elle, that one of my biggest challenges as far as writing goes, is getting the kids to support their opinions with details, be specific. Also, retrieving information from a text to support an opinion is also tough in the beginning for them. So, when I think of creative blog prompts, I keep these lessons in mind, and how I want them to answer. The process does transfer over to their formal writing. Towards the end of the year, I find myself marking less "needs explanation" on their papers, and they are also now referring back to the text for support in their writing.
In the beginning, when I introduce my blog to them, I have the students read a blogger's contract which we discuss, and they later sign, so they are well aware of my expectations and what the consequences are if they abuse this privilege. I talk about how we can all agree to disagree and I model ways for them to be respectful in their comments to others, and then I let them role play a bit. I have to say I did not have one problem last year with any of the seventy one students. I do have a rubric I use to grade their responses based on points, and since they are getting a trimester writing grade out of this I tell them it's the easiest A they could get in my class. Since they will be commenting weekly and there are thirteen weeks (give or take) this grade is based on 100 points.
I think I might change things up a bit this year to encourage more dialog among the students. Once they are familiar with the routine of getting their weekly response in, I will then require them to respond to at least one other person. It's a bit more management for me, but I won't know unless I try. Your blog is great, Marielle, and I agree with your thoughts on threaded discussions. I can certainly see the advantages there. I don't know about the demographics of any of your students, but in the private school I teach in, these kids are heavily loaded up with after school responsibilities, be it either sorts, religious instruction, music, etc. Those who want the grade and like to write, will write forever and find the time to do so. Most will get their weekly response in and be done with it. Once I get to know the student, if I feel a response is a rush job, and that the student was capable of writing more, points are lost, and we talk about what a quality response is with examples. Pretty soon, they all figure out what I'm after.
I will have seventy two students this year and they do their blogging at home. Those that want to can do it during advisory time or before/after school. Voicethread is a whole different tool used for digital storytelling.…
sons I dislike broad purchases of IWBs for schools is that many teachers are stuck in a one way transmission style of teaching (PowerPoints, worksheets, read these pages). For them to be better teachers, not just better users of IWBs, they need to change their entire pedagogical style. This is especially challenging for entrenched teachers, and even new teachers who are used to the "see the PowerPoint, read the article, write the paper" style of teaching prominent among college professors.
I was fortunate to have a professor in one of my programs who helped me get away from this model and some other bad habits early in my teaching career. He pointed out that just because you did a neat activity with students didn't mean it actually helped them learn. The activity needed to have purpose. During the course, I'd show him some things that I'd taught the previous year and he'd comment "...bells and whistles Mike, bells and whistles." I've carried this statement with me throughout my teaching career and think about it anytime I have a new idea. With this in mind, I offer my rebuttal to your 3 points above.
1. Great activity, but the same thing could be accomplished with any rear projection system, iboard or not. It could also be accomplished with an old fashioned overhead projector. One could also put the computer image on a tv screen with a wiimote setup for the tracing. The IWB just adds some bells and whistles.
2. Doesn't dragging the corner of a picture make it bigger or smaller the same as swiping two fingers does? If I want to scroll down a page, can't I just use the scroll bar? If that isn't good enough for you, there is an iphone/itouch app out that lets you control your computer screen with the device. Multi-touch for $200 instead of $2000. (Wiimotes do multitouch too, though I agree it wouldn't be practical.
3. Why not have students work on individual computers to collaborate on a project. You could buy 10 netbooks for the price of a single IWB, use Voicethread (free), google docs education edition (free), or make podcasts (free) and have 10 students work on a single project at the same time - together. Examples here, here, here, and here.…
content can be "out there" in the big bad web.
Next step: publish a wiki and/or blog on your own outside the school network, using edubloggers or pbwiki or some other platforms, and make sure the blog or wiki has clearly defined security parameters (moderated comments, password-required login or whatever level of security you think would be most impressive)... then publish a few posts/pages that are classroom-relevant, obviously content-related, and ask a volunteer student or two to respond in the comments (from home). Then, showcase that blog as an example to show how the security is set. Ask a school and Tech administrator to view it (preferably while you're there with them), and respectfully tell him/her that you aren't asking anything more than just to demonstrate at this point and then to hear their concerns. I think first above all, you have to show them the benefits before they'll ever let go of the drawbacks. And honestly, I think you need to understand their concerns. It's only fair. You're coming at it from an instructional viewpoint; their job is safety, and it's a huge concern to them.
