Practice Makes Perfect

When reading over The Nuts and Bolts of Creating and Using Blogs, Wikis, and Digital Stories in Your Classroom, I was very pleased in to how in depth each section went.  They explained how to set them up and then how to incorporate into a classroom setting.  I just wish the section on blogs was something I had read before we created one for class because I honestly had no idea how to use one and this would of been tremendous help.  Something that I did like about the blogs section was that Wilber gave you three different ways in which to set up a blog for your classroom, which was very useful to see the different aspects.  One blog that caught my eye was the ability to create a collaborative class blog, so that both the teacher and student can make original posts to the blog, which I think is very important because it takes both student and teacher to make a classroom work, especially when introducing something new, it lets the students know that you are willing to put in the time to learn just as much as they are.  Something that I think in a classroom would work well is "repsonding to reading a novel or short story," not only are you being introduced into new technology but are able to incorporate classroom terms and skills as well, so you are learning literacy in two ways (Wilber 68).  I love the idea that authors can look up blogs to see the comments that students have made, like Sue Monk Kidd did with the students who blogged about her book The Secret Life of Bees, she took the time out to answer questions that the students posted, just like the students took the time out to write comments about her book, which she was delighted about.  Not only does blogging about a book give the students the ability to connect with the author, it gives them the opportunity to "publish their ideas and make them available to the world at large, including the authors of the books they read"(Wilber 69).  By putting the blogs out there for everyone to see, it gives the students the feeling of importance, that there is someone out there that cares about what they have to say, which in the end will make them confident about there work.  I really enjoyed reading this, I mainly focused on blogs because it is something still new to me that I want to learn more about.  Not that I am not interested in wikis or digital stories, I want to perfect blogging before I take the next step into the others.