Reflections of a Techie

What difference does blogging make for students?

I've been working with my students to learn how to blog and Sue Waters asked us how it has made a difference in our class.  Right off the bat, as soon as the question was asked, students wanted to create an online poll to post on our class website so that students could weigh in on what they thought.  

I think that small act really typifies the change in my students.  They believe they have a bigger voice in their education and they want to be involved.

Not only do they respond to my inquiries, they post their own "challenges" to the rest of the class.  Take my student Jack.  I have been pushing them to write more grabber kinds of opening sentences, sharing the information offered through the September Student Blogging Challenge.  Well, he took that one step further and on his blog, he challenged the rest of the class to write better and more engaging kicker sentences.  He'll announce the winners before we go on winter break.

I summarized their 60+comments to my question in a post....but the summary of it all was that school is fun, they feel like they can express their ideas more freely than in class, they have become better writers and learned more about computers & internet safety.  Mind you...that's all the context of having to please me, their social studies teacher, by writing all this about ancient civilizations.

Blogging has made a huge difference in their school lives.

What my students don't realize is the difference blogging has made in how I interact with them.  I knew nothing about setting up , moderating and keeping the conversation going with almost 70 students.  I was scared we'd have garbage posts or that someone would say something that would get me in "trouble".  And that isn't even including my reservations about my technical skills.

Well....thanks to a couple of very techie talented 12 year olds and unbelieveable customer support/service from Edublogs....I mastered the technical skills pretty fast.  Then through the Student Challenges I learned how to bit by bit teach the kids how to be responsible, safe and write for the blogging world. I had thought we'd only do a class blog...no individual blogs this semester. Their writing has improved so much and they will actually come up to me and ask me to delete the first thing they wrote so they can improve it and re-post.  They begged me to let them have their own blogs and I gave in as long as they could demonstrate they could write well and knew the internet safety rules.  About 25% of my students earned my trust that they could handle the responsibilty of their own blog...and many have become their own blog designers....adding themes, widgits, polls, and tons of other kid-friendly kinds of things.  If we continue next semester, I'm sure that more will earn that priviledge because they are always working on it.  (funding is our issue)

I'd say this semester has yielded huge gains because of blogging about social studies.  We not only know more about how to defend our opinions in writing but we all gained lots of communication skills that will be useful in years to come.

Puppet shows and geocaching...it's busy

We're busy in my social studies classroom doing all sorts of things.  Students are writing short 2-3 minute plays about 6 culture's story of origin.  It should be very interesting to see how they are similar and different.  Each group has made puppets to retell the story.

We have other students working to scribe the events on our class blog. I have two class scribes that are reading the stories and talking with the student groups that are covering that civilization. The idea is for them to summarize the stories and then our videographer (Nick) will import the videos he's taking on our FlipVideo.  Eventually you should be able to see a summary of the story and a couple of puppet shows retells.  At the same time, students are busy working to get and keep our class blog looking in tip-top shape.

This has been a great project to undertake while we are doing MAP testing and have double class periods.  Students were all busy and there was a definite purposeful buzz in the class.  I know they haven't had much experience at this kind of independent work tasks, but I can see improvement.

I've watched students take ownership of this process.  They are working hard to incorporate all the things that writing teachers try to get across.  Writing interesting copy for an audience, making sure it is well written and having fun.  Honestly, it's still a struggle to get everyone to become thoughtful authors AND good editors of their work.  But I see progress and actually some interest in re-working their writing. 

At the same time, I have a couple of students who are working to get our class involved in a geocaching project.  Mr. Miller, another 6th grade teacher who is from California, is sending out "bugs" from his classroom to different destinations all over the world.  He's created another blog where his students will track the bugs and work with the different geography connections.  We've volunteered to be one of his partner classrooms and we're hoping that we'll get our "bug" soon.

Startup Online Book Club at Goodreads

I've finished the first full week of Goodreads with my students.  It is working out so well and they LOVE it.  I have about 30 students who have decided to do their book reviews online and about 21 that prefer using the paper version.

The conversations have been wonderful.  I asked them to create one post about their social studies book and one post about their science book.  Oh boy......most studnets have in excess of 15 posts.  They are posting about every book they are reading.  They are trading ideas for the Next Book you should read.  They are offering to lend each copies of books.  They are having a blast.

My most rewarding moment this week came from a mom's comment.  She told me that her child doesn't always have tons of friends.  Through Goodreads the student has been busy chatting about the books they love and that others are reading.  This student has been lending their personal copies and making new friends...face to face at school.  And that, apparently, hasn't happened in a long time.  I didn't anticipate this outcome and I couldn't be happier to hear about that result.

I make students setup their account from home.  I want their parents to be involved in that process, so I refuse to help them at school.  I would make an exception if someone parents asked me to help them and gave me permission in writing.  Since my students are not 13 years old, I thought this was the safest way for them to get involved in this kind of social network writing.  Hopefully their folks will stay involved and monitor their activity along with me.

