It's been a while...

Well, it's been a while since I have written but things are motoring along like crazy at TAMS. My students have been working very hard on a few writing assignments that have to go with a cookbook that we are creating and selling at our Eco-club's Soup Night in December. We are on the verge of studying Chew On This, the rise and domination of the fast food industry, and the problems that go along with it. The cookbook we are creating has a recipe from each student that had to be:

- Healthy (meet just one of many criteria set)
- Inexpensive (under $10-15 to make to feed for a family of four)
- Quick and Easy enough to make on a school night
- Enjoyed by their whole family

The students included a descriptive writing piece about their meal alongside their recipe. The descriptive pieces have been highly revised over the past week and a half and have been on tamsapedia many times. The kids were "assigned" to go on tamsapedia one night last week to make two comments (at least). They also had to ask at least two questions that they wanted their readers to help them out with.

Highlights:
- Kids are asking really good questions of their peers. Some are better than others (which is to be expected) but some are very directed and useful.
- Kids are viewing and commenting on more than the required peer writing. For example, one student commented on six peer's work instead of stopping at two. Of those six kids, three were from her class, one from another, and two from the third.
- Kids are posting all kinds of work (not just ELA). They are asking people to comment on their writing for Social Studies, etc.
- The Social Studies teacher is doubling-up with writing and some writing instruction. The kids are benefiting in both classes because we are ensuring that we are giving them one common message.
- No student has intentionally erased any information because they know I A) can get it back for the other student, and B) can tell who did the erasing
- No student has forgotten their username or password. This was a huge problem last year during a brief blog unit I conducted, so I am very relived that I made them use the same user name and password as their school computers and school email. Phew....

Lowlights:
- I do NOT have time to monitor if kids are actually viewing and posting when I ask them to do both or either. Luckily, they know I get an email every time anything is edited, so they THINK I am keeping track. I don't think that ALL of them are keeping up but I know some of them are doing much more than than required. I believe that this is more important and is a better result than nearly every student posting just the bare bones just to post to not get in trouble. It is the same philosophy I have with SSR: It is more beneficial and a good use of time because of the 95% of kids who do it and enjoy it than it is a waste of time because of the 5% of kids who refuse to read.

- I am not sure how to keep going from here, especially when we begin a reading-heavy unit. I wonder if I can share the site with Ryan and Heidi (our Social Studies and Science teachers) in the hopes that they are doing a writing assignment in the meantime and want to take advantage of the wiki and how kids can share work and ideas.