Maybe by taking baby steps you can get the district to progress little by little into more web2.0 territory. Glogster and Voicethread -- among other web 2.0 sites -- take pains to make educational versions of their sites safe for teachers and students. Demonstrate those applications! Aim first just to convince the district to allow access to teacher-generated blogs, not student blogs, where teachers post content and students can read and comment. Next step, ask if the dist. will unblock specific wikis (not just wikis in general, at first) that students can READ... then later, maybe they can write to them, as well. Eventually, maybe students can post blogs or at least comment on blogs. A little at a time, very controlled so that everyone feels nice and safe.
The sandbox/training wheels/wading pool metaphors come to mind.
I know it's frustrating, but it may be the only way to edge them into deeper waters.
Also, here's the draft of the new national tech plan for education. Worthwhile to share this with admins:
Transforming American Education: Learning Powered by Technology
DRAFT - National Educational Technology Plan 2010 - March 5, 2010, Office of Educational Technology, U.S. Department of Education…
ich You Will Present: English
Target Audience(s): Teacher Librarians, Classroom Teachers, Administrators
Short Session Description (one line):
How a School Library creates a Virtual learning Commons where students learn beyond the school day on their way to becoming life-long learners.
Full Session Description (as long as you would like):
Creating a virtual learning commons takes students, teachers, and a teacher Librarian. See how a library website in transformation is becoming a 24/7 virtual and interactive learning space where we build collaborative intelligence together. You'll see activities and projects, surveys and polls, classroom, grade level, and schoolwide learning spaces, using embedded Web 2.0 tools that assist in establishing an online learning space sponsored by our school library. But these ideas and projects are not just for libraries! Ideas you can use in your classroom, at grade level, and schoolwide.
Websites / URLs Associated with Your Session:
Links and resources discussed in the presentation
Bay Farm Library/Media Center
Dr. Seuss Day Celebration
To the BookFair and Beyond
EarthWeek 2011
others within the Library Media Center site including Endangered Animals KBC, using Voicethread, creating Learning Links, 3 Minute Math, Student created PSAs: Can't Wait to Read it, Reading incentive programs, Book Blogs, Wallwisher and Discovery Streaming, WebConferencing with BlackBoard Collaborate, more.…
ne-Leo-Teaching-and-Learning-Across-the-Globe
Emerging technologies are enabling exciting and innovative ways to connect, collaborate and create with others across the world. Anne Mirtschin, a secondary teacher of a small rural prep to year 12 school in, Hawkesdale, Australia and Lorraine Leo a primary teacher in a larger school in Boston, USA met on Classroom2.0 and shared each a passion for global education and immersing technology in the classroom.
Their classes have been able to connect successfully in both synchronous and asynchronous times. A variety of tools have been used for connecting and collaborating. From simple emailing of images for classroom use, collaborative voicethreads, google docs, videoconferencing etc through to the empowering virtual classroom (DiscoverE and Blackboard Collaborate) where students have shared festivals, their passions, location etc in real time. These virtual classrooms have included a blend of different age groups, from 5 to 86 year olds, a mix of educational tiers eg students, teachers, university professors, research scientists, pre-service teachers and a mix of participants from up to five continents in the one e-classroom.
Read the chapter to discover more about this four year old friendship and the way it has impacted on their classrooms and learning within and beyond those classrooms.
Do you see this as a typical classroom of the future and something that can be achieved by many? Have you used similar or different tools for connecting and collaborating on a global scale? Do you have experiences to share with us. How important do you see global education to be? How can innovative use of technology empower learning further?…
ge, The @One Project
Co-Presenter Name(s):
Area of the World from Which You Will Present: North America/USA/California
Language in Which You Will Present: English
Target Audience(s): Higher Education
Short Session Description (one line): How Content and Learning Changes When Students Become the Online Teachers
Full Session Description (as long as you would like): How does learning change when students are given the reigns to curate and facilitate an entire learning unit? I will share an overview of a new learning activity I've designed for my online History of Photography class that meets course objectives and also fosters "mindful use of digital media" (Rheingold, 2012). In contrast to typical instructional settings that inform students what material they will learn about, this 2-week activity puts students at the helm of making choices about content selection, curation, arrangement, and presentation. In week one, their objective is to collaboratively create a learning module about the work of mid 20th century photographers. In week two, the students re-engaged with the module, learning from what each other has contributed and responding to the critical discussion prompts they planted throughout the VoiceThread presentation, which functions like a wiki in week one. What did students learn from this activity? How did this personalized approach to curating content present new challenges and new opportunities for relevant and personalized learning? Were there unexpected challenges that presented new opportunities? And what were my reflections, as the instructor, on the side line watching all of this play out? Will I do it again? Join me for an hour of candid sharing and discussing!
