Final Project

Unit Plan: Bring Poetry and Pictures Together

Part One: Using Flickr

This week the students will gain an understanding of how to search the Creative Commons section in Flickr and put together a Flickr slideshow.

The students will also reflect on their Flickr slideshow as well as give feedback to their peers' Flickr slideshows.

Day One:

1. Show Google Presentation "Flickr Slideshow"

2. Have students sign up for Flicker.
3. Have students brainstorm topic ideas for a Flickr Slideshow in their blog.

Day Two:

1. Go over rubric for the Flickr Slideshow Project.
2. Have students sign into Flicker.
3. Students should search the Creative Commons section and add pictures to their "Faves".
4. Once each student has found enough pictures, the student should create a slideshow and post the link or embed the link on his/her blog.

Day Three:

1. Go over rubric for Reflection.
2. Each student should log into their blog.
3. Once there, they should watch their Flickr Slideshow.
4. After they have watched their slideshow, the student should complete a reflection post on their blog following the guiding questions handed out.

Day Four:

1. Go over rubric for Peer Responses.
2. The students should have the hour to watch and respond to their peers' Flickr Slideshows.

Part Two: Using VoiceThread

This week the students will take their understanding of Flickr and take it one step further. Using pictures they either find on Flickr or upload from their computer, the students will create VoiceThread and share it with their peers.

The students will also reflect on their VoiceThreads in a blog post as well as provide responses to their peers' VoiceThreads.

Day One:

1. Watch tutorials found on voicethread.com

What is VoiceThread?
VoiceThread in one min
Comment Moderation
Video Doodling

2. Go over the Educator's Guide to VoiceThread with students
VoiceThread Guide

3. Have the students sign up for VoiceThread.
4. The students should have the rest of the hour to play around with using VoiceThread.

Day Two:

1. Go over the assignment sheet and rubric for the VoiceThread project.
2. The students should complete a blog post in which they brainstorm ideas for their VoiceThread. They should also discus which of their poems they are going to read as their images come onto the screen.
   
3. Upon completion of their blog post, the students should begin searching for pictures either on Flickr or download them from their email for use in their VoiceThread.

Day Three:

1. The students should be at the point where they can begin recording and using the other tools in VoiceThread.
2. Let them have the hour to record their VoiceThreads.
3. Once they finish their VoiceThread, they should upload it into their blog.
   

Day Four:

1. Give the students time to watch their own VoiceThread and write a reflection in their blog.
2. Once complete, the students should have the rest of the hour to watch their peers' VoiceThreads and provide responses to them based on the rubric for peer responses.
   

Part Three: Using StripGenerator

This week the students will understand how to create a comic using strip generator, and do so using a poem as the subject for the comic.

The students will also give peer feedback and revise their comic strips based on the feedback they receive.

Day One:

1. Show Google Presentation "Creating Comics"
   

2. Give the students time to play around on stripgenerator.com
3. The students must decide on a poem that they are going to create a comic strip around.

Day Two:

1. Go over rubric for first comic assignment.
2. Allow students time to create their first comic strip.
3. After they have created their strip, the students should either link to their comic strip on their blog or embed it.

Day Three:

1. The students should start the day by revisiting their comic strips.
2. The students should complete a reflection post on their blog about their comic strip following the guiding questions handed out.
3. We will then review the rubric for Peer Responses.
4. The students will have the rest of the hour to begin looking at their peers' comic strips and writing responses.

Day Four:

1. The students will continue writing responses to their peers for half the class period.
2. Once the peer responses are complete, the students will read the responses they received on their own comic strip. They will then use the next day and a half to revise their strip based on the feedback received.
   

Day Five:

1. Once the students have completed their revised comic, they should either post a link to it or embed it in their blog.

Day Six:

1. Today, the students should revisit the comics they provided feedback for.
2. They should post a new response in using the revised comic.

Part Four:

This week the students will learn how to use the different features of iMovie. They will also put their knowledge to use by making an iMovie in which they speak one of their poems aloud while providing background pictures and sound to help deepen the meaning of their poem.

The students will also create an iMovie for a partners poem. Then, the students will reflect on the similarities/differences between their interpretations.

