BlogBlogBlog

Every once in a while I am blown away by how differnt high school is today than it was just twelve years ago when I was there. For example, the internet. I remember my friend Shannon's family first getting the internet (before any of the rest of us) and that we literally thought the sole purpose of it was to make up fake identities and talk to people in chat rooms. No joke. We spent hours in her basement doing just this. And it probably cost a fortune at the time. Then there is research--I used books and encyclopedias, sat at a table in the library copying down information onto 3x5 notecards. That seems like a lifetime ago.

Now, life without the world wide web seems impossible. And school? Forget it--I would be lost without this resource. This week my students started a literary analysis project in which they blog from the perspective of a character in a classic novel. I was prepared for it to take a full week just to set up the blogs and get students familiar with the format. But in 55 minutes or less, everyone had created a blog, done a bit of internet-based research, and written and published their first post. And that was the moment I realized that life without paper is a definite possibility.