An Annotation by Jeff Ayer
Poling, who is an administrator in Maryland, looks at the span of uses that blogs can have in a school environment, including:

individual blogging,
classroom blogging,
collaborative blogging, and
staff development blogging.

Her biggest statement is regarding increased motivation she observes in students who are blogging as part of curriculum:
“[B]ringing children and adults together in an [...]

An Annotation by Jeff Ayer
Nelson and Feinstein focus on “Netspeak,” which they define as “a blend of speech and writing” (1).  Their greatest point, however, is found in trying to battle the idea/theory that writing frequently leads to improved writing overall (especially by using blogs, e-mails, and instant messaging).
Their conclusion is in three parts after [...]

An Annotation by Jeffery Ayer
Lankshear and Knobel elaborately outline:

the history of blogging,
the anatomy of a weblog,
a detailed step-by-step process of how to set up a blog, and
the types of blogs that existed as of 2003.

It’s also worth noting that some commentary in this article reflects its five-year-old presence in the Web 2.0 world, as some [...]

An Annotation by Jeffery Ayer
This article really was by Emily Van Noy, the teacher who employed blogging in her classroom, and Kajder and Bull assisted in writing it.  The focus was primarily on steps in setting up and using blogs in the classroom.
Van Noy states that journaling in class was dying, and she even gave [...]

Before I was introduced to wikis in April 2008, I never would have envisioned how much my teaching could use these new technologies. More importantly, my students could not be more ready to take their education to a new level that I sincerely hope will better connect them to the world and prepare them to participate in a digital world. The time is now, and while students have been hungry for this opportunity, the reinforcing research is thorough enough to justify using wikis,blogs, podcasts, Flickr, Moodle, and online writing technologies that I feel can significantly improve students’ writing, and perhaps more importantly, prepare them for digital citizenship. This series, based on action research I collected while studying for my M.Ed, explores the impact digital technology can have on how our students learn, and how we, as educators, can leverage that impact for the good of our students.

Before I was introduced to wikis in April 2008, I never would have envisioned how much my teaching could use these new technologies. More importantly, my students could not be more ready to take their education to a new level that I sincerely hope will better connect them to the world and prepare them to participate in a digital world. The time is now, and while students have been hungry for this opportunity, the reinforcing research is thorough enough to justify using wikis,blogs, podcasts, Flickr, Moodle, and online writing technologies that I feel can significantly improve students’ writing, and perhaps more importantly, prepare them for digital citizenship. This series, based on action research I collected while studying for my M.Ed, explores the impact digital technology can have on how our students learn, and how we, as educators, can leverage that impact for the good of our students.

I had accepted a job as a 7th grade language arts teacher, and I was ecstatic to have a job where I could share my love for reading. However, I had no idea how to best teach these early adolescents who everyone seemed to be scared of. This lead me to the action research project I undertook for my Master’s Degree: brain based differentiation. This series of articles outlines what I learned.

Fox, M. (1993).  Notes from the battlefield: toward a theory of why people write. In Radical Reflections (pp 1-22).  New York, NY: Harcourt Publishing.
An Annotation
A great essay on the change in her students when the author moved to more “meaningful” assignments—particularly related to writing.  The big hurdle for many writing teachers is moving students from [...]

Goldberg, G., Roswell, B. (2002).  Reading, writing and gender: Instructional strategies and classroom activities that work for boys and girls.  Larchmont, NY: Eye On Education.
An Annotation
Recommended for grades 3-8, this book is loaded with specific lessons, tools, and activities designed to teach Language Arts skills (such as reading and writing) with gender in mind.  The [...]

New research is proving that gender differences are real. Boys and girls are different. From the way their brains are organized to the types of cells in their eyes, groundbreaking studies are showing us just how different the genders really are. In this article, Chris Wondra explains how boys and girls hear differently, and what this means for the way our children and students learn to speak and read.