Jacqui Murray's Blog, page 133
July 21, 2015
15 Take-aways from Online Grad School Classes
Two of my summer online classes–MTI 562 (the Tech-infused Teacher) and MTI 563 (the Differentiated Teacher)–just ended. More than a dozen of us–teachers, library media specialists, tech integrationists, lab teachers–gathered virtually for five weeks to experiment with some of the hottest tech tools available for the classroom–Google Apps, differentiation options, digital storytelling, visual learning, Twitter, blogs, backchannels, digital citizenship, assessment, and more. Sessions were run like a flipped classroom where attendees accessed daily topics, read/watched materials, tested their knowledge, experimented with projects. In some cases, they failed and tried again–and shared with classmates what went wrong and how it was fixed–or how they attempted to fix it. They chatted with colleagues on discussion boards, blogs, and Twitter. They asked the class mentor (aka, guide or teacher) questions on class topics or any tech ed issue they needed help on. Once a week, we got together virtually (Google Hangout or TweetUp) to share ideas, answer questions, and discuss nuances.
Some of the problems students faced down:
How to use twitter
How to use GHO
How to make a webtool interactive
How to work tech tools into their unique student groups
How to create screencasts and screenshots
How to create professional blogs
How to embed materials into digital portfolios
How to create a vibrant, healthy Personal Learning Network
Now as I wave goodbye to these students I’ve only known five weeks, here are my takeaways:
I’ve enjoyed meeting online to chat on blogs, help each other on the Discussion Forums, mull over ideas on the Google Hangouts, and explore TweetUps. I will miss this collaboration and communication.
I’ve been impressed with the growth in each student. Though they had options, most picked webtools they didn’t know how to use. When they had problems, they asked classmates for help and often received it. This is a healthy PLN in action!
Often, I heard ‘Now I know how my students feel’–in reference to trying a tool that just wouldn’t do what it was supposed to.
Because this was an online class, learning broke out everywhere. I had students join the weekend Google Hangouts and TweetUps from baseball games, campsites, and in a car (on its way from here to there). That is today’s learning–taking it to students.
I’m always surprised what resonates with teachers. It reinforces the importance of options, involving students in decisions, and differentiating.
Lots (and lots) of schools are not 1:1, making do with shared carts of digital devices.
Lots (and lots) of students don’t have internet access at home. As educators, we need to remember this.
Screencasting was quite popular in these two classes as well as Summer PD workshop. It wasn’t familiar to all–or even a majority–of the teachers, turned out to be quite easy, and had lots of useful applications to their classes.
Another popular tool: Thinglink. It offered the right balance between intuitive and robust.
Listening to our GHOs reinforced that lots of students aren’t ready for PARCC/SB tests because they aren’t comfortable with keyboarding skills like key placement, drag-and-drop, highlighting, copy-pasting, and more. Happily, schools are addressing this issue with a variety of creative methods.
Attendees were expected to experiment with lots of apps in these classes. Several students shared that this plethora of many and varied online tools was almost making the integration of tech into ed more difficult. Why? Because there was too much information–how does a good teacher select the Perfect App? What many schools are adopting is an approach that focuses on five apps for the year, get all teachers comfortable with them and knowledgeable in how to apply them in a wide variety of ed circumstances. This is reminiscent of the early tech days when everyone used just three tech tools: Word, PowerPoint, and Excel. Teachers were comfortable with those programs, students learned them and then applied. All stakeholders (including parents) easily understood projects created using these common tools.
It was noted by several HS teachers in the group that it’s difficult to teach keyboarding in high school because students think they know that subject–even if they don’t.
All students understood the importance of teaching digital citizenship, but often there was no cohesive plan to organically blend lessons into classes where students use the internet.
TweetUps worked best with larger groups. There need to be enough participants to fill the posting lags that are inherent to communicating with non-visual methods.
A lot of students hadn’t used Google Hangouts before. By our third session, everyone was comfortable enough to troubleshoot connection issues when necessary.
