Writing in Digital Environments Project

My Plan B

Ah, the irony of reading my last post a year later! I've taken my writing offline while working on finishing a fictional manuscript.  I've also been busy working a my two part-time jobs in education.  Still using digital tools, but posting on a non-public blog that I'm using with my students.  My book list is now showing books that are part of my work in one of my school programs.  I have to figure out how to run different lists for my different blogs.  On my Audible player I'm enjoying Annie Lamott's Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith.  A wonderful, funny, and nourishing read from one of my favorite authors.

Risking and Revising in Voices from the Middle

The March 2004 issue of Voices from the Middle, an NCTE publication, contains a section on web logs in the article, "Lessons Learned from Integrating Technology in a Writer's Workshop". Will and Ann's collaboration between their student bloggers is mentioned. Authors Patricia A. Watson and Jan Guidry Lacina discuss the idea that digital documents can allow for more risk taking by student writers due to the ease of revision. Using a blog as a writer's notebook provides a space for experimenting with technique. Also mentioned are Marsha Ratzel's site and Pam's Edublog News. It's great to see all of these blogging educators mentioned in this journal. At the recent Public Library Association conference, Anna Quindlin admitted that she didn't like to write. I've been a fan of her writing for many years and was shocked and then relieved by her words. She said that she liked "having written". I also enjoy writing more after I've finished and find that I write much more now that I have electronic tools to assist me in risking and revising.

Preparing For Young Guest Authors

We are at Redmond Jr. High testing the site and preparing for a blog with a guest author. It will be fun to add students as guest authors and test the real school application of previewing their posts prior to publication. After attending the Public Library Association Conference last week, I'm excited to begin to extend the experience of reading, writing, and communicating with authors using web logs and chats.

Interaction With Digital Docs

I spoke with Bud Wampler recently from AAA of Southern California and he told me more about the essay contest. The couple of high school students that did enter this year sent in videos and included one about teens and DUI that Bud considered "...quite powerful." He said that community members serve as judges and winning entries at the local level are sent on to the national competition. The grand prizes include scholarships of $5,000. I hope that soon a web log would be considered in the written communication category.

A new web log, teachandlearn, talks about having students do more than just access resources:

What I would like to see more of, however, is interaction with the digital documents produced as a result of completing a given task - the digital trail or the social life of a document that emerged in the process of formulating ideas.

When Reading and Writing Become Jammin'

Earlier this week, Tim Lauer in his Garageband post points to Jon Udell discussing IT and the quality of experience that's delivered, the ability to negotiate protocals and relationships in a fluid, rapidly-evolving environment. Jon labels this ability with an action verb--to jam. Tim laments the fact that school district IT departments don't share this vision. An online dictionary defines jam session as "an impromptu performance by a group..." My experience with my web site, validates that the hurdles to a group performance that involves online reading and writing can be daunting in many school district settings. Further professional develpment opportunities for teachers and easier access to IT staff trained in collaborative technolgies will help. It seems that data management trumps curriculum support in most districts. I agree with Tim that the ability of students to share their work with others is the exciting thing about the internet in schools. Another writer this week is deploring the lack of vision and performance in her piece, Is it really that hard to write it out?

Web Log Writing: Mind Chatter and the Mother Tongue

I had the pleasure of hearing Amy Tan speak a few days ago and one of her answers to an audience member's question intrigued me. She was asked about revising. Like most fiction writers, she spoke of her "compulsive revising" yet also spoke about one of her most reprinted pieces of writing. Mother Tongue is now read mostly in essay form and was included in the anthology, Best American Essays in 1991. This essay was written first as a speech and written quickly, without much revising. I think Amy Tan was making a point similar to the one Terry Elliot makes in his comment to Will's blog post on "Blogging As Genre" :

Weblogs get way closer to the mind's original 'chatter' than some writers are comfortable with...Perhaps this original face we see grinning in weblogs is whole in and of itself instead of being some staging area to a better place. Or perhaps it's both.

I think one of Amy Tan's best pieces of non-fiction writing was created in a situation that was much like the way web log writing happens--with quickness and immediacy. It also shares the characteristics that Will mentions,

"... it's first person, it's informal, and it's opinionated."

Perhaps student's web log writing will be both as Terry suggests. Original, whole written thoughts, communicating to readers and existing on a web log page read by a few or by many. Some writers may have an experience like Amy Tan and find that their writing is chosen for inclusion in collections. Others may use their web log to play with ideas, capturing their mind's chatter and making it more conversational since there is that sense that readers are lurking and can respond via comments or email. Teen writers have already coined the term POS (parent over shoulder) to describe the lurking presence

Ideas Becoming Reality

It's exciting to see Tom Hoffman's work. He has posted a demo on his October 16th post of how to put together an RDF graph for organizing curriculum planning with standards.

I've now been able to put together a video prototype [Quicktime] of the process using my new schemas and Damian Steer's RDFAuthor application. It is more than a prototype--it works completely, however, an application actually used by teachers would have to hide more of the RDF mechanics and syntax from the end user. Having those guts exposed is useful, however, if you're trying to understand what I've been babbling about for the past six months.

I'm looking forward to talking about more new ideas with Tom at Ed Blogger 2003 in San Francisco. As our plans evolve, I'll post more here.

Blogs As Science Journals

I finished my proposal for NECC 2004 today. Our presentation will be "Blogs As Science Journals: Increasing Science Reading and Writing". I'm excited to be using this concept with the TechReach Project and to be incorporating the Search It! Science database. Students will be able to choose books from Search It! Science as they work on their science inquiry projects and maintain their blog science journals.

Digital Identity

A definition of "reputation" appears at the Digital ID World site:

Reputation - Aggregating signed information from various sources as credentials based on past transaction history

I've been wondering how the work done using "digital paper"will affect a student's perception of themselves as readers, writers, and knowledge creators. How will a student's digital identity be impacted and formed based on their reputation in an educational context? Will this digital environment allow for more facets to develop and for increased motivation? Will some students find the digital environment a more hospitable one for building their reputation as a learner?

From Book To Play

Adapted from Avi's book, The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle, the new play at Seattle Children's Theatre offers young readers a chance to see a book's characters come alive and in a theatrical genre that may not be familiar. Reviewer Misha Berson says

It's a straight-up, well-performed melodrama about a sheltered girl of 13 who undertakes a trans-Atlantic voyage on her own.

Berson points out that Charlotte's defiant behavior is not the behavior of a proper 19th-century young lady and therein lies a bit of irony in SCT's choice of the melodramatic style for this production. Characters in early melodramas were usually stereotypes. The development of Charlotte's seafaring abilities and her recognition of her true strengths makes her an unconventional young lady. Perhaps the choice was made to leave out the scene where Charlotte cuts her hair to keep her looks more in line with a character from a melodrama of that period. Though Charlotte breaks out of the stereotype in the midst of this production and gives us a courageous 19th-century heroine, the beautiful set and excellent acting makes the play work. It also provides an opportunity to talk with students about theatrical and book genres.

This type of heroine is important for girls and boys. Being able to discover and use strengths despite the roadblocks erected by family, society, and sometimes, even friends, is the kind of triumphant story that needs to be told again and again.