It’s like John Dewey told us. Positive professional growth and positive student growth will not happen without learning and practicing the art of reflection, says Rachel Small. It’s a process we must trust. It’s time we must invest.
In the long term, being hacked by a Twitter “phish” will make me a much better teacher of safe Internet use. I’m just really sorry for the inconvenience and possible harm I might have caused due to my lack of caution.
Students use Google Docs to write their poems. They use the GDocs sharing function to share their poem documents with me and some of their classmates (if they choose). I read their poems (from anywhere at anytime), give them one specific comment, and offer one constructive suggestion to improve their poem that I hope also adds to their poetry writing repertoire. Then we share in VoiceThread to a public audience.
To me, authentic literacy learning has two goals: to help students develop a passion for reading and writing, and to help them learn to implement the strategies that adult readers and writers utilize for genuine purposes. I’ve been searching for ways to do this, in a climate of high stakes testing and a commanding curriculum. Involving my kids in virtual book clubs with students in other schools is my latest discovery.
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