Nice to “meet” you, Stephen! People are hailing from all over the country for this course — and you’re no exception. Like you, I’m also intrigued by the topic of technology’s motivational capacity. Blogging is one area where, unfortunately, the novelty has worn off with most of my students. Recently, however, we’ve started using Google Apps for Education to facilitate collaborative work (co-construction of writing tasks; group project building; revising and editing compositions) and the “newness” and flexibility of it all has prompted my students to produce some pretty incredible pieces of work.
Looking forward to being able to work with you during this course!