One of the core principles of a quality writing workshop/writing curriculum is the establishment of a cooperative, collaborative learning community. This is a core principle that has always been at the heart of good writing pedagogy and has maintained its central status to the success of a digital writing classroom.
What I think is interesting about how a teacher establishes a sense of community is that in many ways the community develops faster because of the digital tools we have at our disposal. Students talk more with each other, serve as teachers for each other in the first few nights of class because they all have different levels of expertise with using digital writing tools such as blogs. Even the proximity of their chairs and their "workspace" are closer together in a computer lab than in a traditional classroom. Perhaps this isn't always conducive to "live" whole class discussions where students can make eye contact, but I do see pairs and small groups of students more easily working together simply because they have sat basically side-by-side (even when they are ultimately writing their own individual piece).
I also think the fact that digital writing classrooms are still new ("novelty effect") this also generates more discussion and a sense of community (learning the new together) that happens at a much faster pace than in my LTED 618 courses -- even those of 3-4 years ago. Creating the blogs does seem to shift the students' thinking about themselves as writers and of the types of writing/compositions they will create in this class.
Okay. That's all for now. Need to ask the class to stop composing and make final edits before posting.
