Into the Community

Learning Communities Have No Boundaries

Today's new technologies encourage adolescents to develop communication skills to build healthy relationships with their peers at home and far away.

Blogging, for example, is a natural form of storytelling, similar to keeping a diary. Blogs, however, have a technical feature that sets them apart from other forms of written expression: the ability of readers to respond to what the blogger has written. The string of comments between bloggers and readers creates an online community in which ideas and feelings are shared.

"Let Them Blog: Using Weblogs to Advance Literacy in the K-12 Classroom" from Northwestern University is an excellent introduction to the use of blogging in the classroom. It cites the experience of Will Richardson, a language arts teacher at Hunterdon Central Regional High School in Flemington, N.J. His students work collaboratively through blogs to discuss assignments, commenting on each other's work. One newly published author discovered their blogs and responded online to the questions they had posted about their schoolwork. This exchange of information empowered the students and helped them realize that their ideas are important.

Youth Voices Coast to Coast is a classroom writing project. It uses blogging and podcasting as a means for students from East Side Community and Eleanor Roosevelt High Schools in New York City and Judge Memorial High School in Salt Lake City to share their experiences and perspectives on many issues.

In the process, these students are discovering that teens all across the country have many of the same concerns they do. Youth Voices Coast to Coast students write about topics such as depression. In fact, a survey of students revealed that health-related topics ranging from depression and stress to selling soda in schools were the top issues of concern among these students.

To learn more about Youth Voices Coast to Coast and other virtual communities, visit Teachers Teaching Teachers: Skyping, Webcasting, and Podcasting by and for Teachers.