A comment from one student:
As a teacher I was not sure what to expect from this course. I found that much of what I currently do in the classroom has been validated. However and more importantly, I learned many new instruction and assessment strategies (along with some new tech tools) that I can now use and apply to improve the learning in my classroom. Thanks everyone!
Want more student perspectives? Check out these class blogs:
Technically-insired
Mrs. Hoelzer’s Blog
Middleton Digital Learning and Technology
FACS678
MoreThanJusttheBooks
Mrs. Harenberg’s Blog
You Can Lead the Horse to Water
Lisa’s Learning Journey
Scheri’s Grad Class Blog
Next:
The Tech-infused Teacher–July 27th
The Differentiated Teacher–August 10th
20 Webtools in 25 Days–Coming soon (email askatechteacher@gmail.com and we’ll let you know when)
Sign up for my publisher’s newsletter and you’ll be the first to hear when more classes are available.
Jacqui Murray has been teaching K-8 technology for 15 years. She is the editor/author of over a hundred tech ed resources including a K-8 technology curriculum, K-8 keyboard curriculum, K-8 Digital Citizenship curriculum. She is an adjunct professor in tech ed, CSG Master Teacher, webmaster for four blogs, an Amazon Vine Voice book reviewer, Editorial Review Board member for Journal for Computing Teachers, CAEP reviewer, CSTA presentation reviewer, freelance journalist on tech ed topics, and a weekly contributor to TeachHUB. You can find her resources at Structured Learning.
Filed under: education, Online Classes
July 20, 2015
Writers Tip #71: How to Write a Novel
When you read your story, does it sound off, maybe you can’t quite put your finger on it, but you know you’ve done something wrong? Sometimes–maybe even lots of times–there are simple fixes. These writer’s tips will come at you once a week, giving you plenty of time to go through your story and make the adjustments.
These tips are from Martha Carr, thriller writer extraordinaire, author of three books and weekly columnist on politics, national interest topics and life in general.
Start with a character not a plot idea. Write down everything you know about the main character or characters including physical description, schooling, family tree, where they live, likes and dislikes and peculiarities. Do they hate seafood because they once threw up an entire shrimp dinner from Shoney’s? The more the better for this exercise. You will probably not use everything you write down but having it handy will keep the character’s actions in line and if you have to take a break from writing for awhile, having the list handy will make it easier to get started back up again. If you start with a plot idea you are more likely going to come across as strident or preachy because you’re interested in pounding an idea into the reader rather than telling a story. Give the attributes to the character and let them act it out instead.
Write the ending first. You’re the author not the reader, which means you’re the driver of this bus. You have to know the final destination even if you’re figuring out some of the map along the way. Knowing the ending is also one of the best ways to avoid writing yourself into a corner where you run out of plot. Some refer to this as ‘writer’s block’ when it’s more likely that the ending hasn’t been reasoned out yet. Take the time, regardless of the genre, to parse out the ending.
What big thing happens to the main characters in the plot? If you can’t easily answer that question you have a little more homework to do. A novel has several arcs in it but there is usually one or at the most two big moments of no return where everything changes. You already have the ending so you know where it has to get to and that will help you figure out the main arc. This will also be a big portion of your ‘elevator’ pitch when you start looking for an agent or a publisher.
Use only one or two telling adjectives to describe anything. Here’s a handy rule of thumb for any genre of novel. If a reader can skip more than a page without missing any of the story, you went on for too long and it’s become a distraction. If you can’t stand to cut your own writing, you’re not going to last very long in this business. Editing is a necessary tool for any writer no matter how long they’ve been writing. Ask yourself if those long, beautifully written paragraphs add anything to the story and be honest. If not, cut and paste them into another document in case you find a place for them later. Frankly, after several books I’ve yet to use any of it later but you never know.
Here’s the last two to get you started. If you can’t think of the very first words to type onto the screen, start with ‘Once upon a time’. Most of us grew up hearing fairy tales and it unlocks a part of us that expects a story. I’ve given this tip to a lot of new writers who found it easier to finish that sentence. You can edit those first four words later. The last tip is don’t get up from writing at the end of a chapter. Write at least the next paragraph of the next chapter before you shut the file. That way, when you return even if its the next day, you won’t be starting cold. There’s already an entrance into the next part of your story that you wrote while your creative brain was still warm.
