For those who may stop by my Blog, I have questions:
1. I created an avatar, but I have no idea how to move her to my Blog (or anywhere else for that matter). Can you assist?
2. Not all of my Webcasts were successes. How do I delete less than impressive Webcasts from the MHS site---or are they doomed to reside there forever?
3. What's the best remote headset (and/ or microphone) for Webcasts? Where should I buy it (Staples? Microcenter?)
Thanks, ahead of time, to anyone who has answers....
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Googledocs Revisited
I have engaged in another googledocs classroom activity. The idea was fellow teacher Lee Lowery's--& I am excited about the results. We asked our students to write contextual sentences collaboratively, using google docs. For 20 vocabulary words, students each wrote 10 sentences, editing the 10 sentences of the collaborative partner. The outcome? Actually, the number of errors was no better (perhaps they aren't great editors of each other's work) ---what WAS better is the fact that 100% of students submitted the sentences. Interesting. Was it the technology or the collaboration-- or both?--that empowered every student to submit the work?
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
Going Global,Culture Shock,Convergence, and The Future of Education
I tuned in to an archived K-12 post on the above title, and here are my ruminations:
1. A recurrent theme: what students want to learn and what they need to do with what they've learned has changed, so American (actually global) education needs to change as well. I felt many of my inherent biases (biases I didn't even know I had) under fire here, and had to acknowledge that although I like to think of myself as fairly progressive in my educational philosophy--as well as my practices--that, indeed, I have a long way to go. Historically, online universities have always seemed a bit suspect to me: Can such institutions really compare to the ivy covered Georgian architecture and the cordoroy blazered professors of my own undergraduate days? Weren't the late night fiery political debates which happened long after dorm lock down really where much of my education was spawned? How can the (what I considered) solitary interaction oif man & computer ever compete with the dynamic post secondary experience most of us had in the sixties? Aha! (English teachers love to talk of --& create--"Aha! moments"): the internet as collaboration. As preposterous as it may seem to those of you much younger and more technologically savvy than myself, the computer has been more akin to Hal 2001 A Space Odyssey than a feast of global collaboration.
The bell has rung (I'm a teacher, you know) so more later....
1. A recurrent theme: what students want to learn and what they need to do with what they've learned has changed, so American (actually global) education needs to change as well. I felt many of my inherent biases (biases I didn't even know I had) under fire here, and had to acknowledge that although I like to think of myself as fairly progressive in my educational philosophy--as well as my practices--that, indeed, I have a long way to go. Historically, online universities have always seemed a bit suspect to me: Can such institutions really compare to the ivy covered Georgian architecture and the cordoroy blazered professors of my own undergraduate days? Weren't the late night fiery political debates which happened long after dorm lock down really where much of my education was spawned? How can the (what I considered) solitary interaction oif man & computer ever compete with the dynamic post secondary experience most of us had in the sixties? Aha! (English teachers love to talk of --& create--"Aha! moments"): the internet as collaboration. As preposterous as it may seem to those of you much younger and more technologically savvy than myself, the computer has been more akin to Hal 2001 A Space Odyssey than a feast of global collaboration.
The bell has rung (I'm a teacher, you know) so more later....
Googledocs & the Powerpoint Feature or How I'm Learning as I Go
I've copied & pasted an email I sent to my principal regarding the Googledocs "experiment" as it includes quotes from my students, responding to the assignment:
Sorry for the delay in response, but I wanted to take a few moments to actually poll the students regarding your question, and I found that time today. Essentially, the students were enthusiastic about googledocs as a collaborative vehicle: "It's simpler," "Everyone has access in real time," "It's almost impossible for groups to find a good time to meet face-to-face so Googledocs is a great alternative," "Easy to share," "Very helpful." Clearly, the consensus was that for the essay part of the assignment, Googledocs was a wonderful collaborative tool.
They suggested,however, that Google could improve its usability: "Microsoft Word is easier to navigate," "Using the Powerpoint feature on Googledocs is like going to Hell and back." Students suggested that the Powerpoint production would have been easier on Word, even though such would necessitate creating slides & emailing them back & forth. I suggested they produce their powerpoint production portion of the assignment ( What did I know?) and they complied because AP students ALWAYS do what they're told, even if the instructions are foolish. So: we all learned something doing this assignment.
