Friday, September 20, 2013

Or You'll Sink Like a Stone

My students waded in for their first dip into our electronic community today. In the years that I have been using this online mix of formal and informal writing opportunities with my sixth graders the response of any given group has been unpredictable.

When my colleague and I created and introduced "Write Here Write Now" to our students on a Friday seven years ago only to log in and find a staggering 1000+ posts the next day we were stunned, but we buckled in for the ride and it was one of the most rewarding years of my career in terms of student engagement and growth.

Of course times and technology have changed a lot since then, and being able to communicate remotely with friends is no longer novel for your average 11-year-old, as a student reminded me today when I mentioned that they could use WHWN to write to classmates anytime, anywhere.

"Why would we do that?" she wondered (quite politely). "Don't we have phones?"

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