The Polliwog Journal

I have been teaching Cyber English for three years now. I had visited Ted Nellen’s classroom in New York and came away knowing that his approach was meant for me also.

It has been an interesting journey. The thing that really got me thinking the other day as I stood before 75 nervous 8th graders who sat in the high school auditorium listening to me tell them about what English was going to be like for them next year was how comfortable I am now using computers in my English classroom. And what’s more, our students take it for granted that this is how it is. I need to remind myself that Cyber English is not how it is for most students in the nation, Wisconsin, or even our own Sheboygan County. We’re actually doing something radical and innovative.

I guess I should think of it like that, but I don’t. I think of it as ordinary and that’s an amazing thing, I think. I think of us as normal, but I know we’re not.

The things I had hoped would happen cognitively with my students as a result of using web pages to publish their work for the world have happened to some degree. They report feeling more confident in their writing and in their tech skills. In their CyberJournals they write about integrating their own creative spirit into their writing and into their web pages, publishing, in a way, themselves. Their increased confidence can only be good it seems as they move into their sophomore year.