As I continue on into Days 4 and 5 of the Comment Challenge, I realize what a valuable opportunity this project is for observing how a growing group of people, from around the globe and from all walks of life, come together to form a
community. And I now understand how coComment works. Unlike the more elegant co-mment that I mistakenly registered for yesterday, I am now able to add tags to my comments, just like I would to one of my posts. Well that’s pretty cool!
Day 4 Activity: Ask a question
On the project wiki, I clicked on a Day 4 link and wandered into the blog of a teacher of Portuguese (I think). The only post I could find in English was his/her take on the Day 4 activity. Since I could not really find anything about this blogger as a person (quite the opposite of yesterday’s venture into the Intrepid Teacher blog), my question to him/her was “As a teacher of Portuguese, what would you like to be asked about teaching in a digital age?” I would like to get a better sense of who this blogger really is.
Day 5 Activity: Comment on a post you disagree with:
In scrolling through Bloglines and Google Reader , I realize that I choose to subscribe to like-minded and inspiring bloggers. While pondering where I would locate non-like-minded bloggers, I noticed a front page story on today’s Sac Bee titled “Kids are reading, and not just Harry Potter,” written by Jay Mathews of the Washington Post. I couldn’t find the link at sacbee.com, so I’m copying basically the same story from today’s Modesto Bee – http://www.modbee.com/local/story/289046.html. If the Sac Bee does not give online access to the comment feed for this story within the next 24 hours, I’ll hop into Modesto’s comment box and let readers know that not all educators value the Accelerated Reader approach to motivating young readers.
May 5, 2008 at 3:21 pm
Hello, thank you for visiting me and posting a question for the Comment Challenge. I’ll introduce myself as a person first, and then I’ll try to answer to your interesting question.
I’m a Teacher of Portuguese, born in Brazil but living in Portugal since childhood; I’ve studied French, a bit of English in a translation School and then Philosophy, which I never “practiced” – as a teacher, I mean; instead, I’ve been teaching Portuguese to 10 to 12 years old students for about 23 years; I’m very fond of reading and writing both in paper and in the web – although I’m just a beginner in web issues.
Recently, my School staff has been challenged to invest time, imagination and good will in e-learning tools and some changes have been made in our classrooms that enable us to be on-line during lessons; some teachers started building blogs hosted in the School site and we are also using the Moodle platform as a trial.
I welcomed these initiatives and I respond to them with a personal approach: I look for the empowerment of students and for the maintenance of the equilibrium between the most intense interactivity and the most laborious autonomy; so, we started with a group of enthusiastic very young students to work in Moodle as if they were teachers too, in pbwiki with them being administrators too and in edublogs, I had just created some blogs for them when Challenge Comment started.
I discovered twitter by chance, just about two weeks ago, and since I’ve chosen to follow Sue Waters and some others E-teachers, my whole perspective about blogging and using e-learning tools has been altered and enlarged.
I feel speechless – and that’s lucky because this comment is getting too long – I feel as if I was undergoing an intensive course about something so remote as aeronautics, but at the same time as if this remoteness was becoming progressively comfortable, familiar and “cosy”.
Now, this is the answer to your question:
I would like to be asked about something I believe it’s essential, but to which I’m not ready to answer: how does the act of comprehension change or how is it changing with the use of new ways and tools made available by digital age? Are our students becoming able to understand, to memorize, (perhaps we would need new verbs to express new capacities of exercising our mind, grasping reality and relating to others) and to establish human relationships in a different way or in different ways?
I’m sorry for posting a so long comment and I thank you
for allowing me to answer your question.
May 5, 2008 at 8:34 pm
Stora (am I using the right name?). Thank you for sharing your background and a glimpse into your teaching environment. I would love it if you and your students could join in some of the conversations and podcasts on the Youth Radio project (http://youthradio.com).
Gail
May 5, 2008 at 10:00 pm
Hi Gail,
I hesitated about stopping by your blog. You aren’t a stranger, we seem to be on the same wave length and I haven’t yet let you with a thoughtful question but as I read through your blogging life I think about how I got to where I am. Our paths seem a little bit different but I remember our first conversation about getting me connected to the NWP set up before Chico and that seems like it was another lifetime.
Seems that this is a perfect time for this blog challenge and even though we have a connection it was cool poking around here and discovering your work and your readings.
I have your tech book suggestion on my book list as well.
THis was really fun,
Bonnie
May 5, 2008 at 10:45 pm
Bonnie, I suspect (and hope) our paths will continue to cross both in the blogosphere and in real time…Great to be sharing that wave length with you.
Gail
June 14, 2008 at 1:05 am
I visited your site, I’d like to say that that your site is very interesting.
Bill from New York, my site is here
Bill, thanks for the input. – Gail