homoLudens

Abstract: This panel discussion presents a two-level, one-year collaboration between three National Writing Project affiliate sites in the use of Web log technology for the staff development and the teaching of writing. On a national network level, the three participating teacher consultants designed and implemented a pilot project providing long term Internet Service Provider (ISP) hosting and Web log application training for technology liaisons at 25 local writing project sites across the US. On a local level, the three participating teacher consultants provided ISP hosting and Web log application training for colleagues at their individual schools, universities and writing projects in San Francisco, Chicago and Huntington, West Virginia. Presenters will address stages of project development; successful weblog pilot projects at k-3, middle, high school, and university levels; and initial conclusions.

Summary: This panel discussion describes a one-year collaborative project between the Bay Area Writing Project at the University of California at Berkeley, the Chicago Area Writing Project at Roosevelt University and the West Virginia Writing Project at Marshall University, in the application of Web log technology for teaching and learning The project aimed to develop an interactive organizational Web presence for all three writing projects and to develop and deploy a set of interactive Web-based tools to motivate, guide, organize and publish the results of student and teacher research, reading, and writing at the classroom and school level. It briefly describes the history and uses of Web logs as content management systems. The session will explain the three sites’ uses of Web logs to:

• identify participants, Internet Service Provider access, and goals for inter-site partnerships;
  
• learn and apply identical Web log software for teaching and learning in university classroom, school library, and school technology lab settings;
  
• design, revise, propose and implement a national Web log pilot project for 20 local Writing Project sites;
  
• train and support network participant teachers of Writing Project in Web logs use for staff development and student writing instruction;
  
• gather and publish samples of teacher reflection journals, lesson plans and student work from Web log-supported writing tasks, lesson, assignments, and products.

Benefits and challenges of reliance on Web-based tools will be discussed. Authors point out the advantages of university project, district and school partnerships. The session offers suggestions and resources for setting up similar projects. Lessons learned include:

1. Collaboration between school districts, and between school districts and local universities, can provide a powerful combination of curriculum leadership and technology support to transform K-U teaching and learning with innovative tools if the collaboration is centered on teacher partnerships and if tools are chosen for classroom-level applicability.
   
2. Collaborative project design by partner Writing Project teachers, combined with the use of a flexible Web-based toolkit, can maximize use of print and digital resources to reach a full range of students (from academically struggling to high performing) and to increase student motivation for writing and publication.