🅦🅔🅛🅒🅞🅜🅔

    "The principal goal of education is to create men and women who are capable of doing new things, not simply repeating what other generations have done." - Jean Piaget (TheCompelledEducator, 2016). In agreement with this school of thought the JBENG204: Integrating Literature in the Language Classroom course, required the teacher trainees to do "a new thing". As part of a course assignment, the teacher trainees were expected to create a professional blog and with that, the Digital Inquiries blog was created.
    This blog contains three prescribed blog posts which can be identified by the following titles, 𝔻𝕠𝕖𝕤 𝕚𝕥 𝕄𝕒𝕥𝕥𝕖𝕣? - 𝔹𝕝𝕠𝕘 ℙ𝕠𝕤𝕥 𝟙, 𝔻𝕚𝕘𝕚𝕥𝕒𝕝 𝕄𝕖𝕕𝕚𝕒 𝕋𝕖𝕩𝕥 - 𝔹𝕝𝕠𝕘 ℙ𝕠𝕤𝕥 𝟚 and 𝔻𝕚𝕘𝕚𝕥𝕒𝕝 𝕎𝕣𝕚𝕥𝕖𝕣𝕤 ℕ𝕠𝕥𝕖𝕓𝕠𝕠𝕜 - 𝔹𝕝𝕠𝕘 ℙ𝕠𝕤𝕥 𝟛. Each post is guided by the requirements outlined in the "Description of Assignment" below.
    The Digital Inquiries blog also comprises additional posts including tasks completed throughout the semester, information related to the teaching of writing and posts concerning writing in the digital environment.
    John Dewey once said, "If we teach today as we taught yesterday, we rob our children of tomorrow" (TheCompelledEducator, 2016). Therefore, it is important for teachers of writing to be au fait (well-acquainted/up-to-date) with various platforms that can be used to engage young writers. It is the hope that the knowledge and skills gained throughout the creation of this blog can be used in the classroom to enrich 21st-century learners.

Description of Assignment

Task 3: Digital Inquiries Blog (Individual)

• You will establish a professional blog using either Blogger or WordPress.
• You will compose three professional posts and respond to the posts of those in your writing workshop group.

 

Blog Post #1: You will compose a reflection on your writing experience in the electronic environment. Consider: What is the difference between the writing experience when using Microsoft Office, writing an email, texts tweets etc. and writing using traditional writing material (e.g. paper and pen) – Does it matter?

 

Blog Post #2: You will compose a digital media text and reflect on your process of multimodal composition in the electronic environment. This post will include your final multimedia composition.

 

Blog Post #3: You will compose a reflection on your experiences using a digital writer’s notebook. In what ways was it similar to print and bound writer's notebooks? In what ways was the process different? What are the benefits and drawbacks (in terms of learning) of using digital media to support the writing process?

Rubric

Criteria	1	2	3	4	Marks
Ideas & Content	The ideas expressed are not original, often confused and are not connected to discussions around the subject matter.	The ideas expressed are not necessarily original and are not usually connected to discussions around the subject matter.	The student expresses some original ideas. The majority of ideas are related to the subject matter.	The student has many original ideas and expresses them clearly. The great majority of ideas are related to the subject matter.
Post Frequency	The post frequency is well below course expectations.	The post frequency is slightly below average.	The post frequency is slightly above average.	The post frequency greatly exceeds course expectations
Writing Quality	Posts are of very poor quality. There is little to no evidence of reading other information in order to form new meaning of the topics at hand.	Posts show a below-average, overly casual writing style with a lack of attention to style. Student pays little attention to other reading and mostly regurgitates previous personal views	Posts show above-average writing style. The content demonstrates that the student reads moderately, and attempts to synthesize information and form new meaning	Posts are well written, and are characterized by elements of a strong writing style. The content demonstrates that the student is well-read, synthesizes learned content and constructs new meaning.
Community	Student does not show evidence in any participation in the blogging community/group through the use of weblogs.	Student rarely participated in the blogging community/group. Most, if not all, participation was limited to the weblogs of other classmates.	The student participated moderately in the blogging community/group. There was some evidence of out-of-class participation.	The student participated actively in the blogging community/group via comments on other weblogs, and citing others in their postings and writing
Use of Multimedia Enhancements	The student did nothing to enhance or personalize the weblog space.	There is very little evidence of multimedia enhancement and the student’s blog is primarily text based.	The student enhanced his/her weblog to some extent using video, audio, images or other add-ons	The student greatly enhanced his/her weblog space using video, audio, images or other add-ons.

Reference

TheCompelledEducator. (2016). 12 quotes: Technology in the classroom. Thecompellededucator.com. http://www.thecompellededucator.com/2016/04/12-quotes-technology-in-classroom.html