Websites / URLs Associated with Your Session: http://www.teachingwithoutwalls.com…
After returning to school from a two month teacher's strike, I decided
that one of the ways to bring about adoption of web2.0 skills in the
school would be to have a weekly computer club.…
Added by Reuven Werber at 2:54pm on January 12, 2008
ctly asynchrnous is Moodle. The software itself is free becuase it is open source. You will need to host the software on a server. I have heard that there are free Moodle hosts out there such as Ninehub. If you host it yourself it isn't terribly expensive, but you will need a bit of technical savy to install and set it up. Moodle tries to make it as easy as possible though. I recommend seeing if you can get an experienced Moodle administartor to assist you for the first week or so to get you up and running and orient you to administrator tools.
Moodle Considerations ...
Payment system - Moodle has a built in way to use PayPal. You can turn it on via the settings page for each course. You can also use a Paypal widget as an embedded code in an html block in the sidebar. We used the sidebar for a while in our early days as a convenient way for members to donate to ourMoodle server/ Elluminate expenses. It worked great. Since our courses were free with optional donation, I have not tried the Paypal from the settings page method.
Integrating Moodle with a synchronous option for live, online classes ...
Most of the web conferencing softwares have made Moodle add-ons that let you manage access to live web classes. I use Elluminate and I know it has a plug in; though, we merely use a link posted in a label. I am pretty sure that WizIQ, DimDim, eLectra, and NetMeeting have plug ins too.
Learning to manage it all isn't too bad. Set aside a few weks after you get the software installed and stable and you will find that you will be largely ready to get serious about course setup and management. Do have the mindset that course development happens over time. There are very few ready made courses that you can merely grab and install and have turn key for your teachers. That means that teachers will be developing Moodle and live classroom material while they teach for a while. It is a long term investment though because once everything is made, in subsequent years the instructors can merely focus on just the teaching part.
Much of our set up will apply to what you are trying to do. If you would like to tour through and be able to ask someone questions in real time, let me know. I wll also be running training sessions throughout the summer for our volunteers. You and your instructors are welcome to jump in with us. I will be teaching the volunteers how to set up, teach from, and maintain Moodle and Elluminate course material as well as teaching them some niftty uses for many of the wonderful free tools out there such as VoiceThread, Cmap, etc. Our training sessions will begin about mid May.…
My son works for the IT department of our local school district, so I also have that input. I have learned a lot about both the instructor's side and the tech administrator's side of the story. Some educational tools really put a lot of strain on limited resources of RAM, disk space, bandwidth, and IT staff time. Our Moodle had to be moved to a dedicated server because its RAM needs were so high. We bumped up our disk space over the summer and in a mere 6 weeks filled it all up and had to bump up again. We can easily perceive network slow down when streaming videos run. Videos on-server take so much disk space to house them on-site they gobble up disk space faster than any other type of resource we have, so we opt for alternatives such as VoiceThread and off-site streaming that the kids access outside of class time when possible. For instance, I have family newsletters that go out for each module in my science classes to alert parents and students to some the great resources that they can access from home so we don't tie up bandwidth more than necessary during class time.
Knowing software well enough to know how to keep it from hogging more than it needs to is a big help. In our Moodle, I am starting to pull off the duplicate backups to my own system and removing the redundant one because our analysis shows that the backups are taking up 43% of our disk space resources. We are running 'tighter' so that we can slow down our exponentially growing need for hard drive space. We have to pay for that space ourselves as a group, so we have incentive to run efficiently while still meet the needs of the kids.
With be being part in the teacher role and part in the admin role and having a son on a school district IT staff, I see how the desire to have these resources plays against the limited resources that are available. The only real solution is to try to keep the resources expanding and select options when possible to make efficient use of what you have. In the real world though, we all know that resource use and expansion has a lot of team playing involved. See what can be done to build the team. What are the most immediate walls in the system? How can the team work together to reduce or eliminate the walls? How can we analyze what we have to determine where we can do something more efficient in an area that would make a big impact of resource availability to other things that we want to do?…
Added by Tammy Moore at 9:07am on September 29, 2009