KimP’s Blog

I have always been fascinated with literacy – how kids learn to read and write, how to best teach reading and writing – and how literacy teaching and learning has changed and developed over the years. When I first began teaching in the  eighties the “Process Writing Approach” was new and exciting; my favourite book at this time was called “Towards a Reading – Writing Classroom” by Andrea Butler and Jan Turbill and I was determined that my classroom would be a reading-writing classroom! The possibilities and the new ways forward that were revealed in this approach were wide ranging and long lasting. 

Twenty years on and we are now looking to 21^st century literacies and how these will necessarily change and develop both ‘the what’ and ‘the way’ we teach. My new favourite text this time is not a conventional book, it’s the Read/Write web – more specifically, the blogosphere. I love it that it’s not just the names of the ‘texts’ that are so similar but that the learning that has resulted from my reading of the many blogs by educationalists and teachers has had such a profound effect on my own learning and on my teaching as well.  I know that the possibilities revealing themselves with Web2.0 – the read/write web – will be far wider ranging and longer lasting than my textbook from the eighties. 

The fact that so many wonderfully talented and inspirational teachers have taken the time to share what they are doing, to offer help and support, to encourage dialogue and conversations among and between other interested parties from around the world has opened up a wealth of opportunities and possibilities for taking learning and teaching into the 21^st century.  

During my upcoming trip to the UK in January and February I am looking forward to developing further my understandings of 21^st century literacies, and what they might mean for classrooms, students and teachers.