Okay, so there was one more thought I wanted to give you but it’s encouragement more than a writing tip. Remember that if all you did was one double-spaced page a day, and even took off the weekends, by the end of the year you’d have a finished product. Just one page a day.
For more on Martha Carr, here’s information on her popular character, Wallis Jones.
More tips on writing from writers:
Writer’s Tips #64: From Kurt Vonnegut
Writers Tip #68: Three Tips From David Shenk
Writers Tip #69: 5 Tips From Cory Doctorow
Click to have Writer’s Tips delivered to your email box
Jacqui Murray is the author of the popular Building a Midshipman
, the story of her daughter’s journey from high school to United States Naval Academy. She is the author/editor of over a hundred books on integrating tech into education, adjunct professor of technology in education, webmaster for four blogs, an Amazon Vine Voice book reviewer, a columnist for TeachHUB, Editorial Review Board member for Journal for Computing Teachers, monthly contributor to Today’s Author and a freelance journalist on tech ed topics. You can find her book at her publisher’s website, Structured Learning.
Filed under: authors, writers tips, writing Tagged: novel writing, writers tips
July 17, 2015
How to Talk to People Online
Talking to people online is nothing like in person. Sure, you must do this to build your PLN, but quickly, you realize how much communication is transmitted by body language, pacing in speech, facial expressions–all characteristics that can’t be conveyed with the black-and-white of words. That makes sarcasm challenging. Even humor–how often do you know someone’s being humorous because of their grin, exaggerated expressions, or laugh. None of that comes through online.
As a result, online conversations need to be sorted differently than in-person conversations. Consider these quick rules:
Always consider the perspective of the person you’re talking to. They can be anywhere on the planet, with a world view entirely disparate from yours. Not better or worse, just different, with cultural norms that could make your comments insulting or intimidating (never good when you’re trying to make new friends). Sure, you can’t catch all of those, but you can start by avoiding comments you know could be misunderstood and adding details about your background to provide context to your conversation.
Be international in your conversations. After all, you’re writing to the world, not your home town. Include international references (like Happy Canada Day on July 1st). That might take research, but that’s fine, especially for writers who hope to sell books in multiple countries.
Don’t talk politics. Best case, you’ll annoy half of your readers. Few people understand the intricacies of foreign governments (few understand their own rulers). Most people believe the axiom, ‘Better the Devil you know than the Devil you don’t’. Here are two examples:
Most Americans think our education system is broken but think their local education is great.
This second is an opinion: While democracies (like America) value freedoms, lots (and lots) of people around the world don’t. They want someone else to make those big decisions for them. They believe having all those choices makes life too complicated. Be sensitive to that.
Use good grammar and spelling. Lots of people conflate ‘texting’ with ‘online writing’. Not true. Texts are private, not intended for the world to see. Every online communication has the potential to go viral, bad grammar and spelling errors included. As writers, we don’t want to risk that.
Where weather used to be a safe (albeit boring) topic, it isn’t anymore. Now, it’s political and could blow up into an insult-charged scream-fest about global warming. Don’t talk about the weather. Talk about books instead. Or dogs and children.
I’d love to hear what innocent online conversations you’ve been part of that have become toxic. What should I avoid in the future?
Check out this article from Wikipedia on the ‘online disinhibition effect‘ for an better understanding of online chats. Or this one from Jeffrey Lin on the toxicity of some online games.
–first published on Today’s Author
More on social media:
4 Reasons You Want a PLN and 13 Ways to Build One
Writers Tip #48: Have a Web Presence
27+ Tips I Wish I’d Known About Blogging
15 Tips Picked Up From Twitter
Jacqui Murray is the author of the popular Building a Midshipman, the story of her daughter’s journey from high school to United States Naval Academy. She is the author/editor of dozens of books on integrating tech into education, webmaster for six blogs, an Amazon Vine Voice book reviewer, adjunct professor of technology in education, a columnist for Examiner.com and TeachHUB, Editorial Review Board member for Journal for Computing Teachers, monthly contributor to Today’s Author and a freelance journalist on tech ed topics. You can find her book at her publisher’s website, Structured Learning.
