This week I am going to focus on Sweeny's article about using new media in English education--mostly because  it reminded me of lots of different stuff.

1. SIATech uses quite a bit of technology (it does have Tech in its name, after all). For example, the students watch videos on the awesome website brainpop.com.

The site features tons of short, animated, humorous videos on many different subjects. The videos are followed by links to quizzes, answers to questions that viewers have asked, activities, and more information on the topic. One of my tutorial students, Lauren, told me about a fun one she watched that featured a cartoon goat eating grass in a circle to teach circumference. You need a login name and password to view most of the videos, but here is a link to a free one:

brainpop Shakespeare video

2. I read an article from Wired over the summer (here's the link to it) about a website--khanacademy.org--that has a great many video lectures on various subjects including math, science, and art history (but no English...) as well as practice problems, at least for math, that are tailored to the student's ability level, which is calculated based on the questions they get right.

3. School of One in New York integrates technology into instruction as well as into calculating each student's ability in order to tailor instruction specifically to him or her.

4. In addition to technology, Sweeny also touches on the idea of writing in a community. This reminded me of National Novel Writing Month (November), which is explained here: National Novel Writing Month. Basically, you give yourself a month to write a complete novel of dubious quality, and you have the benefit of knowing there are lots more people out there doing the same thing at the same time who will encourage you.

5. And lastly, I wanted to share an assignment that my tutorial student Aya has due in the next couple of weeks for her theology class. It sounds like a great assignment aligned with Sweeny's article and with everything we have been learning about multiple literacies at first: The students have to read the story of Joseph and tell 12 different parts of the story from different characters' points of view using 7 different popular forms of technological communication; for example, they may choose to write a tweet from Joseph's point of view and then an email from Jacob's point of view, and so on. However...the students are not using the actual media--they are handwriting their tweets and emails, etc. and turning in these papers to the teacher. Seems silly to me.