EricHoefler.com

Using Joomla in the Classroom

Tuesday, January 23, 2007

Update/Note: This post relates to Joomla version 1.3 and earlier. I have not used version 1.5 or above. For a few years, I’ve been using Joomla (previously Mambo) to run an “interactive” website for students in AP English, humanities, and creative writing classes at my school: WSHSBeyond.com. This provided some “social” web work before the term [...]

Freedom and Safety for All

Saturday, January 20, 2007

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Last week, my creative writing students pulled out their laptops and headed over to the eStudio that I setup on ELGGSpaces (which is designed specifically with education in mind, and for which I had just spend $99 out-of-pocket to make the space ad-free.) They were going to upload some new drafts, write some blog posts [...]

Sharing Resources

Wednesday, January 17, 2007

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I’ve been working with Teacher Consultants of the Northern Virginia Writing Project over the last few weeks, and we’ve created a few Google Docs that served as the outline for our sessions. The goal was to give a solid introduction to forums, blogs, and wikis, and to situate those tools in the concepts that [...]

Important Things Require Vigilance

Sunday, January 14, 2007

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As the end of the first semester closes in, it’s time to review what I’ve been doing in my classroom. I’ve been aware of the changes in my teaching and teaching philosophy over the last year or so, but only nebulously. I think I’ve needed to allow that vague drifting in order to [...]

When Will We Listen?

Monday, December 11, 2006

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Lots of people seem to be blogging about the latest education article in Time magazine, titled “How to Bring Our Schools Out of the 20th Century.” (You can’t get to the full article without a subscription, but your public library has access to tons of online databases … it’s worth the few minutes of [...]

Permission to Play

Friday, December 8, 2006

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For about five years, I’ve been running an online community with a few teachers and their students at my school. This year, as “Web 2.0″ continues to expand our educational options, I’ve started finding ways to wrap some of these features into the site, and I’m very excited about the tools we can offer [...]

Making Connections

Thursday, December 7, 2006

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I had a great time listening in (and adding a few words) to the Skypecast tonight on EdTechTalk.com. (You can read background information and grab podcasts from TeachersTeachingTeachers.org). I was greatful to be invited into the conversation and my head’s still swimming with ideas from tonight’s talk. The subject for the evening revolved around [...]

Studios and Studiousness

Friday, December 1, 2006

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The Brooklyn Free School is an “institutional” example of “unschooling”that I wrote about a few days ago. My same agreements and concernsapply to both, and some of my concerns are apparently shared by parents andorganizers of the free school, evidenced by a few requirements that are startingto creep in: Students will soon have to meet [...]

Evolving Manifestos

Thursday, November 30, 2006

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Clarence Fisher posted his “Mini-Manifesto for Classrooms 2.0” on his blog yesterday. I’ve been working on a manifesto, too … but on my wiki (so I can keep changing it … plus, I don’t have the time or discipline right now to craft a 500-word-or-less version). I particularly like what he has to say about [...]

MySpace and Parental Guidance

Friday, May 12, 2006

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Not long ago, I posted an entry in which I supported maintaining the freedom to access and share information, tools, and resources. I still agree with that. I also understand the dangers that some of the information, tools, and resources bring with them. However, I don’t believe that the right response to [...]

Writers Reading Blogs

Tuesday, January 24, 2006

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I want my creative writing students to understand how important reading is to the development of writing, and I want them to be aware of what’s going on in the literary world as well as the world in general. One way to do this, I think, is to have them discover and read blogs … [...]