Finally, the students will reflect on this process in a blog post.

Day One:

1. Watch tutorials on how to create an iMovie.
2. For the first iMovie assignment, the students must upload images from Flickr into iMovie. They must then learn how to add sound, voice over, and other effects depicted in their rubric.
3. Once they have completed this assignment, they must upload their iMovie into their blog.
4. The students then must reflect on their experiences with their first use of iMovie. What they liked/disliked. What was easy/hard. What they want to learn for their next assignment.

Day Two:

1. Go over the iMovie assignment sheet with the students.
2. The students must first decide on a poem to work with on iMovie. The poem that they choose must be one that they wrote during this class.
3. Once they have chosen this poem, they must blog about what this poem means to them and what images could represent and deepen the understanding of the meaning of the poem.
4. Once they have completed their blog post, the students can spend the rest of the hour searching on Flickr for images they want to use in their iMovie.

Day Three:

1. Review the rubric for the iMovie project.
2. The students should have the rest of the hour to begin working on the iMovie project.

Day Four:

1. Today, the students should finish up their work on their iMovie project.
2. Once completed, the students should post their iMovie onto their blog.

Day Five:

1. Today, the students will get partnered with another student
2. The students should trade their poem with that of their partner.
3. For part two of the iMovie project, the student must now create a second iMovie using their partners poem.
4. The student should first read their partner's poem and write a blog post describing what they believe the poem means. Also, the student should brainstorm and come up with images that they could use during the reading of the poem to aid in making the poem understood and help to deepen the meaning of the poem.
5. Once their blog post is complete, the student can log on to Flickr and search for images.

Day Six and Seven:

1. The students will have the next two days to complete their second iMovie.
2. Once completed, the student must post their second iMovie on their blog.
3. They must also complete two blog posts. The first one should describe why they choose each image when depicting their poem and how they add to the meaning of the poem. The second one explains the images they chose for their partner's poem and how they add to the meaning of the poem.

Day Eight:

1. The students should get together with their partner and watch all four iMovies.
   
2. They should compare and contrast the similarities and differences in the iMovie based on poem #1. Next, they should do the same based on poem #2.
3. Once they have compared the iMovies, they must then reflect on this process on their blog. How were their visions similar? How were their visions different? What was similar/different in the interpretations of the poem and it's meaning? What images did their partners use to depict their poem that they really liked? Why did they like those images? What images did their partner use that didn't seem to reflect the "intended" meaning.

Day Nine:

1. On this day, each student will get up and show their iMovie to the class. This will be a time for the students to show off their poetry as well as their work on providing images to their poetry.
   

Dec. 8, 2009

Reflection on Blog Posts:

Our first blog post was on blogging. I had never blogged before. I have found that I truly like the act of blogging. I like the idea of reflecting on an issue or something that happened to me that day or even a frustration I have come across. If I were to continue blogging I do wonder if I would keep my blog to a topic (e.x. teaching) or if I would want to blog about anything. I would have to think about the purpose that I would want my blog to serve and the audience I was putting my blog out there for. I think that it would be good to use a blog in my classroom as a precursor to a large group discussion. I would give them the questions ahead of time and they would have to respond to them on the blog. I feel that this is a good idea because then everyone would come to class with an answer and be able to better participate in the discussion. So often, my students clam up when faced with a question when they haven't had time to process the question. They do not want to answer for fear that they look stupid in front of their peers. This would relieve some of that pressure. I would also encourage the use of a blog in my creative writing classes as a way of getting their work out there and garnering feedback that they might not get in class.

Our second blog post was on vlogs. Again, I had never had much experience watching or creating a vlog. I found that it was hard for me in the beginning to create the vlog due to both finding a topic and also what I should say. If I were to do this again I would probably write out more of a script to follow so that I could go over it a few times and get comfortable with what I was going to say.

