Virtual Book Clubs

Here's an article on virtual book clubs in a fifth grade classroom. Edmoto is the platform for the call interaction.

Podcasting

I'm not there yet, but I did find a podcast on ReadWriteThink that I can have students listen to.  Next year I want to add a class podcast to the book reports I do.  I use the SCR for the book report form (getting them used to the form for the Periodic Assessment has worked well this year), adding the podcasting would add some creativity that I feel is missing.

Laptops in the Classrooom

Note: This post was created last Thursday. I decided to wait to post to see if my opinion improved. However, I feel my annoyances are still warranted. The computers have been "updated," yet still freeze, turn-off randomly, and are simply s...l...o...w... Get  my drift?

This is NOT technology. So, all ten laptops are now set up and today is our first day using them. Thus far, four actually work, though painfully slow. We are simply typing in Google docs, but four are constantly "Trying to reach Google..." Where is Google? Why can it not be reached? Is it hiding? Only the most patient students have remained at the computers since they are so trying. I will not be canceling my scheduled Mondays at the lab. They are the only ones that seem to work. It is much less of a headache to work in the lab. Unfortunately, we cannot access this on a daily basis. Frankly, these laptops are a bit of a joke, which reflects on...us...the tech crew? Either way, completely frustrating. All these hopes met with frustration on a daily basis. Interestingly, it is in a place of education where the technology shortfall is forthcoming. Hmm...  

Value of Literature Article

Here's a great article on the value of literature. It's a great inner city perspective I know we have all felt.
Teach the Books, Touch the Heart

Classroom Chat Rooms

Like Sarah, I had a great day today. The reason is twofold:  1) We were using a site that didn't have graphics, so it didn't max out my bandwidth, and 2) the technology part of the lesson was intuitive for my students, and they jumped right in.

Here's what we did:  

We're reading the book Copper Sun by Sharon Draper.  In this section, the protagonist survives the middle passage and spends her first day enslaved on a Carolina farm.  Also in this section, the protagonist, and the reader are introduced to new major characters.  

Using www.TodaysMeet.com, I set up five chat rooms for the students to chat as a character in the book. It was like role playing - they had to speak in the first person.  Everything they said had to be in character and be consistent with the spirit of the text. 

I think that part of the reason this worked was that the students were prepared.  Last Friday they knew which character they would chat as, so when they read this weekend, they paid special attention to that character. I gave them a list of questions and told them they should know the character so well that they could answer the list of questions.  But I didn't have them write the answers. The list was to guide their thinking.

Today, I had them read this post on our class site and they jumped right in.  I guided the chat with a powerpoint that included a list of questions to answer. Then, during the second round, they were allowed to ask each other questions.  At the bottom of this post is a transcript from one group.

Lessons Learned

• It was a more democratic way for students to discuss/ participate than a traditional classroom discussion.  
• This was an exercise in higher level Blooms because students had to generate and create.  By asking them to talk as the characters and responding to prompts, I got much more complex thoughts than I would had if I had just given them questions to answer. 
• Today's Meet was a venue for students to demonstrate their thinking, their understanding of the characters and the book.  It was a more expansive, generative process.  Students learned/ synthesized their thinking in the process of generating, and in the process of reading other people's posts
• It's a full-engagement, fast-paced activity.  Students are reading, thinking, writing/ typing.  If they don't concentrate, they miss a lot of what's going on

Good times!  Looking forward to using this tool again.

Transcript of CopperSunPer7Group5 « TodaysMeet

Bloggin' the Noggin

Phew!! Success at last! Students have all created their own blogs. Seems easy enough, but I am still trying to figure out the privacy issues and how to assess each blog entry. Tomorrow, I will have them pull their blog up and then grade the post (a reading summary). I need to figure out how to view all of them w/o overwhelming myself by subscribing to each log. I am thinking they will need to share the blog with at least three other people and they will comment on each peers' blog.

Today was also the first (yes, I said first) day that I did not have sign-in issues. I feel quite satisfied with this. I was hoping to have created technology wizards by now, yet there have been some challenges, primary school-based and not student ability. I do believe that next year will hail Google geeks in all the glorious ways!!

