Wait, Can You Repeat That?

EJuarezDigital StoryDigital storytelling is something that has intrigued me for years, but I feel as if I’m just now understanding the tip of this technological iceberg. I play around with taking videos of my daughter and family, love editing and mixing them with music on imovie and then end up posting these gems to facebook, my family wiki or emailing to friends. I have not, however, tried this same experience with my students.

One idea that I plan to pursue third quarter is something I mentioned earlier this year…video vocab. The flip cameras weren’t syncing with EW’s computers (obstacle #1)  so I postponed the project…then MAP testing reared it’s disruptive head (obstacle #2), and here I am, writing about my plan to do this same project next quarter…we shall see, right?

Anyway, I would like to give the students different vocabulary words that they would then create a digital story around, preferably using video of some sort. The details are yet to be determined, but I figure we’ll start with one word and work our way up to a few at a time.

I’ve also thought about a narrative project where instead of simply producing a piece of writing, students must create a digital story around whatever event they explain in the piece. This could be such a personal, authentic piece of writing and media. I know the students would get into it, and I would love to see their stories “come to life”.

Just imagine the digital storytelling convergence of numerous eighth grade hormonal factories (aka my students). It’s enough to make anyone dizzy!

You Think You Know

Who should be teaching this? What should students know? What should teachers know? What should parents know?

Digital citizenship is so important, I feel education about this needs to start as early as possible; my personal vote is for preschool or kindergarten. Young children use computers for playing games and learning to read. The moment they start using technology is the best time to teach them about digital citizenship. This will allow for the rules to be set at the get go and as students age, their knowledge of appropriate digital practices will expand with them.

Students should know what the expectations for digital citizenship consist of. Be safe. Be kind. Protect yourself. Protect others. Students in kindergarten can grasp these basic ideas, right?

As for teachers, we all need to read about digital citizenship and really understand the implications of responsible uses of technology in education. Parents need to be a part of this discussion as well, learning about digital citizenship along with their children. Why couldn’t schools host a workshop for parents and students to learn the nine elements of digital citizenship together? Teachers and administrators could present the basics and then allow time for parents and children to explore together. This could be an excellent community collaboration.

In not so excellent news, my digital citizenship quiz score is 48/100…not quite sure how that happened (although I still have no idea what number I’m supposed to call in the UK to report bullying:)

My overall impression of Classroom 2.0 is that it’s a little too much for me to digest in an hour. I need time to process, and of course become an official member (as they have to review each wannabe to block spammers). As I checked out pictures, videos and some forum items, I encountered a few things I’m still foggy on…Google wave, anyone? It seems I need much more time and patience to thoroughly delve into Classroom 2.0.

I’ve been pondering the idea of using social networking with my English classes. Because English class is by nature so social, I feel it would be a good fit. The management of it, however, may prove to be a different issue. I perused the various Nings dedicated to education. A few caught my eye:

SchoolRack – http://www.schoolrack.com/ – could be a good place to start a ning for my students

Teachers Collaborating via Technology – http://teacherscollaboratetechnology.ning.com/ – need to spend some more time here

Edmodo – http://www.edmodo.com/

2010 is looming and I feel compelled to begin trying all sorts of tech things with my students before they graduate. At the same time, I get a little overwhelmed by the sheet process of it.

Perhaps a Ning in ’10.

You know, lots of people have been referencing GD, and I’ve even used it on a few occasions. However,  not until I finished Thing 20 have I truly basked in the awesomeness of Google Docs.

And really, it is awesome.

Google Docs is all about making life (and work) easy. This is exactly what I need. A place to post, muse, edit, collaborate, share, re-edit, comment, file, save and rejoice.

(My response to this prompt – Include at least three ideas for using Google in classroom learning and/or professional learning/productivity. At least one idea should reflect a collaborative use. – follows).

In the past half of an hour to forty-five minutes, I created a vocabulary doc that I sent to peers for suggestions,  organized my xmas shopping list,  uploaded a document to edit/collaborate on with my colleagues for our Animal Farm novel study to commence in January and created a New Year’s Resolutions poll to compel my peers to commit to using their techspertise in 2010 (http://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?formkey=dGZkU2gwa04xcnkzQnFWUWJRRjN4MEE6MA)

So much friggin’ fun, and sooooooo freakin’ easy.

