Today has been yet another day of prac visits followed by assignment marking (and tomorrow its going to be the same again!). Marking is one of the tasks I often find incredibly onerous, but I have to say that today I have been absolutely amazed and impressed at the quality of some of my students’ work! I had students argue a case for using various forms of “new literacies” in the classroom context and they really wrote some exciting papers! (Using blogs, using hypertext poetry, using digital fiction are some examples).
I also had my second year undergrad writing class doing online discussions about using popular culture texts in the classroom context and I have to say, I read the best, most critical and well researched discussion I have ever seen ever today. One group were writing about manga comics (and then comics in general) and the discussion went way beyond the “its a way to bridge the gaps between home and school literacy” or “it will get the boys more involved” (which are both valid arguments but ones I was expecting). This discussion started with those points but then went on to discuss, in detail, the INTER-MODAL reading demands of comics!!! Not only that, but the actual DISCUSSION was a genuine discussion - to-ing and fro-ing of ideas, adding onto each other’s points, etc etc. I was so impressed I gave it *drum roll* 100%!!!! And…… guess what mode their discussion used? No, not that awful WebCT (I truly hate that!), not blackboard, not any artificially-designed-for-educational-purposes software… no it was… A BLOG!! Yes, a blog!!! I am going to ask them for permission to link to it if they decide to keep it online and not delete it.
It’s exciting to see students get excited over their assignment work!!!
Blogging Students
Manga, blogs and education all at once. It doesn’t get any better….
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