Friday, October 29, 2010

Master Class Project 1 (Weebly)

For this project, all of my Creative Writing students created Weebly websites. Here is the link to the unit plan (which also includes links to some of the students' sites).

http://docs.google.com/document/edit?id=1Sc1IMHi9xG9rmBJSWpD3s6LENPhvG2dbmmFD5KNCvF4&hl=en&authkey=COvRltAC

Master Class: Thing 1 (Email publishing)

First, here is the link to my Tumblr account: wilmot17things.tumblr.com.

When I first began working with this site, I didn't quite grasp the concept. I was just using the computer to post text, links, and photos. The experience left me underwhelmed. After exploring a bit more, however, I realized that I could email my post and even call in and record my post. The site suddenly became much more interesting and useful; in particular, I am amazed at how quickly the website updates posts.

I love traditional blogging and find it easy to do, so I'll probably stick with using blogspot when I want to write entries. However, if someone has a smart phone and/or doesn't have immediate access to a computer, this is an alternate option for posting. Personally, I could see myself frequently using the telephone feature for posting. Not many blogging sites have this ability, so this is a unique feature.

I could see myself using email blogging for speech assignments. I particularly like the idea of having students call in and leave their speeches on a blog. This would give them some practice, and it would record the speech if I wanted to go back and hear a version when grading.

I also like the idea of keeping this blog for classroom assignments. I could use the voice feature to explain difficult parts of an assignment in more detail, and I also could call in and provide some type of homework hotline.