authentic conversation

I tweeted about this last week but feel it deserves a full post. Konrad over at the blog of proximal development has written about a really interesting way of having students engage with and reflect upon reading that I think would work amazingly well with people who do not use print to express thoughts and ideas.

Last month, I decided to help my students engage with Anne Frank’s The Diary of a Young Girl as more than just a literary text. I wanted them to look at it as an experience, as life written down by someone their own age. ... I wanted them to think about Anne as a person and her diary as a personal record. I wanted them to have an opportunity to engage with the text and think about what Anne’s words and experiences meant to them.

Konrad and the students used the online technology at Seeqpod, SkreemR and Mixwit (all new to me) to create mixed tapes about the Diary. To read about how he did it and what happened, click here.

Thanks Konrad for sharing this inspiring idea. I cannot wait to try it. And I love that MixWit tapes are created with a 21C technology but look like the mixed tapes I made as a 20C teenager -- I feel an intriguing juxtaposition of nostalgia and progressivism. I wonder what these kids, for whom cassettes are an obsolete technology, make of this interface.