Filed under: social networks, writing
July 15, 2015
Tech Tip for Writers #71: Visit Foreign Language Google Search
Tech Tips for Writers is an (almost) weekly post on overcoming Tech Dread. I’ll cover issues that friends, both real-time and virtual, have shared. Feel free to post a comment about a question you have. I’ll cover it in a future Tip.
Q: English isn’t my first language. How do I go to Google in other languages?
A: To visit the foreign language Google search engines, type:
Then add the country extension you would like to visit.
For example, Japan is .jp, so if I typed:
…I’d get this:
Cool, hunh?
Questions you want answered? Email me at askatechteacher@structuredlearning.net and I’ll answer it within the next thirty days.
More tech tips for writers:
6 Tips That Solve Half Your Tech Writing Problems
Jacqui Murray is the author of the popular Building a Midshipman, the story of her daughter’s journey from high school to United States Naval Academy. She is the author/editor of dozens of books on integrating tech into education, webmaster for six blogs, an Amazon Vine Voice book reviewer, adjunct professor of technology in education, a columnist for Examiner.com and TeachHUB, Editorial Review Board member for Journal for Computing Teachers, monthly contributor to Today’s Author and a freelance journalist on tech ed topics. You can find her book at her publisher’s website, Structured Learning.
Filed under: tech tips for writers
July 13, 2015
4 Reasons You Want a PLN and 13 Ways to Build One
When a colleague tells you s/he heard about a writing competition from someone in her PLN, do you first wonder what she’s talking about–not the contest but the three-letter acronym? Or maybe you think, ‘Of course [Amanda] has a PLN. She’s a geek.’ You might even understand the purpose of a PLN–to provide writers with a collaborative learning environment–but think you don’t need one, or the two yearly conferences you attend is all you can handle.
What is a PLN
According to D. Johnson (2013), a PLN (an acronym for ‘Professional Learning Network’ or ‘Personal Learning Network’) is:
..
“a self-created set of experts, colleagues, and resources…that meet one’s daily learning needs.”
More simply, it’s:
…an extended group of knowledgeable people you reach out to for answers, and trust to guide your learning.
These individuals can be anywhere in the world, but are always carefully selected by you for their expertise in your subject area. It doesn’t mean they have all the answers. It means that when you have questions, you trust them to inform your thinking, guide your research, and provide answers and directions scaffolded from their personal experience. You may never meet them in person, though you likely collaborate through Google Hangouts, Skypes, or pre-arranged TweetUps.
Why build a PLN
A lot of people think they’ll work on their PLN ‘when they have time’, oblivious to the fact that a healthy PLN is more important than a coffee from Starbuck’s, the finals on the Voice, or that 8th hour of sleep. Here’s why:
It helps you grow professionally. Having people who understand how you think, have your back in emergencies, and serve as a virtual knowledge base will help you to handle difficult agents, lose faith in your new novel’s marketing plan, or need a proven method of kicking off your self-pubbed book. Your PLN will share their experiences, suggest alternatives to a blog post announcement, and more. If they don’t know how, they’ll have a friend who does.
It forces you out of your comfort zone. The engine of a PLN is social media. You reach out through Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, G+, forums, and discussion boards. These are the same tools used by agents and publishers. If you get proofs of upcoming novels, they often delineate the marketing plan. This always includes ‘national electronic media, online promotion, social media promotion’, and more (this list is from the back of Mike Madden’s drone thriller, Blue Warrior)
.Maybe the most important reason is this: A PLN keeps your finger on the pulse of your avocation. Through virtual colleagues, you know what’s important in their corner of writing world–their informed opinion on particular agents, suggestions on solving a plot problem, and other questions you didn’t even know to ask until your PLN brought it up.
The bigger question is: Why WOULDN’T you have a PLN?
