Flipping My Classroom - A Little Bit

Wow, was the Computer Using Educators (CUE) conference awesome.  Last year we were introduced to the concept of flipping the ELA classroom. This year, Kate Petty's great presentation helped me move from theory to practice.  Seriously. We got home Saturday afternoon.  Monday and today I began a flip.

Here's what I did.

The 7th grade standards on informational documents have been a bear to teach. They're seriously boring.  Until yesterday.

Instead of explaining structure and features of memos, business letters and instructional manuals (to name a few), I put the onus on my kids.  I spent a ton of time looking for examples of these materials, then gave them a set and pretty much said, "figure it out."

No, I did a little bit more.  I gave them some guiding questions.  They wrote them in their Cornell notes. Then I said, "Figure it out."

I asked them to notice what all the memos had in common and to try to make some general statements.  Then I walked up and down the classroom and prodded them as they worked.  And, work they did.  I know it was hard - all that thinking - but in the end, I think most of them did ok.

So here's the flip.

For homework, I recorded a screencast (using Jing) of the five minute mini lesson I would have given them if I had approached this the old way. Then I gave them the notes, just in case they missed them.  Then I showed them an Abbot and Costello video.  What?  Yeah, for fun. And so that the one question test the next day was about that video - to help me know who visited the blog and who didn't.

Wanna see?  Check out these links.  (But don't embarrass me further about my choppy lecture, hard-to-follow mouse, misspellings, etc.)

http://period5minkin.blogspot.com/2013/03/informational-documents.html

and

http://period5minkin.blogspot.com/2013/03/business-letters-vs-memos-who-wins.html

Preparing for CATE

Questionnaire

Questionnaire Spreadsheet

Wordle

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...

First Thursday in the Lab

We got through the first Thursday in the lab!  I did 20 minutes SSR in the class, had them hand in their homework, then took them to the lab.  My assignment was:

-Check your grade on engrade.com. (they are supposed to do this whenever we go to the lab)
-Check your email.  (same as above)

1.  Explore blogging and send me an email telling me what blogging is.  Make sure your subject line is p7.yourname.blog.

2.  Comment on the class blog mordohp 7.blogspot.com.  (the post asks them to tell me what expository literature is)

Not the most exciting lesson, but it is a start towards their research power point.  I got lots of emails but very few comments.  It is really interesting to see that we still have some students who are totally tech challenged.  I don't let them help each other because I've found that if I do, they continue to need help.  I do love the fact that they will go home and finish assignments that they can access through their google account.

Wireless Equipment

The wireless equipment is great! It's much easier to keep the kids on task while roaming the room. It also allows for personal assistance without pointing and giving directions. They can follow along on their computer with the screen at the front of the class. It feel more like guidance instead of commands. Excellent purchase. Great suggestion Mel!

Wireless Equipment

I've ordered the wireless mouse and keyboard for Andy and myself. The total was $107.73. Hopefully with Mel's order we will come in near $187 (cost of books).

I had a very interesting three days in the computer lab.  After all the hardware problems were taken care of, I was presently surprised to find my 7th graders are very adept at using the computer and Google Docs!  I do have a couple who are so challenged that I think they are stuck in a time warp and are really from an earlier period when there were no computers, they are my challenge.  Many of them will take a verbal suggestion and just run with it.

I am staying with my rule of no talking and no helping anyone else out.  I want them to learn to use the computer themselves, not to have someone do it for me.  I think that pains the helpers more than those who need help tho'!

Propeller Head

I (Melissa) admit that I cannot resist fiddling with technology. Today, my classroom blog post asked students to articulate a theme about Party Girl, the novel we just finished. I also asked them to support their claim with a textual example, and then to assert whether or not the theme was true in their own lives.

I have been trying to comment back to them. But, Blogger doesn't let users comment on comments the way that Facebook does.  So, I've been trying to add my own comments aimed at individual students like this @Cynthia, @Armando, etc. like this:

It gets pretty hard to keep up with this in class. And, I don't know if they bother to read my comments anyway.

Well, fiddling around today, I realized I could set the classroom blog to automatically send me a message each time someone commented.  That was fine. But there was no way to respond to an email from "Armando B." <noreply-comment@blogger.com>."

It occurred to me that I could reply by taking the email I received from Blogger and forwarding it to their student email address.  So, I opened the Excel file I had with their email addresses, etc., turned it into a CSV file, then imported it into my mail reader (I use the standard Macintosh mail package).  The trick was getting that CSV file to sort right so that their period would appear under "Company" and their ID number in the "Work Phone" field in my Address Book (also the standard Macintosh application). Here's what it looks like in Excel, with the student names blacked out for their protection:

Now, all the emails come into my email box and I can email students right back. I gave it a try this evening and it was quick and efficient.  Since I am grading some of their posts, this will be a quick way to provide feedback.  

I know admitting that I spent time on this makes me seem like a propeller head, but, hey, a girl has to have some fun, doesn't she?