About

Blog Purpose:

Techbabble seeks to wrestle with digital media and 21st Century learning literacies that transform teaching practices and student learning.  This blog also highlights educators in the trenches who are experimenting and making a difference for their students.

 

About the Author:

Sarah R. Blattner is the Technology Integration Specialist at Portland Jewish Academy.  She started experimenting with technology in education on her first teaching job, and she has been hooked ever since.  Sarah taught middle and high school English for many years in both the public and private school settings.  She honed her leadership in professional development while working at Maryland Public Television, leading the state-wide National Teacher Training Institute, a professional development project interested in the integration of science, math and technology. When she isn’t posting on a blog or a wiki or tweeting, she spends her time hiking, writing, and reading young adult literature.

 

Follow Me on Twitter:

@techbabble88

 

Sarah Blattner’s Work Samples

K8JTechLearn Wiki

http://k8jtechlearn.wikispaces.com/

A wiki  designed to provide technology integration resource for teachers at Portland Jewish Academy

 

Wiki & Online Course:  21st Century Learning 2.0

http://21learning20.wikispaces.com/

A professional development course for educators k-12, focusing on exploring Web 2.0 tools appropriate for the classroom and how to effectively integrate the technology

 

Wiki:  WritePostRead

http://writepostread.wikispaces.com/

A wiki designed for students to write about literature, compose creatively, share, offer and receive feedback, and participate in an online, collaborative writing community

 

The Crefeld School Virtual Referenece

http://virtualreference.wikispaces.com/

This is wikispace grew over time for students grade 6-12 at The Crefeld School, a small independent middle and high school located in Philadelphia, PA.  It is used to house technology training and “how to” information, links, and screencasts, as well as a a place where students can publish their class projects.  Check out the MathCasts where middle and high school students created slide shows and voice narration explaining a mathematical concept they mastered.  Students and teachers also reflect on their various community service projects through student-created wikis pages.

 

Envisioning Literature

http://www.learner.org/envisioningliterature/

I wrote all the ancillary online and print materials for Conversations in Literature, a high school and middle school series, as well as significant portions of Making Meaning in Literature: A Workshop for Teachers, Grade 6-8, and Engaging With Literature, A Video Library, Grades 6-8. My vision shaped the content for the entire site, as well as the format for the workshop and library of online and print materials for the project.  I presented the web site at the 2001 National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) national conference.

This professional development video series is based on the research by Dr. Judith Langer from the National Center on English Learning and Achievement (CELA), State University of New York, Albany.  Dr. Langer’s research demonstrates that readers experience a recursive process of making meaning from what they read by relying on their background knowledge and personal experiences, connecting new information to what they already know, holding up the literature as a mirror to their own lives, as well as critically responding to the craft of the author.

 

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