (2006) is inaccurate, we can reasonably think of hyperlinks as the paths (or if you want to get sci-fi geeky: wormholes) through which we travel across the World Wide Web. Click a link and almost instantaneously you will move to a new page within a web site or—seemingly magically—to some new website hosted half way around the globe. In fact, the importance of hyperlinks cannot be overstated; there is no web without hyperlinks connecting one text to another (or more often, one text to many).

Hyperlinks make a word or a series of words “clickable”. Traditionally they underline the chosen word or phrase and are recognized by changing the font color to blue. Themes and other formatting of website  can change the appearance of links. [Langwitches blog currently uses a theme that turns the "clickable" word or phrase to a bold format (not blue nor underlined).]

Many educators struggle to make the transition from writing on paper, traditional student journals or worksheets to an online platform (ex. blogs or wikis)  for themselves and for their students. Ann Davis’ says “It is not just a matter of transferring classroom writing into digital spaces”. I wholeheartedly agree with her.

They struggle because writing in digital spaces is a different than writing on a physical piece of paper.  Most of them struggle, due to the lack of knowledge and practice  of reading and writing in digital spaces on their own part. Let’s become aware of the use AND quality of hyperlinks as we read and surf the web.

Tip: Take a closer look at this blog post you are reading right now on Langwitches. You will see hyperlinks sprinkled across the post. I have included  different levels of links from the Hyperlink Taxonomy. Are you aware of the hyperlinks? Can you find and classify the different ones?

There are three aspects of a hyperlink that I want to pay close attention to:

1. the anatomy (the bodily structure) of a hyperlink
2. the grammar & syntax (a particular analysis of a system and structure of language and the arrangement of words and phrases to create well-formed sentences in a language)
3. the taxonomy (the classification) of a hyperlink

One of the faux pas, I often see in hyperlinked writing, are “grammatical  and syntax” errors in expressing a well formed sentence while including hyperlinks.

• links are not integrated into the flow of the sentence  (Ex. Click here, here,  and here…)
• link text is not descriptive  (Ex. Click here to see , Check out my latest blog post, Take a look at…)
• links do not clearly indicate what the reader can expect to find if they were to click on the link
• links are the URL (link address) spelled out, instead of embedded into the flow of the text sentence. (Ex. Take a look at http://langwitches.org/blog/2012/04/03/hyperlinked-writing-in-the-classroom/)

Hyperlinking goes well beyond simply adding “clickable words” to an otherwise static, unilateral, linear, one dimensional and disconnected text. Critical thinking and strategy skills are needed to include “higher order hyperlinks. A digital writer can

• emphasize (point their readers) to a virtual place or connect them to a specific idea and concept by choosing what kind of link to place in their hyperlinked text.
• mix form and content to open up  different dimensions, making their writing non-linear, multi-layered and connected.
• use the hyperlink as a medium to convey her/his own train of thought

Download the Makeup of a Hyperlink as a pdf file.

I am open to changes, additions to this first attempt to create a Taxonomy of Hyperlinked Writing. Please help continue to develop it by adding, questioning or tweaking.

Assessment in the Modern Classroom: Part Three- Blog Writing

I believe we are on our way of taking a modern classroom learning opportunity and upgrading assessment forms to match new skills and new literacies while not forgetting traditionally assessed ones.

We took a classroom Twitter feed (Part One) , looked at the conversation skills students exhibited during the Skype call (Part Two) and now are moving on to looking at “blog post writing” as assessment.

Keeping a previously created blogging rubric in mind, we took a closer look at the blog posts written by the 4th and 5th graders during the actual skype call and edited and formatted after the call had ended.

(If you have a minute, take the time to give the 4th and 5th graders (“outside of the classroom”) feedback).

There is not enough time to allow students to write the blog post, but still require them to write, in addition, in their paper journal. The “new form” of assessment has to replace the traditional one….

[Sidenote: not all the time... students don't have to only write on their blog, just as they should not only write in physical paper journals.]

There are still more components to our learning experience. We have videographers in the process of editing the recorded Skype call. Yet another opportunity for an upgraded assessment.

• How will we give feedback?
• How do we assess these students’ artifact for evidence of learning.
• How well did they edit?
• Were they able to summarize important parts of the video clip?
• Were they able to tell a new story (showing understanding) from the clip?
• Is there evidence of growth in their fluency/literacy/ skills such as digital communication, connection, collaboration and critical thinking?

Do we need a hub to collect these new types of assessment. Who is sharing? Who is curating? Who is disseminating?