304 Blogs

I recently read a blog about the importance of others commenting and reading the material we blog about (click here). Although I couldn't agree more about the importance of feedback, I also wonder about students who are not comfortable sharing their work. This blog mentioned that the teacher is often the only person reading elementary school students' journals. When I was a kid, I personally liked the fact that my teacher was the only person reading my work.

In contrast, blogging allows students to read each other's work and receive valuable comments. While this is extremely important, I wonder about the students who might not want what they write to be publicized. Journaling may be a personal time for students to reflect and share thoughts they may otherwise not want to. While I love the idea of sharing and agree that it spreads new ideas, how do we accomodate those students who prefer to keep their writing to themselves? Yes, these students should learn how to share some of their work, but respecting their privacy is also important. I am particularly concerned about one of my students who is already having many self-esteem issues and family problems, who I think would be much more likely to share his feelings in a personal journal, as opposed to a public blog. Should we give students the opportunity to do both personal journals in class, as well as blog? If so, would doing both take up too much time?

One of our assignments throughout the semester has been to maintain a blog about our pre-service teaching experiences. Prof. Nussbaum-Beach has also encouraged us to get our students blogging. Thus far, I have been somewhat skeptical on the idea, as it seems logistically challenging to implement. However, the more I maintain my own blog, the more benefits I come across to blogging. The main aspect of blogging that I find increasingly exciting is receiving comments from other educators across the nation. Although this has not happened very often, the times that it has happened has motivated me to write again. Furthermore, other educators' comments have led me to new ideas.

With that said, I think the excitement I receive from other educators' feedback, could also be very motivating for students. Initially, I thought that students may not care who is reading their blog. However, I find myself checking my blog just to see if I received comments. I can only imagine that elementary-aged students would be ten times more excited to receive comments!

Unfortunately, my cooperating teacher did not seem very keen on the idea of blogging with our third graders. However, perhaps I can warm her up to the idea by providing her with student examples of blogging...

Just this year, my university did away with its language learning lab (where TVs, computers, tape and CD players were housed). In part, the deletion was because they needed more offices. But more symbolically, the deletion was representative of the realization that such a “center” for technology is a concept that is no longer functional. With the initiative started with the class of 2009 that every student have a laptop upon entering, it seems that my university is shifting its conceptual framework of technology. Technology, rather than being a tool that we sometimes use, is now something that is fully integrated into the university experience. And not just with email or AIM—but the underlying expectation of eliminating the language lab is that students and professors will interact with technology inside and outside of the classroom, regularly. And I think too that this shift allows more freedom from the often rigid academic point-of-view—no longer are specially-created materials the only valid resources that we should look towards. Because in eliminating access to the lab, and all of the special software that was available there, it seems to me that it was more of a green-light to use any material that you can find a way to bring to the classroom. In the absence of those already-prepared materials, professors and TAs such as myself are forced to look for other resources to help us teach foreign language—resources that, shockingly, might be better and more interesting that what we were using. The best thing about all the stuff on the web is that it provides authentic and varied learning opportunities for foreign language learners. More than just an encounter with the spoken and written language, material on the web provides a better and more authentic cultural slice than any other resource.

The wealth of textbook-like information could really replace a textbook. About.com’s site on French language offers excellent explanations, whereas the textbook explanation is often too complicated and unclear. It’s helpful to have the resource to offer students several different explanations of a concept until they find one that makes the most sense.

Students can investigate French towns and cities by exploring the websites of the tourism offices and playing with interactive maps. Often there are also videos and recordings, which allow students to hear spoken French in an authentic context.

Surprisingly, YouTube is also a decent resource—a search of “Bob l’Eponge” reveals a couple of Sponge Bob episodes in French. Having students watch an episode and complete a viewing guide would help with comprehension, and might also be good for an extra-credit assignment. And while the dialogue is very fast in the episodes, the characters are such that they repeat the same words and phrases over and over. Students (college students!) were also, in general, enthusiastic about watching Sponge Bob in French.

