Artondale (WA) Elementary School
www.peninsula.wednet.edu/Artondale/KidSpeak/index.html
Walter Minkel -- School Library Journal, 7/1/1999
www.peninsula.wednet.edu/Artondale/KidSpeak/index.html
While many middle and high schools have newsletters written by students, newsletters composed by elementary students are a rarer bird. KidSpeak, my choice for the SLJ Online Library Web Site of the Month, is a simple but effective attempt at online publishing by Artondale Elementary School's fifth graders. New issues are posted on the school's Web site every month during the school year.
Kathy Mladenich, Artondale's librarian (klibrary@harbornet.com), says she began the project so students could experience "the realities, shortfalls, and opportunities" of publishing on the Web. Mladenich wrote a grant proposal for her school that brought her library four Internet stations. (Artondale's fifth-grade students already had access to laptops -- some networked, some not -- in their classrooms.) Mladenich believes that Internet publishing teaches students to think critically about what they read and write on the Web. To that end, her students were pressed to fact check and evaluate the content of their own magazine, as well as that of other Web sites. Honing these skills blends naturally with what she already teaches students in the library, says Mladenich.
Mladenich admits that she was surprised by how successful the first year of KidSpeak was -- many students were anxious to return and help their younger peers the following year. Mladenich plans to use the school's new digital camera to inspire a new group of fifth graders to show what's on their minds via KidSpeak
-- Walter Minkel
