Week 5, Revised for T/TH

Hi everyone, the following list for the lab today has been modified from yesterday's posting. We had some frustration with Twitter and Googledocs and I recognized I was putting too much on emphasis on unfamiliar technology/literacy tools and not enough on the content of Conley and Content Area Literacy itself. So I made a few changes hopefully to create a bit more scaffolding with the tools and more time thinking about the text together. Follow these items in order today and work at your own pace.

1. Open your Bloglines account first. This is what you'll open immediately every time we meet in the lab. Find my blog in your subscriptions and read the assigments for today. The hyperlinks will help you navigate to specific sites.

2. Set up your Twitter account. If you want, you can twitter a quick response--you'll only have 140 characters to say what you want to say. Think about how this differs (or is similar) to Blogger.

3. Check your email and accept my invitation to look at our Googledoc. You may have to set up a google account first. Google Docs is a completely different application, so don't confuse it with Twitter. We'll be using two new applications today. Add your Twitter site (i.e., https://twitter.com/johnbishop411) to our document for others to find and follow you.

4. Use Bloglines to chose one of your peer's blogs to read a posting about Ch. 4. Spend a few minutes and respond thoughtfully to their posting.

5. Use Bloglines as a blog search tool (just like you'd use Google). Search Bloglines for a good teacher blog out there. Post a 2-3 sentence description of the blog and why you chose it (What makes it interesting enough for others to look at?). Hyperlink the teacher blog for others to navigate to. If you don’t have any luck with Bloglines, try this site http://supportblogging.com/Links+to+School+Bloggers#toc5

6. Use Google or another search engine to find a good digital text (from Conley’s Ch. 5) that you think your tutoree will find interesting. In other words, find a website about any content area topic that would make a good digital text for a student. For example, http://kids.nationalgeographic.com/ has information featuring Caribou, Recycling and Spain

7. Begin reading Conley’s Ch. 5 and preparing your post for Thursday. You may want to look at Brooke’s (m/w) blog for opening thoughts-- http://brookemcneesecir411.blogspot.com/

For next class meeting:
Read Conley’s Ch. 5
Blog your reflection
Hyperlink in a post at least one other “teacher blog” with a brief description why you choose it
Add your Twitter site URL to our Googledoc