Writing like the post that we’ve copied here makes it easy to listen to what our students think about our work with them. Here’s what a 9th grader in Chris Sloan’s class thinks about blogging at YouthVoices.net:

What makes a good blog post, by Parker at Judge Memorial High School, Salt Lake City

To create a really good blog post, I really think that people need to open up to the readers. Honesty is most effective, because the actual emotion that others put down is probably something that others have experienced, or can relate to. For example, i just read a letter a girl wrote to her father, but he passed away four years ago. It was the most personal, morose, true example of sadness that i have ever read, let alone on youthvoices. I don’t know anything like that personally, but the raw openness made it something that i felt, not just read. I’ve also published some poems on the site, and i’ve gotten some varied, but positive, responses to those, and that’s encouraging.   more below

Please check this shows Google Notebook for links and additional materials: TTT32. Erick Hoefler and Richard Stohlman joined us to give us updates on their work with blogging and discussion forums in the high schools where they work.

Richard’s work with WordPress and WordPress MU is progressing, and he is looking for other high schools who would like to the students on his student’s blogs, especially Charlie’s Advisory’s New York Experience - 2006/2007.

Eric seems to be in the middle of adding to his technology repertoire. In addition to the committed, rich writing that he is having his students do on forums on a Joomla site, he is moving toward the use of an an elggspaces account in his creative writing classes.

Listen in as we discuss how blogs and discussion forums are folding into other cirricula. Some of the questions have to do with how to get other teachers in our buildings to buy in to these new technologies… and in particular, how to think about the process, less finished nature of blog posts when teachers are feel the need for finished products and projects. We talked about how much time blogging takes to develop. Many other issues came up as well, including how to bridge the gap between MySpace problems (although a student joined us to say that we exaggerate these) and the formal writing instruction found in many of our classrooms. Oh… and research. We plan to talk more about that soon.

Please add your voice!