If you haven’t already heard, some exciting news (and two clarifications) from Dan Cohen:
I’m pleased to announce a major alliance between the Zotero project at the Center for History and New Media and the Internet Archive.
The Zotero-IA alliance will create a “Zotero Commons” into which scholarly materials can be added simply via the Zotero client.

Cohen’s [...]

Google and Weekly Reader’s Writing for Teens magazine have put together a few lesson plans to help teachers and students use Google Docs for collaborative writing. The lessons provide instructions for using Google Docs, student-oriented suggestions, tips, and checklists for working through an online, collaborative revision process, and an educator’s guide. Helpful stuff.
The [...]

My “working thesis” for an upcoming presentation (the notes are still in process as of this post):
Online writing tools that allow for asynchronous and/or collaborative writing can help improve the fluency and reflection of student writers in all disciplines provided the instructors facilitating the use of these tools have a clear and practical understanding of [...]

I’m teaching a dual-enrollment freshman composition course through NVCC, the local community college. The course lets high-school seniors take the introductory college English courses in place of typical “English 12.” We’re fortunate enough to be working in a computer lab, so I asked the students to set up Google accounts and work with [...]

It’s been an interesting couple of years for me, wading around in the online education discussions. I’m wondering, though, if we’re making any progress toward genuine reform (beyond what the cool tech tools are and how they can be used … or sharing lesson plans and personal experiences).
It seems to me that substantial progress [...]

School starts in Prince William County next week. Even though I’m not teaching at Woodbridge High this year, I’ll still be helping my former colleagues with their online needs, which means I’ve been spending time thinking about what the students will need this year in their courses and how best to meet those needs. [...]

As I make (and re-make) plans for some extended travel, I’ve found myself thinking about the web presence I’ve built for the Northern Virginia Writing Project that will soon pass into the hands of someone else. However, before I let go, some changes need to happen to better address three goals: simplicity, collaboration, and reality.
Simplicity
I [...]

Recently I had the pleasure of speaking with Ziad “Zee” Muhmood, one of the minds behind the still-in-development TTeach site. He called from his London base and we spoke for nearly an hour about both the technology and the vision behind TTeach (which he pronounced as just “teach”). For anyone curious, I thought [...]

Update/Note: This post relates to Joomla version 1.3 and earlier. I have not used version 1.5 or above.
For a few years, I’ve been using Joomla (previously Mambo) to run an “interactive” website for students in AP English, humanities, and creative writing classes at my school: WSHSBeyond.com. This provided some “social” web work before the term [...]

I’ve been thinking lately about the difference between teaching knowledge and teaching skills. As the internet changes how we find and use knowledge, it becomes increasingly clear that what we should be teaching are the skills: research, critical analysis, writing, reading a variety of texts, speaking and presenting, etc.
When I hear teachers bemoan the [...]