Books to Blogsat Owen Middle School

Laurel HawkinsCindy SturdivantAmanda VenturellaLoretta Wilson

Our Inspiration

Fan sites like “The Leaky Cauldron” Social networking sites like Facebook Message boards used in most university

courses

Our Inspiration

Teen Read week Second Life at The Public Library of Charlotte Mecklenburg County

http://teen.secondlife.com/

Goals

Create a virtual reading community that engages parents, teachers, and students

Learn about authors and books

Discuss what they are reading

Anticipate “coming soon” titles

Suggest books for the media center to purchase

Compare movies and books

Participate in our school book club, even if they can’t attend

Suggest more authors for fan sites

Practice writing in a real-world setting

Goals

Goals

Teachers will:

Interact as a reader with students Link the wiki to their teacher webpagesMonitor trends in Young Adult literature

Goals

Parents will:

Participate in the life of our school in a meaningful wayOpen new, meaningful avenues of discussion by reading with their middle schoolerDevelop an appreciation for Young Adult literature

Resources

wikispaces audacity edublogs NCCAThttp://www.nccat.org/seminar_teacher_scholar.html

existing author websites

Implementation

Three teachers and our media coordinator spent five days at NCCAT. We created our wiki and added author sites.

http://omsbookspace.wikispaces.com/

Implementation

We adapted our wiki so that students may not modify content, but may participate in the discussion boards. This wiki also allows us to limit membership to our school community.

Implementation

Media coordinator procured permission from YA authors

Darren Shan (Cirque du Freak) replied:

that's fine.

Darren

Implementation

I would suggest this revision of your text:

Author of the best-selling Books of Ember, Jeanne DuPrau has created a fast-paced series where nothing is certain other than change. A movie based on the first novel in the series, The City of Ember, was released in October 2008. Fans will be able to compare written magic to movie magic and see which one wins. The newest installment in the series, The Diamond of Darkhold, was published in August 2008.

Thanks for including me in your site,Jeanne DuPrau

Implementation

Media coordinator introduced our wiki to students during library orientation.

Students were instructed to include their names and homeroom teacher in the request to join our wiki.

Implementation

Mrs. Venturella’s students created podcasts of book reviews to post on our wiki.

http://www.buncombe.k12.nc.us/9752073010216640/blank/browse.asp?a=383&BMDRN=2000&BCOB=0&c=70517&9752073010216640Nav=|&NodeID=1667

Implementation

Each teacher added an SSR page to our class blogs.

http mrsventurella.edublogs.org :///

http://hawk4math.edublogs.org/

Success!

•Students love the discussion pages on our wiki.•Our podcasts have had a lot of hits•Positive feedback and participation from parents•Participation from teachers in all content areas

Who knew?

•The kids are pretty lukewarm about our author pages.http://omsbookspace.wikispaces.com/message/view/Fan+Page+Yellowbook/5552260

•The on-demand writing test has minimized lab time.

Next steps

•Every staff member at our school will post a podcast•Students will collaborate to create author pages•Create a staff wiki sharing educational technology ideas

Next steps

•Extend the use of podcasts to all subjects

•Share our wiki with youwww.omsbookstoblogs.com