1. I agree with the quote, "we have the responsibility to teach students how to swim in the sea of information and media." I think we assume a lot as educators and one of the assumptions I have had in the past is that students know how to search their topics and understand the importance of keeping track of where they get information. Unfortunately, my assumptions were wrong and I quickly realized that "I" need to teach them to narrow their focus when using search engines and teach them how to cite their electronic sources. Remember: don't assume anything.
2. The word "organization" pops up in the text often and I don't think we spend enough time showing our students how to keep their digital lives organized. Maybe this should be a topic of conversation so that we have a common way to teach this crucial skill?
3. Question: On page 55 of the text, Valenza describes her thinking about the "personal information portal" and it made me think about what Scotty said today in regard to the electronic portfolio. If the electronic portfolio is where we are heading then we should encourage our students to be creative, organized, and utilize the correct technology. If this is the case for the future, should 8th graders create a personal iGoogle page in order to keep track of their writing topics, calendars, and to-do lists for all projects? Should we use google docs for editing and revision? We need to make some decisions and make sure to let all teachers know the preferred choice.
I am dwelling over the idea of a real, purposeful audience. As stated on page 45, Anne Moege's classroom--and the ways in which she migrated summary writing from the format of the traditional paper written by a single student to that of a collaboratively authored wiki document--is an example of a classroom transition. We do a lot of summary writing, and I wonder if we could use this idea to get students to collaboratively write a summary so that they could have a real audience, and as the text states, provide the students with an efficient way of writing. If the students wrote the summaries together, then could they compare summaries for the purpose of gaining a variety of perspectives on how to write effective? Students should be able to gain an understanding on what is important versus what is not in regards to summarizing by exploring the writing of others.
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