Another dot in the blogosphere?

[image source, used under CC licence]

While Byrne is away, his guest bloggers are actively populating his blog. An entry that I enjoyed was Using Technology to Find Students.

The educator, Kristen Swanson, shared how she used The Week in Rap and Etherpad to engage her students in writing. But I thought that she modelled a far more important process: Rising above.

As part of the activity, Kristen asked her students:

• How did you help each other?
• How did you respect each other’s ideas?
• Do you think your collaborative response was better than your individual response? Why?

I think that doing this was crucial. Students might forget the technology or the content or the writing skill taught. But they should be reminded of and eventually internalize the thinking and “soft” skills behind the activity.