Thank you, Google Docs.

You just made my dreams come true.

Youtube is an invaluable resource for both the focused and random video to incorporate into the learning of my eighth graders. Below you will see three videos:
1. A hilarious, and well-articulated look at the state of Grammar in the U.S.
2. A Grammar lesson on preferentials.
3. A book “trailor” that I believe was made by a student for Jack London’s The Call of the Wild.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mj6QqCH7g0Q

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3xw2APshJCY

http://www.teachertube.com/viewVideo.php?video_id=138852&title=Call_of_the_Wild

What I love about youtube and teachertube is that others have already put so much effort and creativity into the visualization of their ideas and lessons, I don’t have to! That’s quite lovely.
Even more lovely is that I can access all of this creativity with a few clicks of my fingers and then embed the appropriate videos into my class blog/wiki to enrich my students’ learning (and often my own!).
Youtube and teachertube are user-friendly and teeming with possibilities…we need to get more teachers on the band wagon of using these videos as valid teaching tools.

I also just thought of making an assignment for which students have to research videos on youtube/teachertube related to a given topic we’re studying and then embed these videos on our class wiki or blog for the other students to be able to access.

Students are obsessed with youtube and all things tech…this could lead to an amazing level of engagement in things that are normally dreadful (gerunds, anyone?).

I subscribe to the Dangerously Irrelevant blog, and found this entry both intriguing and terrifying. This entry is all about “disruptive innovations” and how current ways of educating are inadequate (or will be very shortly) for most learners. The research is taken from two books written by a Harvard professor. The presenter is scheduled for the K12 Online Conference 2009 (at least I believe it is this year; the website says 2008, but this entry just came to my RSS feed this week.mmm…either way, it’s worth watching and pondering). Here is the link with the overview of his presentation . Take 21 minutes or so to listen and ponder how the basic laws of disruptive innovations will impact education worldwide.

http://k12onlineconference.org/?p=344

Leading the Change Current leadership models are inadequate for disruptive innovations

By Wesley Fryer
Scott McLeod, J.D., Ph.D. Ames, Iowa, USA
Blog: http://www.dangerouslyirrelevant.org
Bio: Scott McLeod, J.D., Ph.D., is an Associate Professor and Coordinator of the Educational Administration Program at Iowa State University. He also is the Director of the UCEA Center for the Advanced Study of Technology Leadership in Education (CASTLE), the nation’s only center dedicated to the technology needs of school administrators.
Bio page: http://k12online08presenters.wikispaces.com/Scott+McLeod
Presentation Title: Current leadership models are inadequate for disruptive innovations
Description: In this 20-minute voice-narrated PowerPoint (Presentation Zen style) Dr. McLeod reflects upon key concepts from Dr. Clayton Christensen’s work regarding disruptive innovation. The presentation draws primarily from two of Dr. Christensen’s books, The Innovator’s Dilemma and Disrupting Class, and focuses on the different ways of thinking that are now mandatory if school leaders are to successfully navigate their organizations in transition to the 21st century. Key points from other leadership models also make their way into the presentation.

I’ve made a few podcasts over the past several months, but have not yet started creating weekly/monthly files. A great idea that another teacher shared with me last year (could have been Jeff…can’t quite remember) is to create weekly podcasts for vocabulary/spelling words for students. Vocaroo was super easy to use, so now I’m a little more motivated to take this step and do weekly word lists or something of that sort. Perhaps this will be one of my New Year’s Resolutions…At least this will be one resolution I can easily accomplish!

Earlier this year I asked my students to create podcasts from book reviews they had written. They did, and you can hear a smattering of the results on my class wiki book review page. While some students were at first hesitant to complete a podcast, as the task seemed too daunting, most ended up happily enjoying the process (sort of like how I feel when I read each week’s “Thing”…) We can all relate, right?