How to build a PLN
Now that you’re convinced you need a PLN, how do you build one? It takes more than joining Google +’s 29,000-strong Writer’s Discussion Community or showing up for Twitter’s #selfpubbed TweetUp. Here are twelve ideas:
have a professional blog. Post to it regularly. refer to it in your social media. Encourage people to visit and respond to your posts
reach out to others in your field who have professional blogs. Read theirs, comment, and invite them to read yours. If you’re just starting, commit to five a day.
in online communications, give credit to others for their help. Send your readers to colleagues’ posts who have interesting information on a topic. You’ll see me do that often in my blogs, though I haven’t always done so. Someone had to point it out to me. Now, it seems obvious.
always answer questions and acknowledge comments that show up on your social media accounts. You can get auto-notification that someone has interacted with your tweets, posts, or articles. Reach out to them. Make them feel welcome and valued in your virtual world.
focus your PLN on your avocation. Don’t mix up hobbies and family with your professional Twitter streams and FB pages. Put those in a separate account. Keep your professional social media pure. That way, people who visit will not have to wade through your kid’s soccer game and the unseasonably warm weather in Florida to find out the problems with first person POV.
Having said that (to keep your PLN pure to your theme), do add personal touches here and there. Let people know you as a human being, not only a resource, but not enough to distract from the purpose of your site.
Stay away from politics. There’s no way not to annoy half your audience on any given topic. Save those discussions for your non-professional streams.
Do stuff online. Attend virtual conferences. Join TweetUps. Take an online class. Invite friends to meet you there. When you’re done, share your thoughts about them on Twitter, your blog, or any other social media.
Join a professional group. Seek out their forums and discussion boards. Participate. Meet other educators like yourself.
use #hashtags like #amwriting or #amediting to find other professionals like yourself.
when you join a social network–Facebook, LinkedIn, a teacherly Ning, or another–complete your profile of background, professional status, interests, and accomplishments. This is a good way to find others with your specific interests.
when you develop a core of like-minded individuals, be a good friend to them. Answer when they have questions or need help. Share resources whenever you can. Pay it forward–don’t expect anything in return for your collaboration except that you’re helping a colleague.
commit to your PLN. That means time. Don’t visit virtual colleagues only when you have a few extra minutes or need help. Is that the kind of friend you’d like? Who only has time for you when it’s convenient? Subscribe to the feeds; read them; offer suggestions when appropriate.
Let’s all start building our PLN right now. My Twitter handle is @worddreams. My blog is WordDreams. Reach out. Subscribe. I’m always around. Or if you prefer, leave your Twitter handle and/or blog in the comments below. I’ll come find you. My readers will find you. Let’s see what we can do for each other.
More on writing:
5 Must-have tools for Writers Conferences
7 Reasons For and Three Against Critique Groups
Jacqui Murray is the author of the popular Building a Midshipman, the story of her daughter’s journey from high school to United States Naval Academy. She is the author/editor of dozens of books on integrating tech into education, webmaster for six blogs, an Amazon Vine Voice book reviewer, adjunct professor of technology in education, a columnist for Examiner.com and TeachHUB, Editorial Review Board member for Journal for Computing Teachers, monthly contributor to Today’s Author and a freelance journalist on tech ed topics. You can find her book at her publisher’s website, Structured Learning.
Filed under: communication, marketing, writers resources
July 10, 2015
Book Review: A Writer’s Coach
A Writer’s Coach: An Editor’s Guide to Words That Work
by Jack R. Hart
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
It was dumb luck I stumbled upon Jack Hart’s book, A Writer’s Coach (Pantheon Books 2006). I couldn’t afford to hire an editor for my novel, but knew it needed help. There are hundreds (thousands?) of self-help books on this topic, so how was I to pick the one that would work for me? I personally own over a dozen, including Lukeman’s First Five Pages, several by Donald Maass and several more by James Frey. While I did want one that specialized in self-editing, I also have quite a few of those–including Writing From A to Z and Self-editing for Fiction Writers.
Truth, I don’t know why I picked Jack Hart. Maybe because he’s a well-respected editor who’s helped four Pulitzer Prize-winning authors (though this isn’t what I aspire to be). It’s definitely not because of his quarter century as managing editor at The Oregonian, the Pacific Northwest’s largest newspaper–I’m not a fan of main stream media. I might have been influenced by his decade-long column for Editor & Publisher magazine called “The Writer’s Workshop”.