My favorite website for French is the Easy French Podcast (www.podcastfrancaisfacile.com). The author picks topics related to culture, grammar, or even vocabulary that are germane to beginning French students. On the website, one can access all of this podcasts which are sorted by topic. Both the audio and written text is available. In the audio text, the author (a native French speaker) reads the passage twice, first slowly, and second at normal speed. It helps students to practice their comprehension while also hearing the rapidity of standard French. In class, they would be great as dictations (a favorite exercise of French teachers everywhere). In my class, we used one passage on food to talk about the differences between American and French meals. As we were listening, we also completed a fill-in-the-blank of vocabulary words and the partitive. Students practiced their listening and also had to apply some grammar and spelling skills. More than any textbook exercise, such a lesson allows students to see the grammar rules as they function in actual French.

Science experiments + Blogging = Formula for Success

I stumbled across a blog the other day by Joseph Hartman about a neat science experiment that uses a blog to record student progress. Unfortunately I couldn't comment on his blog because it's restricted to team members, but I still thought it was worthwhile to share his work.

The assignment invovled students picking a experiment topic and then blogging daily to record progress and observations. So often as teachers we want to create and plan elaborate projects for our students, but we have a difficult time checking student progress and ensuring that they are not throwing the project together at last minute. If students had the opportunity and obligation to blog about their science experiment, they would be excited to see their progress and that of their classmates. I think Hartman really captured the essenence of using a blog when he wrote: "The unique properties of blogs is thus taken advantage of by allowing the outside world to see exactly what steps each student has taken in their experiment recreation (not to mention the students themselves having access to this information) which enables the audience to then judge the validity of the recreation almost immediately after each step has been taken (rather than after the entire experiment has been concluded)."

I also think this would be a neat addition to a science fair. Students could read up on their classmates blogs before attending the fair, and maybe even be required to prepare a few questions for certain students about their project.

Next semester when I teach a unit about the scientific method, my students are responsible for creating their own experiment. Maybe I will incorporate the blogging component to my project!

Bud, an educator from Colorado left an important comment in response to my original "Honor Code Violation" posting. He pointed out that it is not only important to explain to children that we should put information from other sources into our own words, but that we should also cite it. Although as an almost 2nd-semester college senior, citing seems like second-nature to me, it had not crossed my mind that students at all ages should learn this skill and learn it well. Furthermore, it is important to teach children how to cite at an early age so they become accustomed to it, and do not run into plagurism problems later on in their careers.

I came across an idea by "Mrs. C" called "Proofreading with Podcasts." Mrs. C's students made podcasts of stories they had written so they can catch errors by hearing them. Mrs. C also posts comments to students on their class blog, so they can all have immediate feedback. As we have talked about in class, this seems like such a great way to get students excited about using technology and integrating it with traditional school subjects. Proofreading by reading aloud is something I actively use in my own writing, but have not thought to do with my students. As my students work on the writing process I will try to introduce it so that they can also learn how hearing a piece of written work can allow you to take a different perspective.

Technology Implementation

I recently taught my lesson for my Teaching with Technology class. I designed the lesson with a partner and had a hard time nailing down what to teach. We had problems coordinating with our cooperating teachers on what to teach. We finally decided on a lesson on characters, setting, and important events in a Thanksgiving book. For the technology aspect, we designed a Kidspriration activity which had the students drag pictures into the appropriate boxes. I was much more relaxed about this lesson than the first lesson that I taught. The experience of one lesson under my belt made it much easier.
The lesson went fairly well. It was a rainy day so the kids had not had recess and I taught the lesson at 3:00, so the kids were pretty antsy. Also, I taught the lesson in the school's computer lab and the students were so excited to be in the lab that I had to fight for control. I finally got it, however, and the lesson went well after that. The students loved the book and seemed to grasp the concepts of setting, characters, and important events. They did the Kidspiration worksheet with no problem and finished much faster than I thought they would. Earlier in the day, the computer teacher at my elementary school had seen the worksheet and suggested that I add a part for the students to do once they finished. I added a box where they could drag in pictures of their favorite foods to eat on Thanksgiving (you would not believe the number of children who wished they ate tacos on Thanksgiving). That was a life-saving suggestion because the students did turn out to be much faster workers than I guessed.
I was surprised at how excited the students were to go to the computer lab. You would have thought I told them we were going to Disney World. They worked very well at the computers and had no problems typing their names or using the mouse for the activity. Just watching them and wondering what technology they will see in their lifetimes was astounding. I know I am only 15 years older than them, but in the technological world, that is a lifetime.
I enjoyed this project and it made me see how easy it is to integrate technology into a lesson, even with first-graders.

