Give Tuna a Subscribe: She’s a Natural Student Blogger
Wednesday, 23 January 2008 Clay Burell 
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Tuna’s Aquarium via kwout
Christina Kang is a senior in my AP Literature class, a leader of Project Global Cooling, a Flixn star of a summer post (see her discuss a David Sedaris short story in a video embed here), and one wonderfully creative and natural student blogger.
I want to introduce her blog to anybody who enjoys reading sharp, creative, pleasant young writers. Christina started “Tuna’s Aquarium” as part of the “Visionary Student Blogging” AP Literature project in October/November, and in the three months since then has climbed to my list of favorites.
The email I just sent to my colleagues at my school gives an idea of why she’s worth showing, in my view, as a model of authentic (“unschooly”) classroom blogging:
Senior Christina Kang’s blog is four-months old and comfy as your favorite childhood treehouse.
Check out what she does:
- links to blogs she reads out of shared interest (medicine, art and design, computer graphics, more) – which will surely lead to a personal network and relationships with many of these people
- posts her own artwork as illustrations for her posts
- shows she’s ‘cultured’ by writing about literature she’s reading (not for school, thank god)
- posts original film-making experiments she’s created
- posts podcasts of original songs she’s recorded with her classmate on Garageband (she sings backup)
- posts radio-show type podcasts
- writes wonderfully well – strong voice, relaxed, smart, witty, natural
- shows a good sense of visual design in choice of blog theme
If your students (or you!) need a good model of multimedia blogging, it doesn’t get any better. You should subscribe to Christina’s blog – you’ll love getting updates of her new content.
I’ll be sharing more exemplary student work in the coming weeks. As Konrad Glogowski also knows, it takes time to help students “grow” a blog. After four months, some of my student blogs are ready for the harvest.
- Natural Global Collaboration: Schwister and Helfant Visit Networked Learning Class
- Visionary Student Blogging: or, The Ghost in the Machine
- “Blogger-Training School” for a Student “Blogging License”: A Silver Bullet?
- A Student Taps in to “Visionary Classroom Blogging”: JungHee’s Mission Moment
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No. 1 — January 23rd, 2008 at 12:12 pm
[...] http://beyond-school.org/2008/01/23/give-tuna-a-subscribe-shes-a-natural-student-blogger/ Reply to this comment Click here to cancel “reply”. Name (required) [...]
No. 2 — January 23rd, 2008 at 12:46 pm
Thanks for the tip, Clay. I’m always ready to welcome new additions to my rich and varied cyber literary cache.
I know that my tastes tend to the traditional – I need young voices to stir my imagination and rejuvenate my soul.
Welcome to my world, Christina. Shake me up a bit!
diane
diane’s last blog post..Nodes
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No. 3 — January 23rd, 2008 at 7:51 pm
yep, I’ll give it a go, I’ve subscribed it to the fishy folder in my Google Reader.
db
David Bradley’s last blog post..18 Handpicked Online Periodic Tables
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No. 4 — January 24th, 2008 at 5:33 am
[...] if they had any students who fit Will Richardson’s definition of a good student blog.Later, I saw Clay Burrel’s post at “Beyond-School.org” regarding one of his students who fit the bill as an excellent student [...]
No. 5 — March 11th, 2008 at 12:58 am
the website looks great Clay. I’d love to get my students interested in creating blogs, but I think they see what they do on Myspace as “blogging”, and while there is that space for creativity in both, blogging requires much more discipline, in my mind.
Do you see a big difference Clay?
–Lee
Lee’s last blog post..Teaching Teachers: We Sure Can be Stubborn (Especially with Tech.)
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No. 6 — September 1st, 2008 at 5:28 pm
[...] Clay Burrell’s post about one of his awesome student bloggers [...]