You have got to try the schedule app for the conference!  It is really great.  I've chosen several workshops for each time period that I want to attend plus the other sessions.  We can share our schedules so we will know where to find each  other! 

You can access it through the CUE Guide now posted! link on the CUE Annual Conference page.

Classroom Blogs

I (Melissa) am again using our class blogs to elicit thinking and writing about text.  In line with our thinking about this grant, I am trying to push the definition of text to include things like video clips.  Last week we read the short story "One Throw."  It was a perfect time to introduce my kids to the classic comedy sketch "Who's on First."

So, keeping with the Abbott and Costello topic, this weekend I had students watch the hilarious "Two Tens for A Five" routine (embedded in the blog) and write about a time they tricked someone. Here is a link.

What's been great about this type of assignment is that I have loaded my students' email addresses into my email reader. That means I read their comment, write back to them, and then put a grade right into my grading software. It's so fast I can't believe it counts as real grading!

This grant has been a great opportunity to "learn by doing." I encounter problems and find ways to solve them. That's what learning is, right.

Things I have learned:
1. It's great to "grab" the html code from one blog and paste it into another blog if I want duplicate posts.
2. I have to remind my students over and over that class blogs require standard, academic English without typos, spelling mistakes, and other errors.
3. Everyone on the blog (my students and me) have the ability to edit.I have to figure out how to "lock" my posts.  I don't know if this is possible. But today, one student accidentally over-wrote my post and replaced it with his comments, instead of using the comment button.

Group Me for CUE Convention Conversation

I've found an app (for Iphone and Android) for our CUE convention conversation. It's called Group Me. Check it out. The site doesn't say whether or not there is a way to record the texts/conversation, but I submitted a request for more information. I found the source on a SXSW (South by South West) article. I believe the convention takes place this weekend so hopefullly there will be even more goodies for us to explore. Also, in mention of Twitter, I have found that many teachers use Twitter to hold class discusssions. Of course, there will be our issue of students not having phones/computers (ah, inner city) and whether or not we can actually require the students to participate since it is sometimes considered "taboo" or "inappropriate" (ah, LAUSD) but I think we can do it!!

7 Tips For Using Social Media In Your Classroom

This is a great article called 7 Tips For Using Social Media in Your Classroom  It really got my wheels spinning. It was like a mini-PD with Sean. I would love to discuss it with you both. And, we can even try using TodaysMeet.com (a tool mentioned in the article) to chat about it. 
-Mel

Podcasting

We (Andy and Melissa) at our podcasting in-service with Sarah (who's paired up with another teacher right now) and the rest of the ELA dept.  Sean Williams is presenting about podcasting and  we are using Vocaroo.  Web-based, so cool.

Here is the first podcast from Andy and Melissa:  How to make a chicken sandwich.  Click to listen.


Voice Recorder >>


Melissa's comments:  Sean has really broadened my definition of podcasts.  I was thinking that "podcast" meant a student produced radio show that takes a significant amount of time to plan, execute, edit, etc.  But, now I am thinking about it as simple voice recordings that can be used to create and respond to content.  Instead of only using text based comments (pen/paper writing, blog comments), these voice recordings allow a different medium.  I am so excited about the simplicity.  Students can create podcasts/voice recordings to create/respond to content (an embedded video in a blog, a passage in a book, a student's story or presentation).

And there are so many ways to capture those voice recordings.  Vocaroo is great, but it can't be edited.  Google voice can be used, and it will provide a transcript.  There are so many other things to think about. Comments please...

280daily

I'm looking at having my students use 280daily to do quick writes in.  Amy Hansen is using it as a journaling tool for her son (she posted this on Facebook...).  You have 280 characters to say something.  So many of my students are wordy beyond belief, I'm thinkin' that this may help them organize their thoughts.  The downside is I would have no control over their posts, and, if I wanted to grade them, I'd have to visit 69 site...  It's a fun tool tho'.

Department P.D.

We are good to go for our presentation to the department on January 31st.  I thought we could use the blog to start listing the things we need to include so writing the handout will go easier.  Things like I opened another Google email account so my school mail account wouldn't be inundated with emails when students start sharing documents...