Student Produced Webpages

One of my assignments this semester is to spend at least 10 hours observing or teaching with technology. I have worked with Mr. Morse, the technology teacher at DJ Montague, and he has introduced a project with the fifth graders that I am really excited about. I wanted to directly quote his lesson plan to preserve the key elements:

"Each fifth grade class will be assigned a habitat--Ocean, Rainforest, Desrt, Arctic/Antarctic, Freshwater, Plains, and Mountain. Students from each class will pick animals from a 'Mystery Box' which will contain animals form their assigned habitat. Using online resources, students will collect information on a worksheet. Using Google 'image search' they will collect images for their report. The reports will be created using SchoolCenter web authoring tools, allowing students to create their own individualized pages, and previewing pages of other students in the class and grade."

Although not mentioned in the lesson plan, the really neat element of this lesson is that the students never specifically say what anima their page is about. They write clues about the animal, like what it eats, distinguishing features, where it lives within that habitat, etc. The goal for the website viewer is to use the clues and online resources available to figure out what animal is being descibed. Mr. Morse told the fifth graders that a younger grade would be using this project, so they should carefully plan and create their page.

I just think this is an excellent way to have students learn how to create a webpage and investigate the animal kingdom. I watched the students today shout interesting facts about their animal across the room, reiterating the idea that learning should be FUN, INTERACTIVE, and PURPOSEFUL.

Even thought this project was conducted in a technology classroom, there is no reason why it can't be done in the general education classroom. I also really like that this page may be used within another grade level because it shows a school wide initiative towards fostering good thinkers and creative minds.

I will try to post a link to the website when it is finished.

Just a quick comment for the day. I went into my practicum classroom today to discover that my cooperating teacher was out with the stomach flu. Needless to say, there was a sub there in her place. While I talked to the sub for a few minutes and she seemed like a nice-enough woman, I didn't see her smile the entire time I was there.

Maybe it's just me, but smiles sure brighten up the classroom. I'm pretty sure kids can sense a teachers' mood and if a teacher isn't happy to be at school, can you complain if kids aren't happy to be there either?

I'm in the middle of planning my third lesson out of four for a unit in the spring. I needed to take a break, so I decided to write a bit in my blog. These first two lesson plans have been slightly discouraging. I know I didn't put full effort into the first one, but I thought my second one was really good. Never the less, when I got them back from my professor, my grade was horrible for both of them. I know that I'm still learning and I realize my mistakes once they were pointed out, but it's still discouraging.

Is lesson planning something that gets easier the longer you teach? I sure hope so. And I hope it doesn't take too long to catch on because right now it takes me about 5 times longer to create a lesson plan than it does to actually teach the same lesson.

I admit, it has been a while since I have had an inspiring occasion to blog about. However, this changed last week upon my observation of a 4th grade class researching and writing about hurricanes.

For the most part, the students were actively engaged in their assignment-- to use a website to find information about a hurricane of their choice, and write a newspaper article about their findings. After circulating around the classroom for a while, I noticed that one particular student was having trouble extracting pertinent information from the website and writing up her own article. I gave her a few pointers and moved on to helping other students in the class.

After a while, I was circulating back around to her side of the room. I overheard the boy next to her say, "I know a trick! Let me show it to you!" Immediately, my interest was sparked. He proceeded to show her how to copy sentences from the website and paste it to her word document. The first thing that popped into my head at this moment was "RED FLAG! RED FLAG! HONOR CODE VIOLATION!" The little girl then did just what the boy had shown her. I decided that this would be the moment to intervene, but just how do you explain plagurism to a 4th grader?

At this point, I began talking to the two kids. I said to the boy that copy and pasting can be very helpful at certain times, but that we need to be very careful with how we use it. I then explained that when we find information from any source, we must always put it into our own words, or else it is like stealing. The two seemed to understand what I was trying to say, so I was satisfied. As soon as I finished my explanation of plagurism, I noticed the boy re-opening his word document and deleting the entire paragraph. It was clear that he had simply copy and pasted his information into a word document and then began playing computer games.

In a way, the children's clueless-ness was adorable. However, I was surprised that no one had ever explained the concept of plagurism to them before. This incident brought to my attention that students who are required to do any type of research, especially using technology, should be given a lesson on plagurism first.

