The Digital English Classroom

LibraryThing is an excellent tool to promote reading to students.  I especially like the 50 Book Challenge because it connects readers to readers as they collectively share their fifty book yearly goal.  Colleagues and students could utilize this site.  Students could be directed to use it for personal uses or generate book lists from what they read in the classroom.  Seeing how many other people are reading fifty books as well can be quite motivating.

Also, the group What are you reading now? would be a great source for students who want to read material outside of the classroom.  I especially like the book lists because they include both contemporary and classic titles.  Students could see that the books they are currently reading are read by thousands (John Steinbech name lists 39,841 copies read). 

Investigating  del.icio.us

I have accumulated an innumerable amount of English and teaching related websites and I am always on the look out for more. 

It is especially easy to get lost on Google.  Typing in the word “Shakespeare” will bring up thousands of websites and it seems daunting to locate the wheat from the chaff; however, you can use del.icio.us to find appropriate websites for easy access and use. 

I searched several texts I use in the classroom and discovered many different types of sites.  When typing in “Siddhartha,” sites about Herman Hesse’s novel and the historical background of him appeared.  The organization of the sites made it easy to find material.  Also, the amount of people who save the sites is also of particular interest.  It shows the popularity (but maybe not the validity) of the sites. 

Setting up an account and getting started is extremely easy.  Teachers are not the only ones to benefit from this tool, but students could as well.  If students were working on a research paper about a certain topic, the teacher could collect a series of suitable sites and have students use them for their research.  The uses are endless. 

http://del.icio.us/curranb

Will Richardson published an interesting post about texting on Weblogg-ed entitled Connective Writing:  Engaging Writing in the Classroom He commented on the Christian Science Monitor article about texting among teenagers.   The article cites,

“Researchers found that informal writing is an integral part of youth culture: 85 percent of teens communicate through digital writing. Teenagers also overwhelmingly understand the importance of good writing: 86 percent of teens consider formal writing skills essential to future success.” 

Richardson agrees that this is a very positive step to motivating students to improve all types of writing. 

Another interesting point the article makes is

“Our student bloggers and digital writers of all backgrounds are part of a journaling culture which America has not seen since the great age of diarists during the Transcendental movement, when Thoreau and Emerson recorded their daily lives for eventual public consumption. ” 

Although we must continue to teach the classics, we should avoid resorting to mere classical methods of teaching (e.g. read the text and answer the questions at the end).  We want our students to be interactive, reflective learners, but we are constantly resorting to flat teaching methods.  I’m not advocating that students turn in their text messages for a grade, but the basics for good reflective learning experiences may stem from some these texts.