This week's assignments again have me cleaning up and simplifying. I have found that the process of simplification is not as easy as it may sound. I think one of the reasons for this is that in education we often think of the more you know the better, so we translate that to the more we teach the better our students will be.
I am still enjoying Zen because it is doing two things for me. The first is giving me some overarching ideas that I can try to always have in mind when creating presentations. The second is that it still has some solid concrete steps to follow. I really enjoyed the rules for going analog and concrete process steps at the end of chapter four. The balance between big picture and small directions is just right for keeping me interested and directed in my work.
I think Voicethread as a program is something that almost forces the author to follow the Zen model in that the pictures are the emphasis, text is off to the side, and you are limited, which forces a focus on a key concept or idea. I also really like how my planning went. I planned out my Civil Right presentation in a notebook, sketching out ideas and pictures that I wanted. I then went and found the exact pictures, rather than scanning the thousands of images for hours. The whole planning, researching, and creating process went much more smoothly and quickly then had I stayed on the computer the whole time. I was really happy with the process.
Final point, I think VoiceThread has great possibilities for my students this year as it is a very easy interface. I also like the idea of having other students see, and comment on each others work. I should be a fun option to give students this fall for possible presentations.
Monday, August 24, 2009
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
Digital Story Telling Week #1
I feel reinvigorated by the first week of this course. The posterous assignment has really been a lot of fun and has got me started thinking about ways to use pictures to tell the story of my class, of my students, of what I'm teaching. So many avenues seem to have appeared before me. I think the most realistic ones for this year are to have students use the posterous assignment for the SLC artifact. The student led conference is meant to have students reflect on their learning during the year and present it to their parents and home room teacher. I've been thinking posterous blogs would be a fun way for some kids to approach the presentation. The second potential plan is to create a picture gallery covering the class as a whole, it would be great to get every student during the year and document the work they have been doing. At the end of the year it would be a great document to show how far they have come in their understanding of the world around us.
The second item I'm excited about is the Presentation Zen book. According to the book, my presentations weren't killing anyone, but they did present a clear and present danger to the sanity of my students. I know I hate the presentations I see at my inservices, why would I put my kids through that like it is a rite of passage or something. Clean, concise and clear are my new objectives, and I love the idea of a handout for the students that they can use to reflect on the presentation afterwards. I think this manner of delivery will also lead to a productive discussion with questions on the handout and the presentation. Finally, I'm looking forward to using this new format to help my students better grasp the concept of taking notes after a presentation and prioritizing information.
Great start to a new class. I'm hopeful that it will continue.
The second item I'm excited about is the Presentation Zen book. According to the book, my presentations weren't killing anyone, but they did present a clear and present danger to the sanity of my students. I know I hate the presentations I see at my inservices, why would I put my kids through that like it is a rite of passage or something. Clean, concise and clear are my new objectives, and I love the idea of a handout for the students that they can use to reflect on the presentation afterwards. I think this manner of delivery will also lead to a productive discussion with questions on the handout and the presentation. Finally, I'm looking forward to using this new format to help my students better grasp the concept of taking notes after a presentation and prioritizing information.
Great start to a new class. I'm hopeful that it will continue.
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Biggest Place for Improvement
Going through the nine strategies these last few weeks, has made me realize that I want to make a concerted effort this coming year to focus on two areas. They are providing feedback and recognizing effort. I think I have always known that it was important to give feedback on in class discussion, assignments, writings, and tests, but I think over the last couple of weeks I've discovered a new tool that I can use. I really want to have my students submitting their work online prior to final draft, so that they can get comments and feedback, make corrections, if necessary, then submit their final work. I think this can be huge for me and for them. I also want to create rubrics for all work, so that the objectives are clearly laid out and I can focus on them when I'm grading.
The second area is recognizing effort. I really feel like there is a problem at my school with students feeling that they can just go through the motions and do marginal work and feel like they deserve an A or a B. I think this year I'm going to try and incorporate some of the characteristics of effort into my calculations. I think that this will be a good way to encourage the top level students to push their capabilities and reward the average students who really do give their absolute best effort to succeed. I'm looking forward to the year and these changes.
