Will Richardson

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Anne Connects Her Students With an Author

July 2, 2004 By Will Richardson

Anne got a comment on one of her class blogs from the author of a book her students were reading, and subsequent e-mails seem to have laid the groundwork for the author’s participation when Anne’s new students read the book next year! How cool!

After the NECC presentation last week a couple of people asked me how I managed to bring an author and a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist into my Weblogs to work with my kids and I just said “I asked.” I think by and large, people outside of school want to work with students, and if we can give them an easy way to do it… Lately I’ve been stuck on this idea (hope?) that the contrived learning experiences that we create for our kids in our classrooms may finally be tossed aside for some real world, constructivist, engaged learning. Not to say that many teachers haven’t done yeoman’s work with projects and plans that capture kids attention and provide great learning opportunities. But I keep wondering, from whom would I rather have my students learn journalism? Me? Or me assisted by a group of professionals offering up some real world perspectives on the topic, engaging in dialogue about real hurdles and struggles, collaborating on the writing process, and celebrating in the publication of real student writing for a real audience? Um, gee…

As my colleague said in the video, this IS what’s transforming the classroom, being able to bring the world into the classroom on a daily basis. And the potential implications of that for students and teachers are HUGE.

More to come…
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Filed Under: General, Weblog Best Practices

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