( I hope you don't mind, but I'm going to copy and paste this email, adding it to my 21st Century Skills class blog because I've been taught to work smart, not hard and blogging about this experience is a class assignment.)
Cheryl
Sorry for the delay in response, but I wanted to take a few moments to actually poll the students regarding your question, and I found that time today. Essentially, the students were enthusiastic about googledocs as a collaborative vehicle: "It's simpler," "Everyone has access in real time," "It's almost impossible for groups to find a good time to meet face-to-face so Googledocs is a great alternative," "Easy to share," "Very helpful." Clearly, the consensus was that for the essay part of the assignment, Googledocs was a wonderful collaborative tool.
They suggested,however, that Google could improve its usability: "Microsoft Word is easier to navigate," "Using the Powerpoint feature on Googledocs is like going to Hell and back." Students suggested that the Powerpoint production would have been easier on Word, even though such would necessitate creating slides & emailing them back & forth. I suggested they produce their powerpoint production portion of the assignment ( What did I know?) and they complied because AP students ALWAYS do what they're told, even if the instructions are foolish. So: we all learned something doing this assignment.
( I hope you don't mind, but I'm going to copy and paste this email, adding it to my 21st Century Skills class blog because I've been taught to work smart, not hard and blogging about this experience is a class assignment.)
Cheryl
Tuesday, January 5, 2010
Hurrah! I have finished my reading assignment (although a bit late..) and feel absolutely empowered to try some of this great new technology. Indeed, I facilitated podcasts for my students before Christmas so I guess we dabbled in the new Maslow Heirarchy of "creativity" with limited success. Here's what I did wrong: not checking that the microphone continued to be plugged in AFTER the custodians vacuumed my classroom at night. Here's what the kids did right: they used Google docs to collaborate (& I LOVE --as did they--the ease of simultaneous collaboration that Googledocs provides) on a stylistic analysis of different specified passages of The Scarlet Letter. They used the powerpoint feature on Googledocs to create a presentation.
As they presented to the class, they spoke into the microphone (which worked for the first 2 days), creating a podcast of their presentations. Therefore, students who were absent could check out the podcasts for not only their own group's productions, but those of others. We used the podcast/presentation as a "rough draft" of the paper they would write collaboratively (for they received critiques from me as well as from their peers). I would do it again (checking the microphone this time), so you know I found the experience a valuable learning vehicle for the kids. I suppose I should imbed a podcast here, but I'm not sure it would work, so I'll just direct you to the podcast page if you want to check it out.
As far as ways I'd like to encourage students to use HOTS instead of LOTS: I'm really excited to try Voicethread and/or Animito in a couple of ways: for my AP kids: we study pictures as texts. As a follow up activity, I'd like to assign a topic (like the Poverty one suggested) & ask a collaborative group to create a Voicethread or Animito---keeping in mind the strategies we study for manipulating one's readership to understand the message: fun! For CP: we study Whitman poetry. I'd like to assign each collaborative group a poem & ask them to use Animito to symbolically "picture" the poem as well as appropriate audio to capture its mood. I'm also intrigued with the idea of Photostory to use as a rough draft before AP writes personal narratives. So many exciting options! I'll let you know how it goes....
As they presented to the class, they spoke into the microphone (which worked for the first 2 days), creating a podcast of their presentations. Therefore, students who were absent could check out the podcasts for not only their own group's productions, but those of others. We used the podcast/presentation as a "rough draft" of the paper they would write collaboratively (for they received critiques from me as well as from their peers). I would do it again (checking the microphone this time), so you know I found the experience a valuable learning vehicle for the kids. I suppose I should imbed a podcast here, but I'm not sure it would work, so I'll just direct you to the podcast page if you want to check it out.
As far as ways I'd like to encourage students to use HOTS instead of LOTS: I'm really excited to try Voicethread and/or Animito in a couple of ways: for my AP kids: we study pictures as texts. As a follow up activity, I'd like to assign a topic (like the Poverty one suggested) & ask a collaborative group to create a Voicethread or Animito---keeping in mind the strategies we study for manipulating one's readership to understand the message: fun! For CP: we study Whitman poetry. I'd like to assign each collaborative group a poem & ask them to use Animito to symbolically "picture" the poem as well as appropriate audio to capture its mood. I'm also intrigued with the idea of Photostory to use as a rough draft before AP writes personal narratives. So many exciting options! I'll let you know how it goes....
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