First online collaboration!

Finally got to do a collaborative project with Mary D. and Lisa G. Since the three of us all have at least one sophomore level class, and since at least one of our class periods overlap, we decided to do an inter-class live blog on Coveritlive around an excerpt from an essay that all of the students read. Because two other teachers also teach sophomore level English, they were included, so we ended up with four sophomore level classes plus an upper classmen American Literature class and several teachers all participating throughout the day!

Prior to the discussion, we introduced our students to Bloom's Taxonomy and Costa's Levels of Inquiry and then worked with them on developing higher level questions to use during the blog. I had my students submit the questions to me via a Google form I posted on my class webpage. Google forms are my new thing so far this year; I've been having the students submit a good bit of information that way, and I can see the potential for having them take quizzes that way as well, assuming I can get them on individual computers that day. I've decided that I really would like to become a Google-certified educator... I hope they do another training in Boulder soon!!

It seemed to go well... the blog went live just before the start of school and stayed live until the end of the day; the longest blog session I've ever done. Aside from some technical glitches with getting others signed in, the day seemed to go well, especially once everyone got the hang of it. The students in my room were highly engaged; one remarked that he wished we could do live blogging every day because he was learning so much that day.

The most intense part of it was keeping up with the posts. I have the controls set so that all posts must be approved by me or by another producer (the other teachers involved), so when there are something like 80 kids or so posting, it gets pretty crazy. I've posted some other thoughts on it here on my teacher blog... feel free to check it out and comment if you'd like.

Google Docs are, well.... great!

I was wondering what the big deal was about Google docs so I decided to check it out on You Tube. I found a great video aimed at educators http://help.youtube.com/educators/p_docs.html and decided to try it out with my reading groups as a guided lesson for writing book reviews for our blog. http://4hughes.blogspot.com/ I checked out some laptops and then sat down with my group to write our first blog entries. I was able to do some of the typing, which really sped things up, but yet the students were able to add the most important details and thus feel ownership in the project. They were so excited to see their first post on the blog... and so was I.
One thing I would change is to have the students have another window open so that when it is not their turn to type (or if they are not helping someone type) they will not have too much down time. This could be a little tricky, as I don't want it to interfere with the discussions and collaboration, but I'm thinking something that is easy to start and stop would work just fine.
If you haven't already tried it, I would recommend giving google docs a try!

Reflections on a week of technolgy

(Cross posted on my teacher blog.)

Happy International Day of Peace, everyone! I read an article in the paper reporting on how various factions that have been involved in armed conflict have agreed to not fight at all out of respect for the day, which begs the question, if they can do it for one day, why can't they do it permanently?? *sigh*

We had the laptops in my classroom for the entire week, which should have been great, right? Yeah, well.... *ahem*.

The biggest frustration was students who couldn't remember their passwords for their blogs and/or their school email accounts (even more so the ones who'd forgotten them from the day before). I expected that the first day would be refreshing memories, but we ended up losing two days to that, and even more for some students. Add to that the various technical difficulties, including Google not publishing posts on blogs even though I watched the student write the blog and click "publish now," and it made for a very interesting adventure, to be sure. There were times when I felt like just saying "forget it, let's just use paper and pen or pencil," but then I remembered that for some students, this technology is completely new to them, and as such, require a certain amount of patience from me. Just because this generation has been called "digital natives" doesn't mean all of them were born in the same technological land (figuratively speaking). The digital divide was very prevalent in the room, and I almost blinked and didn't see it.

I think that by and large, the week was a success. Yes, there were some students who in spite of my watching over them and giving and paying as much attention as I could still managed to slip through the cracks, but most of the students took advantage of the opportunity, so I'm pleased.

This week we go back to the "regular" world of not having instant access to all of the technology we need. I have six desktops in my room now so up to six students can blog or work on their essays at a time, though, so I expect we'll still get a lot done; maybe even more since I only need to watch six instead of twenty-six or so.

I've started reading over some of the personal narratives, and there are some really amazing pieces of writing there. There are some structural issues and the like, but last week was about getting the words down; this week is about making them better. I'm looking forward to the finished product, and I am thinking of asking some students about posting their work to the web, and since Google docs has that as an option, it will be really easy to do, and I can put the link on the class webpage... yet another way to make the writing more "real world."