Overall, I’m not sure, but I’m glad I did. The Writer’s Coach is a nuts and bolts approach to fixing the problems endemic in first drafts. Though ten years old, Harts advice transcends trends and medium, delving into the problems and angst shared by all writers. Chapters include:
Method
Process
Structure
Force
Brevity
Clarity
Rhythm
Humanity
Color
Voice
Mechanics
Mastery
The pithiness that colors the chapter titles flows throughout the book. Humanity? Have you ever seen that in a how-to-write book? Here is the publisher review of the book:
Mystified over misplaced modifiers? In a trance from intransitive verbs? Paralyzed from using the passive voice? To aid writers, from beginners to professionals, legendary writing coach Jack Hart presents a comprehensive, practical, step-by-step approach to the writing process. He shares his techniques for composing and sustaining powerful writing and demonstrates how to overcome the most common obstacles such as procrastination, writer’s block, and excessive polishing.
Alliteration aside, I found a lot to love about this book. Here are several of my favorite quotes:
What’s the first thing you do when facing a new writing assignment? I ask. “Get a cup of coffee,” a journalist replied.
The tendency to see the task ahead as overwhelming explains most keyboard anxiety.
A problem visible at any one stage of the writing process usually results from something that happened at the immediately preceding stage.
The best theme statements include a transitive verb… Transitive verbs require the “A causes B” brand of thinking that characterizes a true hypothesis.
Stay lose through your first draft and write fast. You may even want to put your notes aside while you write, leaving blanks…
Don’t stall on the first line. The important thing is to get moving, not write the perfect opening…
…the parasites in the pond of prose [first said by E.B. White] … needless qualifiers such as ‘rather’, ‘somewhat’, ‘generally’, ‘virtually’, ‘pretty’, ‘slightly’, ‘a bit’, and ‘little’.
Five ways to add Oomph to your writing: Find action verbs, avoid flabby suffixes, prefer the active voice, minimize expletives, and be bold.
The only downside of this book? Despite the fact it is touted as a writing coach for all writers, to me it reads more as a self-help for journalists than novel writers. You can see from the quotes above that the points are spot on, but the narrative supporting these excellent ideas often wandered into journalist/blogger/nonfiction weeds. Since I include all of those in my profile, that was fine with me. You may feel differently.
If you’d like to purchase this from Amazon, click the link below:
More how-to-write reviews:
13 Ways and 3 Books to Build Blockbuster Plots
17 Tips from Writing the Blockbuster Novel
How to Edit Your Novel (according to Yuvi)
Jacqui Murray is the author of the popular Building a Midshipman, the story of her daughter’s journey from high school to United States Naval Academy. She is the author/editor of dozens of books on integrating tech into education, adjunct professor of technology in education, webmaster for six blogs, an Amazon Vine Voice book reviewer, a columnist for TeachHUB, Editorial Review Board member for Journal for Computing Teachers, monthly contributor to Today’s Author and a freelance journalist on tech ed topics. You can find her book at her publisher’s website, Structured Learning.
Filed under: book reviews
July 8, 2015
Writer’s Quote Wednesday
s Quote Wednesday is organized by Colleen from Silver Threading, and is a wonderful weekly series in which bloggers share the quotes which inspire them.Thank you, Melissa Barker-Simpson, for sharing your inspiration quotes on your blog. I always come away from my visit to you a little bit inspired and a tad better than when I arrived. I have no idea how you do that.
Here are a few of my favorite writing quotes:
More favorite quotes:
Humorous and Inspiration Quotes–Part II
Book Review: Penguin Dictionary of Epigrams
Jacqui Murray is the author of the popular Building a Midshipman, the story of her daughter’s journey from high school to United States Naval Academy. She is the author/editor of dozens of books on integrating tech into education, adjunct professor of technology in education, webmaster for six blogs, an Amazon Vine Voice book reviewer, a columnist for TeachHUB, Editorial Review Board member for Journal for Computing Teachers, monthly contributor to Today’s Author and a freelance journalist on tech ed topics. You can find her book at her publisher’s website, Structured Learning.
