...Is on its way! I can feel it. It has infused its way into my every thought, even into my curriculum planning. As I was at the store buying seeds and peet starters for my own garden, the thought came to me to bring my love of growing living things into the classroom. For such a unit the vocabulary options are endless, higher level thinking skills ingrained, and instant engagement almost guaranteed. Why not? I started searching the internet for lesson plans and projects related to plants. There are tons: plant parts, cells, functions, life cycle, forcing blooms, greenhouses, and bird houses, oh my! I will easily be able to pull and adapt those that will fulfill the standards I still need to incorporate this year. I am going to collaborate with the science teacher so that I can reinforce the concepts my ELA students will need for that core class. I'm looking forward to sharing my excitement and love of learning about plants with my students. I know how greatly my own enthusiasm affects theirs.
Ooops! I just looked outside. Snow. Lots of it. But, I am not going to let that dampen my bright, sunny thoughts. Come on spring...
Sunday, March 13, 2011
Friday, March 4, 2011
Argh!
What a frustrating week! On Monday, I was fully prepared after spending hours over the weekend finalizing the lesson plan and creating the model video for our theme project. I had the computer lab booked, and the set up instructions on the eboard for students to create their own accounts at masher.com. As usual, it took a while for the students to create their user names, passwords, and in some cases mailinator e-mail accounts, to successfully register with the site. I have 17 students in this particular class. Once they were all up on masher the trouble started. "Mrs. Blick, Mrs. Blick, it's not working," "Mrs. Blick, I can't hear anything," "Mrs. Blick, it's frozen!" Yes, the site must have been overloaded and only a few students had functionality to work on their videos. The following day I separated the students into two groups and had one group work on an alternative activity in the hopes that fewer students logged in would free up the site. However, there were still several students whose applications ran far too slow and they were unable to make any progress. So, after 3 hours in the lab working on this project we have very little to show for it. And with CSAP coming up, I'm hesitant to spend any more time on it. What have I learned? Well, that even the best laid plans don't ensure success every time!
Friday, February 25, 2011
Do Web 2.0 Right
This article defines three elements that shape how the teachers they interviewed use web 2.0 tools in their classrooms. The three elements are instituting daily practice, carefully considering the audience, and teaching and enforcing appropriate behavior. I will consider how these three elements affect my efforts to incorporate web 2.0 activities in my classroom.
First of all, daily practice is a struggle as we have just one classroom computer. Therefore, I usually schedule at LEAST one to two days a week for each class in the computer labs and create assignments for students to access on my eboard. I can't wait to try out the ipod touches Kimberly wrote a grant for and is currently using with her students. I am already compiling many applications for daily use with that tool.
The second element is consideration of the audience. I believe that with middle school students this is critical and will make or break an activity. I love the idea of using blogs as communication between myself and individual students. I think they will be much more open to sharing ideas of a personal nature if they know only I will be reading it. I wonder if there is a way to create a blog where others cannot access the content? I will look into it. However, I also think a spirited debate on a less personal topic would motivate all of my students. For example, in my Cowboy unit students write a persuasive essay on their view of the treatment of animals in rodeo, ranch work, or charreadas. I would like to first have a web 2.0 debate for students to argue their position before writing their essay. This way they will see other perspectives before settling on their own stance.
Finally, the article discusses appropriate online behavior. The main idea I took from this element is to limit access to a particular class. For example, I created my first class wiki to be used by all of my classes. Now, I can see the advantages and would prefer to have a separate wiki for each class. One, it will give the class ownership, and two, it offers more security to students as they know only their class will have access to it.
So, I have a few changes I want to make based on the information in this article. I think the first thing I will do is create the separate wikis since I already know how to do that and it won't take forever to figure it out. One thing at a time...
First of all, daily practice is a struggle as we have just one classroom computer. Therefore, I usually schedule at LEAST one to two days a week for each class in the computer labs and create assignments for students to access on my eboard. I can't wait to try out the ipod touches Kimberly wrote a grant for and is currently using with her students. I am already compiling many applications for daily use with that tool.
The second element is consideration of the audience. I believe that with middle school students this is critical and will make or break an activity. I love the idea of using blogs as communication between myself and individual students. I think they will be much more open to sharing ideas of a personal nature if they know only I will be reading it. I wonder if there is a way to create a blog where others cannot access the content? I will look into it. However, I also think a spirited debate on a less personal topic would motivate all of my students. For example, in my Cowboy unit students write a persuasive essay on their view of the treatment of animals in rodeo, ranch work, or charreadas. I would like to first have a web 2.0 debate for students to argue their position before writing their essay. This way they will see other perspectives before settling on their own stance.
Finally, the article discusses appropriate online behavior. The main idea I took from this element is to limit access to a particular class. For example, I created my first class wiki to be used by all of my classes. Now, I can see the advantages and would prefer to have a separate wiki for each class. One, it will give the class ownership, and two, it offers more security to students as they know only their class will have access to it.
So, I have a few changes I want to make based on the information in this article. I think the first thing I will do is create the separate wikis since I already know how to do that and it won't take forever to figure it out. One thing at a time...