Parent/teacher conferences

Last night's Back to School night/parent-teacher conferences went particularly well. I made it a point to show the parents the class webpage and talked about the paperless policy of my classroom, blogs, Google Docs, and the idea that I'm using the technology to get the students ready for both higher education and the job world. I also invited them to listen to any of the podcasts or read the notes for themselves if they wanted to. More than one parent made a comment along the lines of "Oh, I like that!" and one parent that I had previously emailed to invite to last night's conference said "Oh, I've already been there, and I read [my daughter's] blog." The student's eyes got big, and she said, "You did??!" :-)

I even used the downtime to help the rest of my team create class webpages on Google Sites, and I even got the math teacher to (finally) set up his blog and link to it on his class webpage.

A great night from a Global Learner point of view. :-D

CLAS this spring

I've been invited to be a presenter at the CLAS Regional Spring Conference this March. Subject: the digital classroom in the 21st century. I'm psyched but nervous at the same time. I mean, it's obviously something I'm super enthusiastic about: I'm going to talk about Google Docs, blogging, podcasting, and so forth, but still... it's in front of GROWN UPS, not teenagers! EEEEEKK! (ha ha!)

I'm also looking into the possibility of getting up to that other high school I'd mentioned in an earlier post to train their teachers on digital classrooms. I mentioned the whole thing to Stevi Quate (you know her if you've been involved in the UCD teacher candidate program), who, as it turns out, is familiar with that school and their staff; she "knows people" there, and so is going to look into getting them up to speed as well... stay tuned on that one.

What have I gotten myself into?? ;-)

On a side note, I've recently written an article for an online magazine, Elephant Journal, about digital classrooms. It's the first of a series on education that I've been asked to collaborate on with them. If you're interested, you can check it out here, but you'll likely have to do it at home... last I knew, the SmartFilter blocked it at work. And check out the shirt in my pics. ;-)

Woohoo! Got another one to blog :-)

So I'm pretty proud of myself. The one teacher that said she would never use blogs in her classroom has started blogging with and for her students. :-) I sat down with her after school one day and worked her through the process. Her next step is setting up a class webpage, which she says she is open to doing also. Yay!

On the other hand, my son's best friend attends Horizon High School and wants to start getting his teachers involved in technology. He asked his history teacher for their email address so he could email assignments to them, and was rebuffed with a rather unclear explanation: "something about the school email addresses not being able to do it for some reason." That may be true, but at the same time I wonder if it again is simply fear and unwillingness to use new technology. I'm tempted to see if I could do a presentation to the district 12 teachers on green classrooms. Perhaps I could get Blake (my son's friend) to see if his teachers would be interested in a training along those lines. After talking with Zach about CSU going green and his instructors use of technology, the idea that teachers aren't using technology when they can is rather disappointing. I've been invited to be a presenter at the CLAS conference this spring around the use of blogs, Google docs, etc., but I would like to get the ball rolling on this sooner... besides, if I can get in to do a training at district 12, then I can get practice before I do it this spring. :-)

Civil War and Google Docs

I've created some lesson plans using Google Docs to get students to think more critically and collaborate.

Civil War and Google Docs 2

Civil War and Google Docs 1

I used www.scribd.com, a resourced that I heard from Sharon Peters. I'm really excited to find a place to upload lessons and that can be interactive. Visitors can view my lesson plans and add comments and questions. On a side note my student teacher said she had to pay for a service through CUD that allowed her to put in her lesson plans and papers for grading and feedback! After I showed her this service she was a little upset that she was spending money on something that was harder to use. I love Web 2.0, especially when its FREE!!!!

I used the SIOP lesson plan template, which helped me reflect on my lessons from the lens of an ELA Teacher--which I should have been doing. However, the last few weeks I have been so consumed by getting my students to think critically that I've over looked the language barrier. I need to take a step back and make sure they have received good comprehensible input before I get them to think and do things with the information.

I've been thinking alot about essential questions lately, I'd like to think some more about how to use the Essential Questions to create language targets and to allow students to apply and use their background knowledge -- even if they have no understanding of American History.

{this post is cross posted with my website}