It was wonderful to get back together. The two hour sessions just zip by! How I would love to have more time! The dicussion time is so important and helps the students so much. We always spend the first half hour reviewing what we have done and talking about what we will be doing. Today the students were beginning the process of actually blogging! They followed these steps:
- read news stories
- wrote about what they read
- published their news item to the home page and are hoping for responses
- will read more next week
The process will work but I have to work on the time element. Students could go to one of the following news sites:
They enjoyed this step. In fact, they liked it so much that they kept wanting to read more and then decide which one was of most interest to them. I hate having to rush them at this step but I need to think on a way to expedite the reading here due to our short class time.
I had told them to give credit to the source with a link and that I would help them here but I didn't get to them as I was spending time with them on the writing and helping Cristian with his English. Soooooo, I need to show that first thing next week. I did show them how to have the article open along with their weblog so they could toggle back and forth. That's a needed skill!
They proofed themselves, had a peer proof, and then published. This took time - again, an important step!
And, we squeezed in time to work on the Idioms Are Fun weblog - created some good sentences!!
See what I mean about time..... but we will work it out! I have to remind myself that I told them "Patience is a virtue". They had not heard that expression before so I explained the meaning. Now, I need to remember that explanation and apply it myself in class!
We did not get to reply to the wonderful comments that the kids had received from SuperThinker and others last week. Some of the kids did manage to answer them but I want them to be able to enjoy that part more and for it to be less hurried!! I have lots to think about but we'll all put our heads together and figure it out! I have a week to think about it! I can't miss with such a great group of students!