Sunday, February 13, 2011
Be Flexible
If there's one thing I've learned from incorporating technology into the curriculum, it's that you'd better be flexible and ready for anything. Unfortunately, technology is not always reliable and you may have to shoot from the hip when it lets you down. For example, just this week I had two flops. First, I had my assignment all planned out to begin with a BrainPOP video and activity on Information Privacy. So, there they are all logging in and one by one I hear "Mrs. Blick!" and "It's not working!" Sure enough, for some reason that one video would not load on any of their computers. Second, I told my students that they would be creating a video presentation to go with a speech they'd already written on a theme to unite our school. I gave them examples from Youtube to look at of what I had in mind for them to create. Well...I hadn't researched quite enough to find the right application to create said videos, and now I'm not sure it's even possible without spending money to buy the tool. imovie won't work for our purpose because the flip cameras have disappeared from our school, and animoto takes "several weeks" to respond to my request for an educator's account. What's left for free is a measly 30 second picture show that doesn't allow for more than 20 characters of text! Still haven't figured out for sure what to do about that. Anyways, headaches aside, I'm still on board and will continue my endeavors to incorporate technology more and more. I'm just sayin'....it's good to be forewarned that you'll probably encounter an occasional glitch in the matrix!
Sunday, January 30, 2011
I have so many ideas!
Seriously, I do. I just wish I had the time to pursue each one. There are so many exciting possibilities for lesson planning and 21st Century Learning. The applications tumble around in my head but the reality is that I have to pick just one to work on at a time. Even then, the hours I spend researching for one lesson quickly add up. It's Sunday, I've been at it for 3 1/2 hours, it's getting dark, and if my husband wasn't here to remind me of life's other occupations, I'd be here for a few more. But don't worry, I took Saturday off completely and enjoyed some rest and relaxation.
My current time-suck is a lesson I'm creating related to a speech my students began writing on a theme to unite our school. I perused YouTube for 45 minutes just looking for a few examples to inspire the kiddos. My goal is to have them create a video presentation to go with their theme. They will use text from their speech, inspirational quotes, music, and graphics that will inspire their viewers to embrace the message. The next step in the lesson planning is for Mrs. Blick to select the tool and figure out how to use it herself. Hmmm...I wonder how many hours will that take?
My current time-suck is a lesson I'm creating related to a speech my students began writing on a theme to unite our school. I perused YouTube for 45 minutes just looking for a few examples to inspire the kiddos. My goal is to have them create a video presentation to go with their theme. They will use text from their speech, inspirational quotes, music, and graphics that will inspire their viewers to embrace the message. The next step in the lesson planning is for Mrs. Blick to select the tool and figure out how to use it herself. Hmmm...I wonder how many hours will that take?
Sunday, January 23, 2011
Testing
Agghh-Testing! It's not quite as exciting as 21st century learning, that's for sure. But, it is reality and I'm determined to help my students learn how to be successful testers. Now, I'm not sure how this ties in to my technology journey but it's what is on my mind this week so that's what I'm blogging about.
We just wrapped up CELA testing and CSAP will be here in no time. I don't know that my students, all ELA and a high percentage SPED, have often felt the satisfaction of a test well done. Therefore, this week we are beginning Larry Bell's UNRAAVEL, a method to tackle reading comprehension tests. I believe that just having a game plan to attack a reading passage will help my students immensely. It will give them a place to start and some feeling of control if they have concrete steps to follow. Afterward, we'll spend a while learning how to write "Better Answers" to standardized test prompts. This is based on a text by Ardith Davis Cole called Better Answers: Written Performance That Looks Good and Sounds Smart.
I plan to have my students write pre and post reflections on this process and hope to see a new confidence emerge towards test-taking. Stay tuned!
We just wrapped up CELA testing and CSAP will be here in no time. I don't know that my students, all ELA and a high percentage SPED, have often felt the satisfaction of a test well done. Therefore, this week we are beginning Larry Bell's UNRAAVEL, a method to tackle reading comprehension tests. I believe that just having a game plan to attack a reading passage will help my students immensely. It will give them a place to start and some feeling of control if they have concrete steps to follow. Afterward, we'll spend a while learning how to write "Better Answers" to standardized test prompts. This is based on a text by Ardith Davis Cole called Better Answers: Written Performance That Looks Good and Sounds Smart.
I plan to have my students write pre and post reflections on this process and hope to see a new confidence emerge towards test-taking. Stay tuned!
Sunday, January 9, 2011
Jing
This week I finally made my own screen casts with Jing, something I'd been meaning to do for a while now. What a great tool! With an entire class in the computer lab, I'm able to show multiple students how to do something at the same time without saying a word! After three months of school, some of my students were still struggling to save documents to the server. Well, not any more. I keep the Jing video on the eboard for each assignment so they can re-watch as needed. I also used Jing to show students the first steps to setting up a Powerpoint for their book talk. It considerably lessened the number of repeat questions from students and they got a lot more accomplished in one period. Now that I know how easy it is to use it will become a regular part of the implementation of our computer lab activities.
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