BLC06: A snippit from the Clem

Before I had to duck out, I caught the first 20 minutes of Jim Wenzloff and Chris Burnett’s presentation, Tales from the Clem. I’ve seen Jim present before and I know Chris well enough, but there’s always something new to learn.

Chris heard Will Richardson speak at BLC04 and after listening to him share how he had students publishing to the web without any pre-approval process, she promptly walked out. While that may work for an average middle class group of students, it certainly wouldn’t fly with her ‘at risk’ students in Michigan. Waste of time in her mind.

However, after some time passed, people at her school wanted her to start dabbling in blogging and to see what it was all about. She said that she would be willing to give it a try if it was 100% secure and everything flowed through her before it went live. Posts, comments, trackbacks, everything. They set it up and she gave it a try. Her students did some posting and then she mentioned on an international listserv that if anybody had a free minute to stop by and give her students some feedback. By Monday, a slew of comments from around the world had rolled in. To say it added an entirely new dimmension to her students’ ideas about writing would be an understatement.

Over time, she has restructured her thinking about blogs, always keeping in mind the key question, “How can I make this work for MY students” and then taking appropriate action.

She shared some really interesting projects, but the last thing I saw before I go really stood out. Jim and Chris have started a listerv where teachers can volunteer to provide feedback to student bloggers. A teacher who wants to give their students a little boost can send out an email and any volunteers who have time can chime in and help a student see the value in publishing for the world.

What a brilliant idea! So good, I think I’m going to have to give it it’s own blog post just in case some people aren’t reading these posts all the way through! Thank goodness you are though, thanks for sticking with me.

Anyway, if you want to get involved, you can email Carol (net2001@yahoo.com) or Jim (jim@misd.net).

technorati tags:blc, blc06, blogs