Glenys Lowden, Head of the LRC at Lowther Hall Anglican Grammar School has agreed to share information about her Book Raps blog.

This is the blog I set up for Year 7 English.  Each class in Year 7 are spending a term on this Book Raps program.

Originally I set the blog up at another school and then transferred my ideas to Lowther Hall.  The blog was designed to appeal to students as a new way to journal their ideas about their reading.  The aim is for them to communicate with each other on the blog rather than just journaling in their notebook. They are able to share their thoughts and comment on other responses particularly if they have read that book.

One discussion page

This connectedness is one of the key goals behind the program.  Once the program is finished then we will encourage students to evaluate the use of this blog. As I have used all their names in the pages, the top of the home page looks rather messy so I need to work on that element.  I have also used the blog to practise using ‘image generators’.  These were a fantastic tool that I found out about through the Syba Signs course. I also learnt in the course how to add in the live feed.

Congratulations to Glenys on developing a resource that is well used by her students. By reading their comments, it seems that they are engaged both in reading and communicating with each other via the blog. A terrific way to combine both reading and ICT.