March 6th, 2006
Video: Weblogs in the classroom
Will Richardson, who writes the weblogg-ed blog, has posted links to a video presented at the National Education Computing Conference back in 2004. If you haven’t seen it before, it’s definitely worth a quick look (quick over a broadband connection, that is). Here’s a quasi-transcript of the section where Richardson, student Toni Lynn Gibson and parent Pamela Mahon discuss the impact of using blogs to discuss "The Secret Life of Bees" by Sue Monk Kidd.
Gibson: I wrote a letter to the author about how much the book influenced me because the class discussions we had were from the absolute heart.
Richardson: She responded to 10 questions my kids asked with a 2300 word response that was really very meaningful and very moving.
Mahon: I enjoyed it because it gave me a chance to not only read the book with my daughter but also take a more interactive part in her learning experience.
Gibson: The weblog definitely changes everything. If somebody searches for "The Secret Life of Bees," my name’s going to come up there and they’re going to be reading what I wrote!"
Richardson: They realize they’re a part of the content that’s being created out there, it’s not just limited to the classroom.
Gibson: It definitely inspired me, it inspired the whole class.
If you do Google the book title, notice that Richardson’s class pages are ranked higher than Kidd’s own website and just below the Amazon page. (!)
