+Jim Bentley, a teacher in the Elk Grove, California school district joins us as well.
Our students (and we ourselves) spend increasing amount of time online, communicating and collaborating virtually. How can we teach our students about their rights and responsibilities as digital citizens as they navigate their online communities?
Gail and Natalie, both members of their local National Writing Project sites, created the Digital ID wiki http://digital-id.wikispaces.com to supply students, teachers, and administrators with a toolkit of reliable information, resources, and guidelines to help us all learn how to be upstanding Digital Citizens who maintain a healthy Digital Identity (ID) in the 21st Century.
Learn about the Digital ID project on this episode of TTT. Project curators Natalie Bernasconi and Gail Desler share how this collaborative project has grown into an "international conversation" that they would love for you and your students to be a part of.
What ideas do you have for weaving digital citizenship into the core curriculum?
Click Read more to see a copy of the chat that was happening during the webcast.
Margaret has been a frequent guest on Teachers Teaching Teachers since the BP Oil Spill. Her elementary school school students published memorable poems and multimedia commentary on Voices on the Gulf, and Ms. Simons' students continue to publish on Youth Voices http://youthvoices.net/posts/user/3587
It may be a YA novel or a first-chapter book, but I agree with one Amazon reviewer who writes that Blessen is "a book for young readers, but an old reader like me can enjoy it just as well."
In this highlight from the videocast, Margaret reads "Piggly Wiggly," a chapter from her book, Blessen.
Margaret Simon is a teacher-consultant with the National Writing Project of Acadiana, Louisiana. In this podcast we explore Margaret's creative process, her use of a writing group, and her journey in publication. What questions do you have? Please add your comments below.
To get the full effect, take a moment to find some string before you listen to this episode of TTT. How much? Fred says, "About two meters or a little over 6 feet is usually a good length. Hold the string between your two hands stretched out as wide as they go, then add about 6 inches."
Fred explains that he was "inspired by the session we had with teachers using Minecraft, where we explored an online game world via another virtual world, http://edtechtalk.com/node/5102 and I was intrigued by whether it would be feasible to explore a meatspace game in our virtual Teachers Teaching Teachers forum." He sees "string games as a gateway to keyboarding and creativity or finger calisthenics, and computer keyboarding: media magic for tradigital storytelling."
Playing games with string is a human cultural universal. This ancient art form is surprisingly helpful in developing both the manual dexterity and strength needed for computer keyboarding. The approach I use for teaching string games to groups also provides a helpful practice ground for some of life's essential skills: creativity, resilience, cooperation, and storytelling.
And that's not all. Here's an excerpt and a couple of photos from a post that Diana wrote shortly after this episode of TTT:
There were some great quotes that Chad, a fellow participant, shared via Twitter. (I can't recall them all - they were things like "it's important to model failure" and "string games are 'digital' fun".) What I realized was how potent teaching string games would be to analyze your own teaching practice. Listening to Fred teach the group how to make a 3-pronged spear made me hyper-aware of how important detailed, clear instructions are, and the different learning styles at play. The first time I tried it, I failed. The second time, when Fred re-explained and added a few "notice this part here" tips, I did it! I cheered pretty loudly when I succeeded. My webcam wasn't working on Google +, so I convinced my daughter to take a photo of my accomplishment.
I made a 3-pronged spear! Here's proof!
A less complimentary shot of me, with my string jedi master Fred on-screen
Fred mentioned that there are several books and YouTube videos that explain, step by step, how to make different shapes. I think I need a person near me to give feedback (though the string collapsing in unrecognizable shapes is pretty immediate feedback too). I gave myself a goal - to teach the kids in my SK and Grade 7 classes how to make the 3-pronged spear and do it to music at a June assembly. I'm repeating it here so it'll be my contract to myself to try it out and report what results.
This conversation about #NWP teachers in the National Digital Learning Day continued the next day at NWP Radio - on Blog Talk Radio: http://www.blogtalkradio.com/nwp_radio/2012/01/27/digital-writing-matters
+Gail Desler, Area 3 Writing Project and Instructional Technologist in Elk Grove, California; also presenting the Digital ID wiki as part of Digital Learning Day presentations in Sacramento
+Andrea Zellner, Red Cedar Writing Project, doc student at Michigan State University, who is working with Michigan State’s MA in Ed Tech program to “try something new” and document; artifacts from and about the experiences will be found here: http://dlday2012.tumblr.com/
+Leigh Wolf, Program Director for the MA in Ed Tech Program, is coordinating efforts with Andrea; here’s a link to a post at Leigh’s bloghttp://www.leighgraveswolf.com about Digital Learning Day.
+Tom Fox, Northern California Writing Project & National Writing Project, English Professor at Chico State University, will be presenting digital compositions created by his students at the Digital Learning Day presentations in Sacramento
+Jack Zangerle, Hudson Valley Writing Project, 8th Grade ELA teacher in Dover, NY, doing things for Digital Learning Day in his classroom
+Matt Dunleavy, former Tech Liaison of the Tidewater Writing Project in Virginia, and a professor at Radford University, currently working with Chris Dede from Harvard on an Augmented Reality project called EcoMobile, which will be presented in D.C. on Feb. 1 as part of Digital Learning Day activities there.
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