The biggest thing that I've had to do is to make sure they remember the Internet safety lessons we've done in class.  They demonstrate they "know" they should post their whole name and picture...and then they turn around and create their Goodreads account with all of that showing.  So I try to intercept all that...send them a message and get them to switch.  It isn't a big deal, but it just goes to show that you can teach all you want....but until you have them apply the learning, you never know.

Honestly, I still don't know that they will remember this in another setting.  Or even a setting where an adult moderator is watching.

This action research endeavor is going pretty well.  Next week I'm posting the requirements for their first end of the month book review.  We'll see how it goes when I start getting those book reviews posted.

Great first day of student blogging

You'll have to stop by our class blog....today was their first official day logging in with their user names and having a comment to post.  It's our first move beyond writing one all together as a class.

I made the first prompt they're responding to a repeat of what was on last week's quiz and something we've been talking about a LOT.  I explained that I was going to start to allow them to make their own comments AFTER I approved what they wrote out (the old fashion way on paper with a pencil).  Once they've demonstrated that they can do this and I can TRUST them, then I'll let them start making their own posts.

I presented the tiers of participation.  First tier we did together as a class.  We wrote the posts in round robin fashion.  I put the prompt up and they had 2 minutes to think about what they'd write.  Then we went around the room where everyone wrote a sentence or two.  This allowed me to do fix-ups on their writing and to suggest better ways to phrase things.

Here's what they are doing right now.  They are writing their own comments which are still subject to my comment moderation limitations.  I won't let anything from them go through without my prior approval.  They are working to prove to me that I can trust them to use school appropriate language and significantly add to the conversation.  You'll be able to see that most of the comments are clearly written independent of what anyone else is writing....so once we get this down, I'll let them loose on commenting on the comments.  That should then show me that they are ready to writing their own posts.

The second group has already shown me that they can add comments.  So they are busy getting their research pulled together in the form of a post.  We'll see how this goes.  They researched how prehistoric humans were developing---framing the research in terms of each continent.  Eventually we should be able to compare each continent.

It was a great first step and I think this will be very successful with the kids.  Stop by and leave a comment if you like.

Student blogging: Merging Online Safety with Responsibility/High Quality Writing

There's so much to do on my blogging site....and I still haven't quite figured out how to change the pictures.  Pretty basic move that I need to know.  Keep your fingers crossed that I figure this out....to be stumped so quickly isn't the best news for me.  But I'll figure it out.

But I'm working on the student side of things today.  I want to work with my students in a very controlled environment before I turn them loose on the web.  To me it makes sense for them to demonstrate that they have web sense...and I'm trying to define those "absolutes".  Absolute #1:  Online safety is huge...I'd want it for my own child and I want parents to know I'm doing all I can to help their kids know how to take care of themselves.  Absolute #2:  Students have to be taught how to write for an online dialog....they don't know how to do this and clearly how they do communicate via IM is not what I'm after.

My first lesson is going to make sure that they understand the difference between Private and Public information.  I think this is a huge issue and something many students haven't learned about yet.  Heck they are 11 years old, so it's a big deal for me to teach them how to protect themselves.  I guess my philosophy is that they are going to surf the web at some in their lives and I need to equip them with tools for being safe.  The CyberSmart website has some great tools I'm going to use on this topic.  The second lesson I'm going to have them do relates to Power and Responsibility.  This is a perfect connection to my social studies class and the idea of citizenship....with rights comes responsibility.  Won't it be a great way to demonstrate that this "old" idea from the earliest of civilizations is still applicable today?

I plan on using an idea from Sherry Edward's blog on introducing the process of reading, responding and commenting on a blog.  I'm going to use a prompt from my own curriculum....

 You are a student helping scholars uncover the remains of an ancient city.  One day you happen upon some bits and pieces of a broken jar.  Since the potter included art on the outside of the jar, you can see some symbols and pictures.  Since you've been in Mrs. Ratzel's class for an entire year, you remember that you've seen these symbols before and that they represent the language of the people that probably lived in this city.  You can't believe you've had the good fortune to find this.  Now is your chance to put all the studying from 6th grade to work.  What might you learn from these ancient writings?

It will be my hope that students will explore the idea that students will connect this prompt with the purpose for studying the past and how historians use many "clues" to understand how people lives years ago. 

Students will write their response to this prompt on an index card and we'll do a pass around.  As each student reads the index card, they'll respond to the writer by adding their thoughts onto the card with a Post-It.  The longer the activity goes on, the long the set of index cards and post-its becomes and the more the receiver has to respond to.

Isn't this a cool idea?  It not only teaches them to read and respond, but it gives a fantastic concrete mental picture of the write and respond nature of blogging.  Concrete being the operative word for my 6th graders.  I also think the power of the this will come as we then hang all these index cards with post-it trails up on the walls and then do a gallery walk.  In that gallery walk, it's my intention to have students look for what they think are positives and things to be improved upon.  I've even thought it would be important to have students help me create a rubric that we could use to measure our initial posts once we get the blogs up and working.