Other Ideas for Podcasting in the Classroom:
1. Auditory flash cards – vocab words, themes of novels, literary terms, etc.
2. Mini-lessons that I give in class (everything from proper apostrophe use to keeping verb tense consistency).
3. Homework assignments (I post these on the wiki each day, but this could be an additional resource).
4. Weekly “Quote of the Week” related to something students are learning in class.
5. Weekly Witticism – totally random, just for fun.

Skimming through my RSS feed from CoolCatTeacher,  I discovered this idea…and it’s a neat one…

Idea Paint can transform any surface at school/home into a dry erase board. The possibilities for collaboration, artistic expression, brainstorming and doodling are endless.

Check out this link for how to and demo videos-

http://www.angelamaiers.com/2009/10/ideapaint-let-your-students-make-their-mark.html

Wonder if I could get away with this at Edgewood?

Player. Who knew a word could fit me so well?

Play thrills me…especially when I have the time to do it!

This morning a la 4 a.m, I decided to play with some of the tools suggested for thing 14. I discovered LibraryThing and am digging what it offers.

Enormous catalog of book descriptions and info- check

Access to thousands of other Dweebsters like me who love to read – check

Free Advance Copies of books (if you’re willing to review) – check

This site also offers great collaboration opportunities if you’re interested in publishing, reviewing others’ work or simply adding your two cents.

http://www.librarything.com/

Love, Love, Love!

After the recent days of SLCs, attending a few K12 online conferences in my pjs was a welcome diversion.

It’s not that I don’t like meeting with kids and parents. It is that I would just much rather do it in my pjs (really, it’s that simple).

The title and description for the first online conference I attended is below (as taken from the K12online conference link).

http://k12onlineconference.org/?p=311

Presentation Title: “Promise into Practice: What it Now Means to Teach Adolescent Readers”
Description: It is a daunting and exciting time to teach English – especially as we consider the “shifts” in how we define literacy, and the toolset for our work as readers and writers continually expands. This session investigates one teacher’s work in studying her practice and students’ learning when she worked to bridge new literacies into “traditional” classroom practice.

The main focus of this presentation was on how a teacher integrated modern technology into her English classroom to improve student literacy, as well as her own understanding of said literacy. Some of the techniques she used are things I’ve tried with my students such as podcasting book reviews and completing multi-media writing assignments; I found her results helped validate my own thoughts on how imperative technology is to the 21st century learner.

This conference also addresses the ever-changing literacy landscape and poses critical questions all teachers of literature should ponder. What is important for students to learn about literacy? How long can schools continue as mainly text-based, when there are numerous other modes of literacy that students not only encounter, but are proficient in, on a daily basis?

The second conference I attended delved into the world of delicious things. I chose this as a follow up to our previous week’s tasks in the hope that it would enlighten me further on the joys of all things tagging, tag clouding, tag clustering, etcetering…here’s the title, description and link:

Presentation Title: “I Like Delicious Things: An Introduction to Tagging and Folksonomies”
Description: Using simple examples from a number of tag-driven websites, this presentation looks at how tagging and the subsequent creation of folksonomies are changing the way we think about information. Starting with obvious tagging systems used on sites like Flickr and Delicious, it examines how tagging enables information to be classified, sorted and managed in ways that make it more accessible, easier to manage and more self-aware. It also explores how tags can be aggregated across large collections of information to provide a snapshot into the overall zeitgeist of collective thinking.

http://k12onlineconference.org/?p=273

This second conference was definitely worthwhile for me, as I’m somewhat of a newbie at delicious and diigo. If you’re looking for a presentation that will show you the various layers/methods/categories of tagging on sights as varied as flikr, delicious, twitter, etc, watch this one.

One thing I hadn’t considered before in regards to tagging is something that’s actually quite simple. The presenter shows flikr and how people create “out of the box” tags for photos they deem particularly special, powerful, etc. Tags like, “wow!”, or “I can’t believe I got a second chance” never even crossed my mind as possibilities. Now I’m on the hunt for such wonders and oddities and will even create a few of my own. This way of tagging/searching for photos will also benefit my search for unique photos to represent my student’s vocabulary words.

I think I’ll try a tag search of “I cannot believe I just did that!”. Wonder if I’ll get anything relevant to The Call of the Wild.

One never knows.