I read about the Youth Voices project at the Digital Is site, and I think it sounds very interesting, like something I would use with my 9th and 11th grade English classes here in Windsor, CO. So, I visited the site and signed up, but it seems like I do not have access to everything. I can only see three of the guides that you use, and the directions for most of the activities seem limited. I enjoyed the free-writing article by Peter Elbow, and I also like the 10 questions activity. I am wondering if there is a description of how teachers use this site somewhere.
Thanks, Tommy Buteau
That’s not all, a couple of days later Tommy wrote:
We couldn’t wait to welcome Tommy into our community and to learn more about his work. We were also delighted to welcome Chad Sansing back to TTT. You can see the results of the challenge we threw to him on TTT #256 – Cooperative Catalyst.
This fall six of Paul Allison’s students at the East-West School of International Studies worked with Sanda Htyte and Ann Heppermann to produce radio programs (with images) for the Mapping Main Street project. This was the “Short Wave” program with WNYC’s Radio Rookies. All of these students (and one more from East-West) are now working on individual programs with Radio Rookies.
Radio Rookies Short Wave Mapping Main Street Short Wave rookies embark on a mapping project to tell stories related to the Main Street in Queens, NY, as part of an ambitious project to map all the Main Streets in the United States. In the fall of 2009 the rookies collaborated with the mappingmainstreet.org project in a 5-week long intensive workshop, hosted by the Queens Teens program at the Queens Museum of Art. The students worked in groups reporting, taking photos, developing their stories, and above all working as a team to tell stories ranging from the cultural conversations of Main Street to steamed buns. View and listen here.
In this podcast, you’ll learn more about creating projects for students that are personally meaningful and of interest to others. Learn how public radio producers help young people create high-quality audio documentaries. Enjoy this podcast about Radio Rookies and Mapping Main Street.
Click Read more to see a transcript of a chat that was happening during the webcast.
If it’s November, it must be time for the National Writing Project’s (NWP’s) Annual Meeting. This week, many Writing Project teachers from across the United States (and some around the world) will be gathering in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania for our annual conference.
In connection with the National Writing Project’s Annual Meeting, we invited a few teachers who will be presenting in Philadelphia to join us on this episode. Paul Oh, an associate with the NWP joined us as well. In addition, this same cast of characters will be joining us for a follow-up show after the Annual Meeting on December 2.
As presenters of Annual Meeting sessions that focus on 21st century literacies, these writing project teachers and colleagues shared stories about the exploration of new composing practices, especially podcasting and video-making. Robert and Chuck teach 4th graders and Joe teaches 6th graders. It was and exciting, informative show.
This was a special webcast from the National Writing Project’s (NWP) Tech Matters`07 — an annual summer institute sponsored by the Tech Liaisons Network of the NWP. In addition to several teachers who are working together in Chico, CA as part of Tech Matters, we were joined by Writing Project teachers Bill O’Neil (Trenton WP) and Bud Hunt (Colorado State University WP). Also two Writing Project teachers who were participants in Tech Maters`06 joined us, Donna Bragg, Penn State Lehigh Valley Writing Project and Lynne Culp, UCLA Writing Project. Thanks also to Susan Ettenheim who streamed for us and edited this podcast, Lee Baber who added more music to our lives, and Doug Symington who was there to remind us about his show EdTech Brainstorms, which on on Thursdays nights(Americas)/Friday (Asia,Oceania) 2amGMT.
The night before she started her Spring Semester classes at Eleanor Roosevelt High School in New York City, Susan Ettenheim participated in a dialogue via skype with teachers from four different Writing Projects: Paul Allison (NYC), Matt Makowetski (South Coast, CA), Bill O’Neal (Trenton, NJ), and Bob LeVin (Area 3 in CA). This is a podcast of that conversation.
Along with Chris Sloan in Salt Lake City (Utah WP), the six of us are beginning a complex, exciting collaboration with our students in an elgg, YouthVoices.net. Listen as we plan, take a look at Susan’s introduction to her students, and consider joining us. You might leave a comment here, then go over to YouthVoices and see what all the excitement is about.
Writing like the post that we’ve copied here makes it easy to listen to what our students think about our work with them. Here’s what a 9th grader in Chris Sloan’s class thinks about blogging at YouthVoices.net:
What makes a good blog post, by Parker at Judge Memorial High School, Salt Lake City
To create a really good blog post, I really think that people need to open up to the readers. Honesty is most effective, because the actual emotion that others put down is probably something that others have experienced, or can relate to. For example, i just read a letter a girl wrote to her father, but he passed away four years ago. It was the most personal, morose, true example of sadness that i have ever read, let alone on youthvoices. I don’t know anything like that personally, but the raw openness made it something that i felt, not just read. I’ve also published some poems on the site, and i’ve gotten some varied, but positive, responses to those, and that’s encouraging. more below
This was the kind of conversation that needed more time. Listen as nine teachers from six states — Paul Allison, NY, Lee Baber, VA , Glen Bledsoe, OR, Susan Ettenheim, NY, Kevin Hodgson, MA, Eric Hoefler, VA, Matt Makowetski, CA, Chris Sloan, UT, and Ken Stein, NY (plus a father from China) — who use blogs, discussion boards, and other Web-based communication tools in their classrooms tell stories about the first half of the academic year. We report on what we have been learning about blogging (and using wikis) with students. We also begin to talk about what our plans are for the remainder of the year.
In the comments at the bottom of this post, please join us with your thoughts about what you’ve learned teaching students to communicate online. What are your stories? Let’s see how many more states — and countries — we can add to the list as we check in with colleagues from all over the globe.
We also want to talk about how to help students who will be ending their classes with us in January can find some closure with their blogs without closing off the possiblities of keeping an ongoing blog.
And please join us next week — and every Wednesday at 9:00 p.m. Eastern — in the text chat room at EdTechTalk.com.
Has writing really changed? What’s the difference — really — between writing an essay and writing a blog post? Has the use of images really changed the writing process? Digital technologies are great, but don’t we still have to teach kids how to write the way we always did? What’s the difference?