The second area is recognizing effort. I really feel like there is a problem at my school with students feeling that they can just go through the motions and do marginal work and feel like they deserve an A or a B. I think this year I'm going to try and incorporate some of the characteristics of effort into my calculations. I think that this will be a good way to encourage the top level students to push their capabilities and reward the average students who really do give their absolute best effort to succeed. I'm looking forward to the year and these changes.
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Organizer Comparison
This weeks assignment was the great organizer comparison, specifically the functionality and ease of use of three web tools. The three tools that I chose to use and kick around for the last couple of days were Bubbl.us, Exploratree and the Education Oasis section on Graphic Organizers.
In terms of the three I choose Bubbl.us is slightly different because I viewed it as a place where students could go individually or as collaborative groups to help with organization of ideas. I think this tool would be great for students to work on a project together and divide up roles that could be color coded within Bubbl.us. Each could contribute the majority of their notes to their sections, but still help the others. They are then able to manipulate their concept map to make connections and bring all their information together. Bubble.us would be a great 1st step for a group that was wanting to create a project or write a paper together, making sure they were all on the same page and were writing with the same ideas and organizational structure.
The last two tools have the feel, to me, of teacher tools. The seem like a way to create and deliver a method for students to organize their knowledge. They would not be as adaptable for the students once they received them. I have already bookmarked these two sites for this year, because they had a lot of options and were well organized by goals. I liked how both sites offered suggestions on how each type of organizer might be used in the class. One of the sites, in my opinion, was significantly more valuable to me than the other. The key difference was adaptability. The Education Oasis organizers were given in PDF form and needed to be printed out. On the other hand Exploratree's organizers could be manipulated, shared, displayed and saved all online so that a teacher could create their own personal virtual binder of specific organizers that were geared towards their subjects and objectives. This overwhelmingly impressed me. The thought of being able to go back online and simply and easily edit my organizer making changes, even for a period later in the day is very impressive.
Overall, all three tools were easy to use from day one, but the best ones were those that allowed collaboration between students and teachers, as well as between students. Those were bubbl.us and Exploratree.
In terms of the three I choose Bubbl.us is slightly different because I viewed it as a place where students could go individually or as collaborative groups to help with organization of ideas. I think this tool would be great for students to work on a project together and divide up roles that could be color coded within Bubbl.us. Each could contribute the majority of their notes to their sections, but still help the others. They are then able to manipulate their concept map to make connections and bring all their information together. Bubble.us would be a great 1st step for a group that was wanting to create a project or write a paper together, making sure they were all on the same page and were writing with the same ideas and organizational structure.
The last two tools have the feel, to me, of teacher tools. The seem like a way to create and deliver a method for students to organize their knowledge. They would not be as adaptable for the students once they received them. I have already bookmarked these two sites for this year, because they had a lot of options and were well organized by goals. I liked how both sites offered suggestions on how each type of organizer might be used in the class. One of the sites, in my opinion, was significantly more valuable to me than the other. The key difference was adaptability. The Education Oasis organizers were given in PDF form and needed to be printed out. On the other hand Exploratree's organizers could be manipulated, shared, displayed and saved all online so that a teacher could create their own personal virtual binder of specific organizers that were geared towards their subjects and objectives. This overwhelmingly impressed me. The thought of being able to go back online and simply and easily edit my organizer making changes, even for a period later in the day is very impressive.
Overall, all three tools were easy to use from day one, but the best ones were those that allowed collaboration between students and teachers, as well as between students. Those were bubbl.us and Exploratree.
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
Electronic Student Response
A couple of items are available to me this coming year. The first is Moodle, which has been great. One of the features that I started with this past year is the journal feature. It is exactly what it sounds like a journal that the students will be keeping about my class. The really nice feature for me is that it is private, so the kids don't need to worry about what their peers will see or say about their posts, and it also allows me to post feedback to them and comment about what they write and to ask questions that work as great starters for the next post.
