60:41 minutes (13.89 MB)

On this episode of Teachers Teaching Teachers, we are joined by teachers involved with the NWP Makes Project:

• Christina Cantrill who works at the National Writing Project as a Senior Program Associate for the NWP Technology Initiative and Digital Is project.
• Judy Jester, Co-Director of the Pennsylvania Writing and Literature Project at West Chester University and an English teacher in the Kennett Consolidated School District
• Fred Mindlin, a member of UCSC's Central California Writing Project and a teacher in the Pajaro Valley Unified School District.
• Sam Reed, a teacher representative and city representative for Teachers’ Institute of Philadelphia (TIP), and Yale National Initiative (YNIT), respectively. He also serves on the advisory council for the Philadelphia Arts and Education Partnership; the Philadelphia Young Playwrights Literary Committee and I has served on the steering committee of the Philadelphia Writing Project

NWP Makes emerges from a partnership between the National Writing Project and Make Magazine and is part of the NWP's Digital Is program.

Many of us could probably find our approaches to learning in this definition from one of the more famous DIY projects, :

The DIY ethic (do it yourself ethic) refers to the ethic of being self-reliant by completing tasks oneself as opposed to having others who are more experienced or able complete them for you. It promotes the idea that an ordinary person can learn to do more than he or she thought was possible. Naturally, a DIY attitude requires that the adherent attain the knowledge required to complete a given task. Without this, DIY is not an effective dogma. The term can refer to "doing" anything at all, including home improvements and repairs, first aid, and creative endeavors. Central to the ethic is the empowerment of individuals and communities, encouraging the employment of alternative approaches when faced with bureaucratic or societal obstacles to achieving their objectives. Rather than belittling or showing disdain for knowledge or expertise, DIY champions the average individual seeking knowledge and expertise for him/herself. Instead of using the services of others who have expertise, a DIY oriented person would seek out the knowledge for him/herself.

Sounds like Teachers Teaching Teachers to us! Enjoy this podcast, and if you find yourself wanting to join these teachers on Youth Voices, please let us know. We would welcome you and your students.

Click Read more to see a copy of the chat that was happening during the webcast.

46:37 minutes (10.67 MB) Congratulations to all involved in the National Writing Project’s (NWP) new Digital Is site, which launched the first week of November when we recorded this podcast!

Take a look at all the wonderful work that has been collected and curated so far by NWP teachers from all over the United States at http//digitalis.nwp.org/

Once you’ve checked out those great resources and provocations, listen to the creators, collectors, and curators of this exciting new site on this episode of Teachers Teaching Teachers.

As Christina Cantrill wirtes:

The National Writing Project’s Digital Is website is a teaching-focused knowledge base exploring digital writing, teaching and learning. It invites participation in developing this knowledge base in several ways – visitors can find a range of teaching-focused collections and resources here related to digital writing, teaching and learning as well as become community members and participate in discussions. Also, after participating and getting a sense of the site, one can write to us and apply to be a resource creator. Resource creators can draft and compose multimodal resources here, get and give feedback to other resource creators, and publish.

Paul Allison, Susan Ettenheim, and Chris Sloan welcomed five of our friends and colleagues to this episode of Teachers Teaching Teachers:

Christina Cantrill who works at the National Writing Project as a Senior Program Associate for the NWP Technology Initiative and Digital Is project

. Bud Hunt, who made this collection on Digital Is: What’s New, or What’s Good: On Writing Connectively.

  Elyse Eidman-Aadahl who directs National Programs and Site Development at the National Writing Project. She also moderates one of our favorite webcasts/podcasts, NWP Radio.

Bill Fitzgerald who runs the Drupal shop, FunnyMonkey. Bill designed Digital Is, and is currently working on an update of Youth Voices.

Kevin Hodgson teaches sixth grade in Southampton, Massachusetts at the William E. Norris Elementary School. He is also the technology liaison with the Western Massachusetts Writing Project. Check out how many different ways Kevin shows up on Digital Is!

We talked with our friends about the importance of commenting. Over the last several years, those of us who have been building Youth Voices have learned how important it is to teach and nurture commenting, not just posting new posts all the time.

Join the excitement! Digital Is promises to be an important touchstone for communities of learners in the National Writing Project and beyond, and we suspect that the quality of the discussions on the site will soon be as important as the quality of the resources.

With this episode of TTT, we celebrate the launch of Digital Is and to think about the role of commenting in building new communities of learning on this site.

Unfortunately the chat log for this podcast is unavailable.