Academic Musings & Tech for Learning

AMERICAN MASTERS: JOAN BAEZ: HOW SWEET THE SOUND Thirteen.org’s EdOnline is still highlighting Joan Baez which premiered on television in October. For learning about the 1960’s, there are some excellent resources here. Lessons plans, that tie-in with the Joan Baez video include:
The 1960s: Youthful Optimism, Activism, and Joan Baez
Vietnam Passage Journeys from War to Peace

Stumbling around the Internet earlier this year I came upon a class blog, Write Out Loud, where students discussed what they learned about this tumultuous decade in a 7th grade English Class. It’s truly interesting reading the comments from today’s students. Being a teenager in school at that time, it’s humbling and fascinating to look back and realize that you, too, have an historic voice, small though it might be. Through the technological miracles of the, television,  and a free press, you were there. Some of my friends who are a bit older were videotaped; and my mother actually attended SUNY Stony Brook NY which also erupted in violence.

At The Writer’s Almanac with Garrison Keillor, a different writer or poet’s birthday is celebrated every day, along with other interesting literature facts. It’s sponsored by PublicRadio.org and you can also subscribe to the podcast.

This can be a great way to inspire, or perhaps provide a lesson’s opening discussion or motivation.

Blogging is used by many teachers… duh.. here we are at Edublogs. One very constructive collaboration that’s developed is between Prof. Lewis at the University of Regina and Kathy Cassidy, a first grade teacher in Moose Jaw SK. In the winter of 2008, Professor Lewis’s class of pre-serviceteachers became blogging mentors for Kathy Cassidy’s grade one students.

In their presentation available at http://k12onlineconference.org/?p=319, Lewis & Cassidy talk about their project and report on the results of research that was conducted about the effect this mentoring has had on the students and their writing.

Ms. Cassidy’s class blogs at http://classblogmeister.com/blog.php?blogger_id=1337&l=1237330856, and she has her own blog at http://primarypreoccupation.wordpress.com/.

Another research study centered around this blog and how parents viewed it. You can read about it here: http://primarypreoccupation.wordpress.com/2008/10/02/proving-it/

On Thursday, October 25, 2007 there will be another blog workshop on designing and implementing a blog. You can register for the workshop here. Consider joining Webgrrls while you’re at it. Webgrrls is a great resource for anyone interested in tech-related issues and meeting interesting people with very diverse backgrounds in many fields. There are monthly meetings and lots of opportunities for networking.

Blogging can be a bit confusing for the uninitiated. I wrote a paper, A Look at Blogging in December, 2006 about blogging with ideas for using it in the classroom. You can download it here (it’s a PDF file for Adobe Acrobat) and check it out. Using blogs for students to post and comment can be very beneficial for learning, and teachers and administrators find them to be a great communications tool.

For more teaching ideas, lesson plans and articles, see my Portfolio page at LynneMBailey.com.