Ryeasha's Chapter 8 Response

   In the opening paragraphs of this chapter we were briefly introduced to some of the methods of Anne Davis. She uses blogs to monitor and improve her student’s writing. Not only has this transformed her students into competent and confident writers, but there were other added benefits to method. Like mentioned in this chapter, integrating technology has the potential to help students reach an authentic audience and Anne Davis’s integration of technology was a prime example of that. This chapter highlighted many important concepts we could use for implementation in our future classroom and in our project as well.

   Part of the chapter described some ways to build connections and how to branch out beyond the classrooms. This can be done by connecting student with experts. This entails connecting students with experts or professionals that are related to your project and could assist students. Davis does this by arranging interviews between politicians, academics and other experts and her students at a leadership forum on the campus of University of Georgia. Students were able to brainstorm good questions beforehand and were then able to include the responses in their blogs. When projects are designed to incorporate inquiry, like every PBL unit does, asking questions of experts becomes a natural component of the learning experience.

  Other ways of building connections and branching out include expanding the learning circle and communicating findings. Expanding the circle is similar to the idea of creating a professional learning community (Chapter 2). Not only can students build connections with other students but they are also able to expand their thinking by inviting the knowledge of others into the classroom. In communicating findings students can harness their 21^st century communications skills to share findings or advocate for change. In sharing their findings with others students can participate in authentic experiences that share some common goals with service learning, as students contribute to the larger community.

EAST initiative model is a network of schools that participate  in the Environmental and Spatial Technologies program that utilizes various technologies to solve problems and improve their communities. The students have uses technologic tools such as GIS, GPS, AND CAD, made documentaries. These projects make use of geospatial technologies and multimedia tools that are more commonly found in professional settings. In using these ways of helping students build connections and branch out we are letting them lead their own projects.

I thought this chapter was really insightful and a great model for our own classrooms and projects. It was also interesting to see how the teacher uses the blog in her classroom as a tool for improving students’ writing. It could also be use as a means of communication findings, which is what our groups use for while creating our PBL. I would definitely use this same idea in a PBL unit.