Our third blog post was on the use of flickr and voicethread. I have to say that I loved this assignment. With the flickr assignment I felt that it gave me a place to be creative and interpret my word or theme in a way others may not have. My ideas only became stronger as I was able to put pictures to them. I think that I am going to use this assignment in my final poetry unit. You could really do this assignment when talking about theme in a literature class as well. You could have the students find pictures that give image to a theme that they find in any novel (or poem). Bringing the pictures into voicethread was great. i liked learning this technology and thought that it was the most user friendly as far as getting into it without having previous knowledge. I am going to have my poetry students use this technology by having the students put images to a poem that they wrote (as well as having them put images to a poem written by someone else) to see if adding those images helped with the understanding of the poem.

Our fourth blog post was on using wikis. Through this class I have found that my previous experience in using wikis was faulty. I don't think that I was taught how to use wikis to their full potential. We just used them as receptacles for student work. Never once were we shown how to use them for collaborative writing and other collaborative projects. I don't know that this technology is a good one to use in my school. A large majority of my students would not do work outside the classroom. Also, many of them do not have computers and/or internet access at home. I know that there is access at libraries, but good luck getting them to go to one.

Our fifth blog post was our reflection on the online role-play. I had never done an online role play before and did not expect to like it as much as I did. I thought that it was going to be boring to participate in. What I really enjoyed, however, was the asynchronous research and posting that we did before having the synchronous chat. I liked being able to take the time and find the material, post at my leisure, respond to others without hurrying through what I had to say. i felt that the synchronous chat was a little too much for me. having to keep scrolling through the posts to find either new ones or replies to your posts was a bit challenging. I would probably do the asynchronous role play idea in my classroom, but again have the same problems as the collaborative wiki. I would have to give students time to use the lab to complete the assignments and at that point it would become asynchronous and I am not sure that they would have gotten as much out of it.

I have to take a second and apologize to my blog partners. I know I am being a little long winded. Sorry.

Our sixth blog post was on using iMovie. I had never made a movie using this technology outside of our technology class when in the English cohort. I still don't think I know all the technologies surrounding iMovie that I could use to make the movie better. I want to learn more and then I think it would be fun to use in a class. perhaps to videotape a poetry performance in order to provide feedback to the performer.

Our seventh blog post was on podcasts. Honestly, I don't think I will ever use a podcast. I think if I was going to record a lecture I would save it as an audio file and just upload it to my class website. I don't think I would require people to subscribe to my podcasts and without that the technology wouldn't be a good one to use.

Our eighth blog post was on ToonDoo. I liked using this technology. I think that I would use it in poetry - again to illustrate what a poem is saying. I also could se using it to help the students better understand a piece of literature. It could be a creative project for a student - they could pick a section of a novel or play and have to create a comic strip or put a few comic strip together in book form to better illustrate what was happening in the story.

Our ninth blog post was about the readability of websites. Although that is not what I want to focus on. I really liked learning the technology of screenshots and applying them to my post. I had never done that before. I think that using a screen shot helps people understand what you are talking about. They don't just read your description, they get to see an actual picture of it. This would help visual learners in the classroom if screenshots were included on handouts.

OUr tenth blog post was about the use of feedback tools. I know I need to use them, but I don't often know which methods work best. I find that I am not always specific enough when it comes to a rubric and it leaves a lot for interpretation. It is a skill I need to get better with.

All in all I have to say I personally learned a lot in this course. I now need to take some time and figure out which of these technologies would be the most useful to incorporate in my classes and for what assignment. I don't just want to use them for no good reason. There needs to be a purpose behind them.

If I would ask my students to provide work to a portfolio, I would want to showcase their growth as a writer. i would use it in a class where they had to go step by step in a project as well as revise the writing piece multiple times. Then they could post each draft and insert comments about the changes they made as well as changes in them as a writer - what their growth was like. I liked the use of the classroom portfolio that was on Mrs. Autrey's website. I liked the fact that it was put out there for the parents to see as well as for them to reflect on their growth as a writer - like they did in their second letter to her.

Well, I think that I have talked ("typed") long enough. See you.

Dec. 1, 2009

When my students are completing a writing assignment, really any writing assignment, I try to have them get feedback from both their peers and me. I find that this can be a bit daunting, depending on how much they know about giving feedback, how much knowledge they have around grammar, punctuation, structure, and topic. I feel like to have the students give worthwhile feedback I would have to spend quite a bit of time coaching them on just how to do that, which I do not always have.