Two absolutes seem like enough for these little guys.  If they can convince me they have these two things mastered, I'm going to issue them a license to their blog!!!!  I need to design something to celebrate/honor this.....put that on my To-Do list.

Have you ever done anything like this?  How did it work? Are there things that I should include in these first lessons that I've overlooked?

Getting students started on blogging

This year is the Year of Student Blogging for me.  Every year I pick off one tech tool to get really integrated into my content...and I was told that I'm doing social studies this year so I felt like "THE" tech tool had to be something that used writing and conversations.  That's why I picked blogs over wikis and even over Voicethread.  I've been using a professional reflection blog since 2003 and read tons of them everyday through my reader.  But that's very different from using student blogs with 150 kids...different skills and different instructional style is required.

I wasn't sure where to turn for blogging solutions.  My district uses SchoolCenter which has a student blog feature.  Last year when my students use them, it was so difficult and I spent hours on the phone trying to get a picture to go the side they wanted...or center the title...and on and on.  Our tech person gets how to do all this quickly, but I was frustrated and my kids just plain gave up.  Most of my friends can't figure out how to do much...although I think much is possible.

Usability was huge after that experience.  Security is always a huge concern.  And flexibility.

Given those three parameters, I picked Edublogs.  I'm just in the starter stages so I don't have much to report except maybe the most important thing.  I have found them to be accessible when I have questions, they give understandable answers and they answer quickly.  The documentation is outstanding and, as I make my way slowly through the Getting Started Guide, I find their manuals anticipate what questions I'll probably have.  All that bodes well for me....it make me believe that they do what they promise and that I'll be able to concentrate on the social studies content and not making the tech work.  What a relief!!!!

Honestly I think many teachers would use more tech if the support was solid.  I remember going to something at CoSN years ago and the big message there was how much investment districts needed to make in the support.  And I'm not just talking about training, I mean the actual software/hardware part to integrating tech into the classroom.  If you don't have good support that makes sense to a teacher, they pretty much give up.  I can't blame them...

I'll keep posting...so if you are someone else who is just getting started we can share stories.  What have your experiences been?  Any landmines that you know I should avoid?  I'd love to hear your ideas.

Photo licensed under Creative Commons  http://www.flickr.com/photos/alegrya/3671080113/

Where are the essential questions...the PBL experiences?

Even since I listened to Lynn Erickson talk about curriculum development and the reasons why you would want to teach from essential questions (the questions that are timeless and drive to the heart of the content AND that are transferrable), I've really questioned how we go about defining our curricular objectives.  They seem so straight jacket like to me.  They didn't stoke the imagination or intellectual fancy of my students.

I just finished readying Kevin Washburn's blog entry called, The Window: Making the Shift, Part 1: No More Objectives. and he raises many of the same points.  We have narrowed the curriculum down so much that, as he says, the window is limited to the on in the door to our room.  I hate that.  I want a window that goes well beyond the one to the outside of the building, beyond my community and country and one that knows few bounds.  Students and parents don't even know they're missing out....because they too have been deluded into thinking small.

But as my school pushes us to have pyramids of interventions and remediation, where is the energy, time or interest to think big????  Not sure.  maybe the few holdouts that still think school is more about being educated and less about GPA.

Emily's World: Tagging Bookmarks with del.icio.us for Educators

I want to come back to this and investigate it further.

Link: Emily's World: Tagging Bookmarks with del.icio.us for Educators.

My first audio file project of a teacher meeting--using Audacity and uploading audio to Typepad

Well, I've finished my first attempt at producing some kind of reflective audio file of teacher's deliberating about curriculum design.  I think I found myself too absorbed in the most interesting parts of the conversation and then worrying about how to operate my iPod.  But I did manage to gather a couple of audio voice notes into Audacity.

It wasn't as easy to edit the audio as I remember GarageBand being, though.  I couldn't figure out how to position the playheads at the just the right place.  So I'm not very happy with some of  it and I would have included more little bits and pieces of other people's voices had I known how to do this...

Download 08012005meeting.mp3

But it's a start and I felt like I needed to get going with my experiments.  People were very happy to accomodate my efforts for the most part.  I also think that some of what I recorded will be excellent to have when we must present this curriculum to the school board's review committees.  These are authentic teacher voices saying why their work is important, valid and useful.  Hopefully I will get better at editing and can provide a much better set of opinions.

Hopefully I will also gather steam for folks listening to this and leaving their ideas. The notion that these voices are here for people to react to and to stimulate thinking.  WOW.  If that would happen, I'd be thrilled.  We'll see.

Lastly I've never uploaded any content like this onto my blog.  So I'm wasn't sure how this would work...so far so good and it uploads like any other file.  That was probably the easiest part of this effort.

Using flickr to find math pictures--ratios

chalk,
originally uploaded by holysloot.

Using this photo for creating circle graphs could be great.  It's an easy picture, something familar for my students and interesting.