It's parent-teacher conference week at my school, and as always, I am looking for interesting ways for parents/teachers/students to stay connected when I begin teaching.

I came across a blog by Anne Davis, suggesting that parents really get involved in commenting on their children's blogs. Anne Davis showed an example of a blog where a parent had wrote on her son's blog, and her comments were very positive and thoughtful. In a world where papers don't always make it home and progress reports get lost in the bottomless pit of student bookbags, I think having student work online and parent posting is a great way to encourage invovlement from the home.

In addition, in my special populations class, we were learning a lot about grading, and this blog triggered my thinking about the importance of parent as well as teacher observation of student progress. To me, grading is a grey area that I still feel like I don't know enough about. However, I do know that nothing causes more of an uproar then a parent who finds out that their child made a bad grade on his or her report card. I can almost hear the phone ringing, "Why didn't you tell me my child was failing? I never saw any of his bad grades?!" With a blog that showcases student work and parents having the opportunity to observe it, comment on it, or praise it, this problem is eliminated. Once again, three cheers for blogging!

Are parents afraid to step into the blogosphere? Maybe yes, maybe not. However, if I were a parent, I would find it refreshing to have a way to see what my child is doing everyday and have a way to be a part of it.

All the educational resources available via Web 2.0 are almost overwhelming. Prof Nussbaum-Beach has introduced my class to so many resources. We've tried out TappedIn, blogger, Flickr, wikis...tons of things that I'd never heard of before. I'm excited about all the new possibilities but I'm scared that 1. I'll forget about these resources 2. That they won't work out realistically when I get my own classroom.

It's reassuring to see examples of classrooms that have been able to incorporate technology effectively (for collaboration and communication!). One example is of Anne Davis's class of fifth graders. I explored their blogs recently and it was quite interesting to see what they had to say. Most of the students only had about 3 entries so far. The first entry was just a short introduction of themselves, the second was a poem, and the third seemed to be a response to an article of their choosing. While these entries didn't seem to have any information overwhelmingly special, I was able to see the importance of using blogs with these students. Benefits I noted:
1. Prepares them for the real world
There's no denying the fact that computers rule society. If we don't teach these students the technology while they're in school, they are in BIG trouble when they try to enter the workforce. Blogging gives students a meaningful task to practice computer-skills. Not to mention, it's great typing practice. I guess typing skills probably come more naturally for students these days, but wish I had been able to have that kind of typing practice instead of forced typing games.
2. Excites them
I'm not going to lie- I usually check my blog just to see if I got comments. Usually, they're just from Prof Nussbaum-Beach, but none the less, I'm thrilled to know someone is reading my writing. If nothing else, I'm encouraged to write more, just to get more comments. What better motivation could you give emerging writers?
3. Gives them a different mode for publishing
If students are taught like the students in my practicum school, then they've been writing and writing and writing and writing....forever. Handwriting gets old. This is an exciting new way to publish their writing. Not to mention a great way to share it with audiences that otherwise would never have the opportunity to read it.
4. Encourages them to work on their own
If students have access to computers at home, they can add to their blog whenever they feel like it. I know when I was a kid, I wrote tons of short stories. If I had been able to post them to a blog that would have been amazing! It would also help to give the teacher an idea of how much (or how little) students enjoy writing and creating stories, and how they are progressing.

Logistically, I'm curious how blogging works in the classroom. Would this be a daily task? Weekly? Monthly? I know that my students have computer lab once every 6 days, but the computer teacher usually has a lesson assigned. There are 2 sets of laptops available, but this would seem to be a hassle if blogging were a frequent activity. My classroom has about five computers..maybe it could be set up as an "in class" centers activity.

Just some thoughts. I'm glad that I'll continually have the blogging world and the entire internet to use as resources once I get out into the teaching world. It's amazing how much easier and quicker the internet has made life!

On thursday I will teach my first real lesson that integrates technology. I have spent hours upon hours creating and perfecting my lesson and the webquest that I am using. But now it comes down to how the students respond and how well it works in the classroom.