The second tool that I like is Google Docs. I started adding comments to their assignments before giving their grades, so they can make a round or more, if necessary, of improvements before final grading. They then send me an email when they have made their changes and they get their grade plus a second round of comments. I like this because it makes these assignments better in the end and helps the students to see what I'm looking for, where they are succeeding, and where they need to do a little more work. The only major change for me is that I really need to set two deadlines, and it is hard to track down my students who have trouble making one deadline.
The final tool, and also the newest is the Centio sp? system that my dept. is going to purchase this summer. We have them in the math dept for quizzes and such, but I envision using them as conversation starters and a way to check for understanding. I'm really interested by the option of polling my class and seeing where they stand on a certain issue initially, after discussion, after learning more on the topic.
I think all three of these tools will help me to do a better job of keeping my finger on the pulse of my class as a whole, and the pulse of individual students.
The second tool that I like is Google Docs. I started adding comments to their assignments before giving their grades, so they can make a round or more, if necessary, of improvements before final grading. They then send me an email when they have made their changes and they get their grade plus a second round of comments. I like this because it makes these assignments better in the end and helps the students to see what I'm looking for, where they are succeeding, and where they need to do a little more work. The only major change for me is that I really need to set two deadlines, and it is hard to track down my students who have trouble making one deadline.
The final tool, and also the newest is the Centio sp? system that my dept. is going to purchase this summer. We have them in the math dept for quizzes and such, but I envision using them as conversation starters and a way to check for understanding. I'm really interested by the option of polling my class and seeing where they stand on a certain issue initially, after discussion, after learning more on the topic.
I think all three of these tools will help me to do a better job of keeping my finger on the pulse of my class as a whole, and the pulse of individual students.
Monday, July 6, 2009
Feedback
I really liked this week's blog article and see it as a skill that I do need to work on. It is primarily to help with feedback that I am making an effort to create rubrics starting with all the major assignments during my year, and some generic rubrics that will work with some of my smaller daily type assignments.
My hope is that these rubrics will do exactly what the article suggests, which is to focus on the learning objectives. Having the rubric at the top of the assignment will allow me to have that reminder of what I asked of the students and where my primary focus should be when grading and giving comments.
The second benefit I'm hoping to receive from creating rubrics is to increase the speed with which grading and feedback is given. I know it probably isn't appropriate to do something simply to speed up the process, but I've found that the time commitment to grading is killing me. I'm sure many of you are in the same boat, but I have approximately 140 students on my team, and they all take Geography. That means whenever I give out a major assignment, I have a huge, imposing, heavy, cumbersome stack of big time assignments to grade. Sometimes I'm almost too embarrassed to hand them back because of how long it has taken. I need to find a way to pick up the pace, and I'm hoping that the rubrics will not only help my students focus on the objectives of the assignment, but also help me focus more on the specific stated objectives.
This article spoke to me much more clearly than last weeks and I also felt like it was offering me a way to make myself a better teacher not only for my students, but for myself, and I appreciate that.
My hope is that these rubrics will do exactly what the article suggests, which is to focus on the learning objectives. Having the rubric at the top of the assignment will allow me to have that reminder of what I asked of the students and where my primary focus should be when grading and giving comments.
The second benefit I'm hoping to receive from creating rubrics is to increase the speed with which grading and feedback is given. I know it probably isn't appropriate to do something simply to speed up the process, but I've found that the time commitment to grading is killing me. I'm sure many of you are in the same boat, but I have approximately 140 students on my team, and they all take Geography. That means whenever I give out a major assignment, I have a huge, imposing, heavy, cumbersome stack of big time assignments to grade. Sometimes I'm almost too embarrassed to hand them back because of how long it has taken. I need to find a way to pick up the pace, and I'm hoping that the rubrics will not only help my students focus on the objectives of the assignment, but also help me focus more on the specific stated objectives.
This article spoke to me much more clearly than last weeks and I also felt like it was offering me a way to make myself a better teacher not only for my students, but for myself, and I appreciate that.
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