I came into contact with a teacher who wanted to collaborate with an English speaking class. We ”met” through a summer online course offered from PBWorks. Our initial contacts were feelers to see what and how we could collaborate. The focus of our original collaboration was to complete wikis together and use them as a way to share and comment with each other so that her students could practice their English and so that mine could practice commenting.
Since then I have been contacted by a classroom teacher from New York who is reading Hurricane Song by Paul Volponi. She wanted to collaborate with students from New Orleans who may have actually been affected by Hurricane Katrina. When I got this message, I immediately responded and since then we have been trying to make connect to set up our classes for sharing and reflecting.
Several months ago, I was been exposed to Edublogs and the Edublog Student Blogging Challenge offered by Ms Wyatt and Ms. Waters, Our participation in their blogging challenge left much to be desired and since then I have decided that it is important to develop a blogging relationship with the world. I think that blog pages (or wikipages)will be the best way to achieve actual conversations with other students.
I want to be able to hold authentic conversations with both classes. Everyone would benefit from these conversations. Our N.Y. ePals would gain confidence because of the practice that they will receive blogging with other students. I have been trying to think of the best way to organize things. I love the way the Edublog Commenting Challenge was set up and will “borrow” some of their ideas about setting up student blogs for sharing. I also think that the students would benefit from focused writing topics.
I don’t know if either of the other teachers are tech heads and willing to try out wikis and blogs but I am game to try. Below I have included possible topics and story starters.
Here are some of the tasks that I would like to have shared with my wiki/blog friends.
Blog presentation:
- create avatar
- about page
- translation widget
- weather widget
- create blogroll
- other widgets
- clustrmap
- using tags and categories
Extra posts:
- comic
- quiz
- poll
Writing topics for blog posts:
- Let readers know who you are.
- Write a letter to yourself. Answer it a year later.
- The time that telling the truth cost you.
- Run a contest. The best/worst…..
- Write about your favorite kind of music.
- Write about your most embarassing moment.
- Write about your happiest moment.
- Write your autobiography.
- Critique the worst/best movie or television that you have watched.
- Write about a day in your life. From waking up to going to bed.
- Wrote an hourly journal for not less than 24 hours. at 2 I am … with…..
- Write about 10 things that are important to you