Filed under: quotes
July 6, 2015
What’s Trending on WordDreams
In the past quarter, I’ve posted about 40 articles on topics ranging from writer resources, how-to’s, descriptors, and opinions. During this quarter, I hit the 1 Million Visitors mark (cue the applause!) and got more comments from my community than in any other quarter.
I like to step back a few times a year and determine what readers are most interested in. WordPress makes that easy with their statistics. Here’s this period’s run-down:
51 Great Similes to Spark Imagination
How to Describe Nature
178 Ways to Describe Women’s Clothing
103 Most Beautiful Words? You Decide
How To Describe Noses, Mouths, Legs, and more
How to Describe a Landscape
35 Weird Traits Your Characters May Have
How to Describe an American–if You Aren’t
How to Describe Your Character’s Home II
How to Describe a Person’s Clothing
Interesting, isn’t it? All are descriptions. That tells me, writers visit my blog to hone skills, not for my opinions (which is good because I’m not terribly opinionated, and those I have, I’m happy to keep between my husband and myself and my critique group).
What do you think?
Jacqui Murray is the author of the popular Building a Midshipman, the story of her daughter’s journey from high school to United States Naval Academy. She is the author/editor of dozens of books on integrating tech into education, adjunct professor of technology in education, webmaster for six blogs, an Amazon Vine Voice book reviewer, a columnist for TeachHUB, Editorial Review Board member for Journal for Computing Teachers, monthly contributor to Today’s Author and a freelance journalist on tech ed topics. You can find her book at her publisher’s website, Structured Learning.
Filed under: descriptors, writers resources Tagged: descriptions, writing resources
July 4, 2015
Happy July 4th!
It’s America’s birthday and I’m celebrating. What I write today will be… anything I want–gibberish, a short story, guest articles on crazy topics. I have no idea. My son’s in Kuwait protecting America’s distant shores. My daughter’s in San Diego preparing her LPD for some future battle. I’m here, thanking both of them and every other service member who accepted the calling to protect our nation’s freedoms.
God be with all of you.
Jacqui Murray is the author of the popular Building a Midshipman, the story of her daughter’s journey from high school to United States Naval Academy. She is the author/editor of dozens of books on integrating tech into education, adjunct professor of technology in education, webmaster for six blogs, an Amazon Vine Voice book reviewer, a columnist for TeachHUB, Editorial Review Board member for Journal for Computing Teachers, monthly contributor to Today’s Author and a freelance journalist on tech ed topics. You can find her book at her publisher’s website, Structured Learning.
Filed under: I love the USA Tagged: america, holiday, july 4th
July 1, 2015
#IWSG–Beta Reader? Or not?
This post is for Alex Cavanaugh’s Insecure Writers Support Group (click the link for details on what that means and how to join. You will also find a list of bloggers signed up to the challenge that are worth checking out). The first Wednesday of every month, we all post our thoughts, fears or words of encouragement for fellow writers.
This month’s insecurity – Do I have to have a beta reader?
I don’t–that’s the problem. I’ve had lots (and lots) of people, from experts to avid readers, review my current WIP, but none from start to finish in a short period of time (say, a week). What are your thoughts? Have you gotten a lot out of beta readers that you DON’T get from critique groups and writing buddies?
Thanks. I appreciate your help.
More IWSG articles:
Am I good enough? Does it matter?
When does technical become boring
Jacqui Murray is the author of the popular Building a Midshipman, the story of her daughter’s journey from high school to United States Naval Academy. She is the author/editor of dozens of books on integrating tech into education, adjunct professor of technology in education, webmaster for six blogs, an Amazon Vine Voice book reviewer, a columnist for TeachHUB, Editorial Review Board member for Journal for Computing Teachers, monthly contributor to Today’s Author and a freelance journalist on tech ed topics. You can find her book at her publisher’s website, Structured Learning.
Filed under: writers, writing Tagged: insecure writers group, iwsg, writers
