Action Research

Transformation Scaffolds

Once students have acquired the information from the sources we steer them to, they must take that inforamation and transform it into new learning. Learning that is relevant to them and is something new. This is a daunting task and it is here that a WebQuest really tests itself. Synthesis is high up on Bloom's Taxonomy and requires students to put together information in new and unique ways.

Transformation scaffolds will help students to do this because it gives a structure to thinking about all this information.

What the heck is a blog?

Lots of controversy over the definition because it is an ever-changing technology where users continually change the blog’s form and function.

Attempting to list characteristics is tough because this is a web-based. The web is a place where the Wild West mentality still is championed and encouraged. For every rule there are lots of people just itching to break the rule to show their individuality, so please keep that in mind as you read the list and peruse some of the example blogs!!! Some universally accepted characters might include

short for Web Log

like a public diary because it reveals what you are thinking with some additional features

captures the reader’s thinking, reasoning through issues and change in thinking or position on ideas or in self

traditionally posts are short and link to sites referenced in the text

frequently updated and sequential in nature; usually listed in reverse chronological order with most recent one top of page

includes links and commentary—as one author said it is immediate: written in the moment, written of the moment

personal; a posting is owned by the poster---unless it is a group blog

monological in that the author monologue has audience commentary

photo albums capability (in fact there are some photo blogs where there isn’t much writing), lists of links, interesting people, books you are reading, movies you like, songs you are listening to, and other lists you can think of; these lists are hypertext linked back to a source so the reader can get more information

Web logs started out primarily as a self-publishing movement for both professional and armchair journalists making their voices heard in an open online press. For some blogging-the act of writing and publishing to a blog-takes the form of a digital diary…. and for a handful of educators experimenting with this new genre, blogs offer them and their students an interactive and immediate publishing tool.

This last paragraph was from a terrific article you should read if you have time. Kennedy, K. (2003). Writing with Web Logs. techLearning|Teachnology & Learning. Retrieved August 7 2003, from http://www.techlearning.com/db_area/archives/TL/2003/02/blogs.html

marsha