When the students give peer feedback I have them focus on specific aspects of writing depending on what type of writing they are doing. If it is a research paper they look at amount of evidence and organization. If it is a poem I have them write about its meaning and word choices. That gives me freedom to work on other things - grammar, punctuation, organization, etc. I typically sit down with the hard copies of their writing and mark it up. I find, though, that I still need to conference with each student to explain what I was trying to say. I liked the idea of having the students send me their papers electronically so that I can just insert the comments right into the paper. It would give me more room to type comments and explain them further. Also, I could them demonstrate the correct way to attribute a quote or where a comma should or shouldn't be inserted.

As I was talking in class the other day, I may be interested in using ToonDoo as one of technologies within a poetry class. I would have the students read and analyze a poem. Then, I would have them use ToonDoo to illustrate the poem, and hopefully provide more meaning and show a deeper understanding of the poem. I would also have them defend their choices. they would have to write a paragraph or two detailing why they made the illustrative choices they did and how that helps explain the meaning of the poem.

When providing feedback for this assignment I would have a portion of it come from their peers. I would have the students look at a comic that was not their own and try to decipher the meaning from the illustration. I would have them complete a survey or write a paragraph about what the illustration conveyed. If the student did not like the illustration or it made them more confused, they would have to explain why. The "artist" would them be able to sit down with their peer and receive the feedback and talk about where the disconnect was. Then, the "artist" could take the constructive criticism and modify their original comic.

I think I would look more at the structure, length of comic, and the students' defense of their comic to grade their work.

I made a very rudimentary rubric for a collaborative writing project that I may have them complete in a creative writing class that I am teaching now. Any comments or suggestions would be welcome.

November 24th, 2009

Readability

I think that the official Bob Dylan site has a high degree of readability. When you enter the site, the first screen you see is very simple. It has a background that doesn't distract you from the content and a picture of Bob Dylan - just in case you forgot what you were looking at. Across the top of the screen, there are links to the other pages of the site including: home, news, tour, albums, songs, media, fine art, community, features, and store.





When you navigate to other pages, the same plain background and picture of Bob Dylan are used, which I think helps the reader get used to what they will see on the pages. When other pictures are added, like the two cameras, they are very simple pictures. Another feature I liked was that the page you are currently on is highlighted in blue. That helps in the navigation of the site.






The only page I found that was a little harder to read was the link for the albums. When you click on it all you see are small icons that are pictures of the album covers. This was a barrage of information compared to what was on the rest of the site. It was helpful, though, that I could put my cursor over the picture and it would tell me the name of the album. All in all, I thought this was a good site.



On the flip side was the Walker Art Center's website. When you get to the home page, you see things that are both helpful and a hindrance. On the top of the page is that helpful bar with the links again, just like on the Dylan page. But, the rest of the page is not so simple. You are flooded with images from the collections that they currently have on display. These images change when you are on the same page for awhile. That was a bit distracting for me. Then, you scroll down and come across 14 boxes that all typically have a different color assigned to them as well as a picture to go along with the words. The boxes themselves are pretty simple...a heading, a picture, and an explanation...but the sheer number of boxes was overwhelming. Also, I noticed that when I clicked on the linked to these boxes, all but to of the links sent me to a page found within the calendar section of the website, which is one of the handy links on the top bar of the page. I am not sure why they had to have the info in more than one place. You could say to emphasize whatever was in those boxes - for example the British Television Commercial Awards - but why do they need to highlight 14 different things at one time?


Activities

As far as activities for the students to participate in and help them gain an understanding of design features and interactivity, I think practice makes perfect. You could teach them the design features that websites do/should use to enhance readability and have them first search the web for things they are interested in and check out the readability (much as we did) and then have them employ those understandings in designing their own websites. They could design a website for a research project or for a pre-reading assignment. Same thing with designing PowerPoints...you could assign a topic to a student. Have them design the PowerPoint. Then you could give them the interactivity lesson and have them redesign their PowerPoint. They could then compare their presentations. Also, they could show their presentations to the class and give feedback as to which one works better.