My webquest allows students to become explorers and sail with a famous explorer of the past, but this time they are steering the ship. The decide who they will sail under, Christopher Columbus, Juan Ponce de Leon, Jacques Cartier, or Christopher Newport after each student becomes an expert on one explorer. Before the students can "sail the ship" they prove their map skills by labeling the 7 continents, 4 oceans, equator, prime meridian, Spain, France, and England on a world map. I am excited just talking about it!

As I created my webquest I got so excited picturing the students on their laptops; laughing, smiling, debating with their group, and not even realizing how much they are learning. I can see my cooperating teacher loving the activities and how involved each student is. I can see her being inspired and asking me to help her incorporate more technology into her lessons. But at the same time it could all go wrong, the students could be lost; distracted by the computers in front of them. The lesson might be too complicated, or too easy. It is meant as a fun review of all of the map skills and explorers required under the VA SOLs. It's stressful not knowing how it will all turn out. Throughout my experiences in the classroom in and my technology class I have seen the benefits of using technology into the classroom. The idea has been ingrained in my brain, but I could see all that changing; could all of this be hinging on the outcome of one lesson?

Two days from now when my lesson is over, I hope that I am not frustrated with how the webquest turned out, but instead inspired by the impact that using technology made in my own classroom. Technology provides so many opportunities for students, I just hope that my webquest does the wonderful uses of technology justice and is effective enough that my cooperating teacher would be happy to see it used in the classroom again!

No matter what happens on Thursday I will always be proud of what I have accomplished and learned, my eyes have been opened to a whole new world. I may not have perfected the use of technology in the classroom but I know that I will continue to try. If you are interested here is My Webquest, enjoy!

Yesterday, I taught my two first lessons. Ever.
Due to the way the schedule is set up, I ended up teaching my lessons back to back. This was slightly nerve-racking, as I was afraid that if I bombed the first lesson, there would be no hope for the second lesson.

My first lesson was taught during the children's computer centers time. I had planned a webquest for my students and then a worksheet on Kidspiration if they finished the webquest in time. Since I'm in a first grade class and some of the students are still struggling with reading, I decided to create podcasts for the entire webpage. I had a little difficulty finding a way to create a podcast, so I ended up using Xanga to create and audio file and then copied the html into into my html on questgarden.

I wasn't sure what to expect with the first graders and a webquest. I started the lesson by having all the students sit on the floor and we reviewed what they remembered from their field trip to Jamestown (the webquest was on the Powhatan Indians) and then I used the smartboard to go over a few things relating to the webquest. I explained to students that they should push the triangle button to hear the words read to them. I tried to explain the concept of clicking on a link and then clicking the back button to return to the main page.

All in all, it wasn't a disaster. It was pretty chaotic, though. I know that many teachers are wary of using webquests with children this young. As far as the material goes, I don't think my students had a problem at all. They understood how to click to listen to the audio bits, but overall I think the students needed a little more exposure to webpages before doing an independent webquest. Many of the students didn't understand the concept of scrolling down each page to make sure they had read all the information. Many of them got confused once they clicked on a link and did not know where to go from there.

I think that they seemed to enjoy the idea (especially the fact that there were games at the end they could play once they finished!), but next time I'll ease into the webquest gradually. Probably if I had done a webquest on the smartboard first and then in another lesson done something small about navigating webpages and I modeled and then students tried the same thing, then my lesson would have worked better.

WebQuest is not for Dummies!

I have recently heard how easy WebQuests are to make and how anyone can do it...even a dummy. Let me tell you, that is not true. It is very hard to make a WebQuest. From a technological point of view-piece of cake. I (and my partner for the assignment) have been using QuestGarden and it is so easy to put the WebQuest together. Everything is mapped out for you. All you have to do is follow the directions and you are done. The HARD part is figuring out what to put in the WebQuest.
We are having a terrible time trying to figure out what to say, how to say it, and how to make it fun for the students. We know what the task is going to be and the general skills we want the students to learn and use. It is just hard getting it all down on the keyboard. It is harder than regular lesson planning because the computer lesson should probably take longer and everything you do on the computer seems to take less time than if you were just writing it. That makes it like writing three lesson plans in one. For the time that I am working on this WebQuest I hate the convenience and speed of technology. I know that the finished product will be great and the students will love using it, but it is hard work. Whoever said WebQuests can be accomplished by dummies was just talking about the technology part. They have no idea how hard it is to come up with a GOOD one.