Professional Blog Portfolio/Reflection

Reflecting on the blog writing this fall I believe I’ve moved from a beginning neophyte to a developing novice in digital writing.  The concepts, combinations of expression, collaboration and creation of shared meaning that digital writing brings started to create a bigger picture.  The blog posting created the medium to reflect this process and share with others in the cohort.  These novice, yet heartfelt blog reflections are a narrow window into the internal changes in my knowledge, understanding and embracing belief in the power of digital literacy. 

My nominations for my best postings for professionalism, creativity and design are: 

The most professional blog post goes to Wiki.  This post written with a professional voice shared resources and best practices for Wiki use in the classroom, an invitation to view and join the TALL2 Wiki on teacher job satisfaction, and reflections on the correlation of Wiki use and the best practices strategy of Cooperative Learning.   The practical nature of the post with ready 'to use tomorrow' resources made it most effective professional post.

The creativity ‘nod’ goes to Friends Forever - An Amateur Hour(s) Journey in Voice Thread.  My Voice Thread integrated music, text messages shorthand and engaging photographs of older women friends.  The photos, music and text allowed glimmers and glimpses of the girlhood they had shared and is a theme women of all ages can identify with and link to the ‘sisters’ in their lives. The honest story of the novice writing process is creatively contrasted by showcasing a sophisticated process and digital story described and created by Daniel Meadows.  The final creative feature of this post is the challenge to the reader to consider if digital storytelling and collaboration ever crossed the boundary of privacy rights in his documentary; he asks if his work is “Predator or Collaborator.”  This post creatively engages the reader in reflecting on digital storytelling in three very different ways.

Design Artists, Writing, Depth and Daily Living merits mention as the best design text both for the design of the writers and artists in their multigenre pieces  embedded and linked in the post and the layout of the posting.  Sandwiching the blog text between Billy Collin’s and Julian Gray’s Animated Poetry and T-Pain’s Obama Auto-Tune begins and ends the blog with interest.   The liberal use of engaging links to other writers and sites along with intriguing photos from three memoir pieces makes the post visually appealing.

The People’s Choice Award for professional blog entry goes to Natasha for her thoughtful and personal entry on Digital Practices and Media Education in my Classroom. The blog entry became a "short short" digital story with the picture of the hatched rock and her poetic and wistful reflection.  It touched my heart and opened the wonder of digital possibilities as she states "Digital literacy, I think, is in many ways like my hatched rock.  It is collaborative in nature, and it creates things that are exceptionally unexpected."

The People’s Choice Award for a personal blog entry goes to Michelle for her well written digital story  My Wedding Day Photo Story 3 accessed through her professional blog.   Watch it and you will know why.  Have a box of Kleenex on hand.

The People’s Choice Award for overall best professional blog is Isa's.  The exposure to new tools, careful crafting of classroom application, and rich reflection are stellar.