The Electronic Thread

Publishing on the Web: The Morphing of Classroom Bulletin Boards

Brenda A. Dyck

From as far back as the little red schoolhouse, the bulletin board has been a classroom staple, a place for teachers and students to "bring and brag." The motivational potential of this communication tool is a well-known fact to teachers. Over the years I've observed how this wall outside my door has become a place to linger and look. Here, students stop to observe their own work and the work of others. Often I have caught sight of my students pointing to their projects as peers and parents looked on. Sometimes I'd watch as parents paused at these "walls of learning," trying to determine the purpose of the assignment and how well their child's work measured up to the work of their peers.

Asking the Questions
I began to wonder if exhibiting student work could be more than just a pretty display. Could it actually be an extension of the learning occurring inside my classroom? What would happen if my students' learning could be transported far beyond our classroom walls? Could the act of profiling their work for a larger audience transform students from aimless assembly line learners to invigorated knowledge producers?

Fueled by these questions, I began to seek new ways of celebrating student learning. I envisioned a display area that could be a learning experience in itself: a place to see the purpose and process of the project, as well as the learning that occurred along the way. In my "dream" display area, people from places far and near would be able to read and respond to my students' work and to post their own work as well. It didn't take long for me to realize that this "bigger than life" bulletin board was tailor made for the Internet! I discovered there were many such display areas housed on the Web, created for the sole purpose of profiling the writing that comes out of our classrooms.

Listening to the Research
Publishing student work online is more than just an "in vogue" thing to do—it encourages the reluctant writer, supports students' self-confidence, expands global perspective, and encourages a positive attitude toward learning. In fact, implementing Web publishing with middle school learners is totally in keeping with current middle school research:

"Most seventh graders experience two selves. There is a public self, desperate to fit into a group, and there is a private self where the individual is groping for an identity and where a great deal of more honesty and risk-taking is possible. The private self can publish and receive recognition across the Internet without receiving injury to the public self….Further, when students' thoughts and new ways of thinking are accepted, they can more readily develop a new sense of industry and significance. This sense that ‘There is something I can do well' can, in turn, help them to establish a self identity."

—from " Wired and Inspired,"
by Liz Stephens and Tom Mandeville

Creating safe forums for students to voice their opinions can help them clarify their identity and develop their sense of empowerment. Realizing this, teachers across the globe have seized the opportunity to use online publishing sites to share their students' voices. One of these teachers, David Leahy from Portland, Oregon, describes the benefits of publishing student work on his classroom Web page: "When students realize that people from all over the world could be reading their work, a few things happen: They start taking more pride in their work, they begin to take editing and proofing seriously, they work harder to get their facts straight, and they enjoy the celebration of a job well done."

Getting Their Work Up and Out
An abundance of online places publish students' work. Some are connected to specific shared-learning projects and others are designed to profile stories, newspaper articles, and poetry authored by students of all ages. All have one common goal: to create an online platform from which to celebrate and validate our students' ideas and feelings.

MidLink Magazine. MidLink Magazine, the Web's first e-zine featuring student work, continues to provide a platform from which to publish authentic student work. MidLink points teachers and students toward partnered creative classroom projects; it also profiles fresh projects created by their Teacher-Editors that include handouts, rubrics, and innovative teaching ideas. www.cs.ucf.edu/~MidLink/

ePals: "The Way We Are" Shared Learning Project. What happens when classrooms from different countries communicate about meaty topics via e-mail and moderated discussion boards? Shared learning projects like "The Way We Are" provide many opportunities for students to express their opinions and consider thoughts different from their own. www.epals.com/projects/thewayweare/?cida_280x60_en.gif

Poetry.com. Poetry.com invites poetry writers of all ages to submit poems for online publication. Poets 18 and younger compete for $1,000 monthly prizes. Young poets can broadcast their poetry message to the world, send greeting cards using their poetry, and enter an interactive poetry bash. www.poetry.com

Children's Express. Children's Express is an online news agency that uses the voice of young people to fuel their news stories. Students from 8 to 18 develop story ideas, conduct the interviews, and create the finished news story. This ambitious Web site connects students' enthusiasm for writing with adult leaders. The results are student articles published in newspapers like The Chicago Tribune and the online version
of The New York Post. www.childrens-express.org

White Barn Press. White Barn Press is a site for teachers who want to nurture the gift of writing in their students by publishing their writing for the online world to see. The site contains published work and teacher hints and rubrics. www.whitebarnpress.com

Scholastic's "Writing with Writers." This Web site not only publishes student writing, it also guides young writers through writing workshops led by well-known authors. www.teacher.scholastic.com/writewit/index.htm

Put It on the Web
When students can express themselves to an audience while still remaining as anonymous as they would like to be, they become more confident in themselves and in their creativity. It puts a whole new twist on the tried and true classroom bulletin board.

Brenda A. Dyck is a teacher at Master's Academy and College, Calgary, Alberta, Canada. She is also a teacher-editor for MidLink Magazine. You can reach her at dyckba@shaw.ca.