Online Learning and Showcasing Work

  I have been thinking for a while about the prospect of studying how students can showcase their work online, and its effect on creating a culture of creativity, dialogue and learning. In particular, it would certainly be an interesting process to study how children's learning and empathy are facilitated when they write book reviews and translate these reviews into a different language for others (such as their parents) to read. I believe that this kind of study would touch upon the themes of writing and translating for multicultural audiences, and how doing so can help children foster empathy toward people of different cultures and generations, especially those in their own family. Related to this would be the kinds of decisions that young learners make when deciding how to translate their writing, for whom they are writing, and so on.
   I am not so sure about methodology, but this study seems interesting in a way. What interests me is the idea of taking books and using the stories one has read to interpret its key meanings for others. When we tell and retell stories, the nature of that story will change quite often, depending on the person with whom one is sharing the key story. This of course points to the impermanent nature of stories, but also points to the ability for stories to transform and change depending on the audience and the intention of the reviewer. It even makes me wonder whether the book review itself is a vehicle for empathy and voice. Even if I never read the book you are reviewing, the review itself gives me some insight into your thinking as a person, as well as the unique response between yourself and the book. Are there things conveyed in reviews which we don't read in the actual book itself? Of course there are, and that is the interesting aspect of reviews, in the sense that the communicate a book's meaning from one person to a specific audience.