Prepping for KQED Summer Bootcamp on “Developing and Assessing Digital Writers”

Camp KQED Teach 2018 LogoThis week, KQED’s Bootcamp on “Developing & Assessing Digital Writers” kicks off, with the overarching idea that

[b]logging can help develop your students’ digital writing by combining traditional writing (text) with a digital platform (sharing online), along with the opportunity to incorporate other forms of media-making.

My role for the bootcamp will be to provide a brief, asynchronous presentation called “Rethink the Link.” And, in working with KQED’s Jordan Stewart-Rozema to prepare my session, I’ve been (re)thinking (over) a number of ideas.

In short, I want to help teachers consider when, why, and how we invite students to create hyperlinks in their digital writing, in addition to considering the typical questions of where, what, or to whom they will be linking.

To that end, I’ve been gathering up a few resources, beginning with Vannevar Bush’s essay “As We May Think” and his original conception of the memex as

a future device … in which an individual stores all his books, records, and communications, and which is mechanized so that it may be consulted with exceeding speed and flexibility. It is an enlarged intimate supplement to his memory.

We will return to Tiffany and Bud Hunt’s essay from 20 years ago in English Journal, “New Voices: Linkin’ (B)Logs: A New Literacy of Hyperlinks” and explore M-W’s definition of “link.”

From the perspective of “link” as a verb, we will think about what a writer does by including a link, considering the kinds of reaction(s) she might want from her readers. As a noun, we will consider how the connection to other ideas serves the writer by invoking the broader academic conversation.

If you are interested in thinking about linking — and blogging more broadly — then there is still time to sign up. See you in the KQED Bootcamp community!


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