Saturday, June 9, 2012

Final Session: Student Created Author Websites!



In this final session for our book study of Teaching With Author Web Sites, co-authors Dr. Rose Reissman and Mark Gura discuss the book's final chapter... and beyond.

In Chapter 6 “Creating Class Author Study Web Sites”, after examining and reflecting on the marvelous invitation to contemporary teaching and learning that author websites represent – analyzing the needs addressed by, the format and features of, and the magical literacy experiences available through these interactive, multisensory resources – it becomes a logical next step for students to create their own. Chapter 6 presents this important leap into the new world of authentic, digital literacy creation and publishing from a variety of angles.  This new genre of writing, the author website, is presented through education theory and literacy practice, as well as the practical ‘how to do’ and ‘what to do’ of this approach - the technology and classroom management involved. The chapter is chock full of advice and tips, activities and suggestions, standards-based goals,  and models of student literacy learning products. In short, Chapter 6 is an invitationconvenient port of entry into a dimension of learning that is exciting, satisfying, effective, and in many ways a necessary next step for all educators involved in fostering student acquisition of essential literacy skills.
This podcast features a conversation between the co-authors that touches on all these points, and more.  It concludes with a special roundtable session  conducted at Ditmas Middle School (Brooklyn, NY) in which Dr. Reissman and colleague, Mr. Angelo Carideo (Ditmas technology teacher), converse with students who have actually created their own author websites as part of  their literacy learning. They explain why and how they created their websites and what these experiences mean to them.  You may examine some of these student created author websites by going to one of the school websites and looking for their class section (link below):
http://imind.magix.net/public/student%20web%20sites.htm 
Please post your reactions  Chapter 6, to the podcast, and to the student websites in a comment below!

2 comments:

  1. I just listened to the poscast and browsed some of the 6th grade students author websites and they were very well done. I will be telling my students about these great websites (loved Becca Fitzpatrick author site and the Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl websites) they have wonderful questions and answers about the authors, great biographies and extras you must all explore.

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  2. I listened to this podcast several times. I am amazed at how articulate the children are about the process vs product of purposeful research. I am considering doing this project with my second grade boys in groups.

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