Here is my presentation.

November 17th, 2009

Before this assignment I had previous experience using ToonDoo to create an online comic strip. I decided to use this technology again, instead of ComicLife, because I have very few pictures on this computer. I was then able to use the wide range of characters, backgrounds, and props that are available on the ToonDoo website.

I decided to create a comic strip that illustrates a section of Macbeth. This came from an assignment I gave out two years ago, before I know of ToonDoo. One of the creative project ideas was for my students to draw a comic strip that would retell a portion of Macbeth. I had one student complete this assignment, and her drawings were great. I think that having an online technology to use for the "drawing" would help draw more students to this particular assignment.

Creating the comic was fun. I liked looking around for the "perfect" character and "perfect" setting to illustrate my ideas. There is a bit of a drawback, however, in the amount of characters or settings you have to choose from. I felt that there should be more choices for how you wanted things to look. But again, there were more choices here than on my computer.

One thing I had to think about was how much information should go on each panel. It got pretty crowded when multiple characters talked in the same panel, therefore I settled on only one character speaking per pane. I would need to create quite the multitude of strips to illustrate, say, an entire scene of Macbeth. This is definitely something that is different from reading print texts. When reading print texts there can be so much information on one page, and it isn't distracting or information overload. That isn't true of comic books. You need to be careful of giving too much info on one page - it will either get skipped and your reader wont catch it all, or there will be that information overload.

I think I would like to try my assignment again, but this time instead of using paper and pen, I would allow the students to work on ToonDoo. I would have to adjust exactly how much of the novel/play I would want them to illustrate, however, since they wouldn't be doing it by hand.

Here is my comic.

For some reason the second panel of the strip isn't showing the words. I have saved and reedited three times, and I cannot make the words appear. I will have to fix it later.

November 10th, 2009

I liked the process of creating the podcast. It took me awhile to think of something I wanted to record that would be "perfect." After I stressed myself out for awhile, I realized that it did not have to be perfect, but I should instead focus on something that would be usable for my classes.

Looking forward to what I will be teaching next quarter I landed on recording a poetic devices podcast. I chose four of the main poetic devices (you could do many more) and talked about their definitions as well as gave examples of each type of poetic device. All in all it was about four minutes long.

Looking back, I think that I would want to script it out a little more. I had a basic outline of what I wanted to say, but a more complete script would be really helpful. I think it would help me go deeper into the subject that I was covering. Not only talking about the definition, but what these poetic devices bring to poetry. It would also help eliminate some of the longer pauses from when I was trying to think of how to transition on to the next topic.

Saving the sudio file and uploading it to media mill was no problem. I have not yet converted it into an actual podcast. I am not sure if I need to do so for what I would use the audio file for. After listening to Pete last night, I think it would be just as good to upload the audio files onto my class ning for my students to listen to. I don't think the technology of the podcast would necessarily be more helpful than that.

I think that I am going to continue to work on creating a lot of audiofiles for use in my poetry class. I think that there are many topics that I could cover. From poetic devices, to poetic form, to analyzing specific poems for both devices and content. I am sure that there are many others as well. I also like the idea of looking at slam poetry and having my students use either garageband or imovie to record themselves. I would have them use garageband if I really wanted them to focus on the emotion and the words. imovie would be useful when covering the delivery method of the poem.

I don't think it will be too hard to engage these students in creating audiofiles/podcasts/vlogs. I think that these students love to work with this type of technology (really they just like to hear the sound of their own voices). As far as evaluating them, I think that I would have to give them some pretty straight-foward guidelines or a rubric for what they had to make sure they had in their projects. Then I would look and give them their due points.

November 3rd, 2009

With limitless options for topics I could cover in my podcast, I was having trouble coming up with one that I wanted to do. I think, however, that I will record a poetry lesson. I will cover a few of the main poetic devices, providing definitions and examples for each.

I will probably record it as though it is one in a series of podcasts on the topic of poetry, not really giving a lot of background about myself, but instead focusing on the subject matter. I think it would be good to use these in my classroom as a way for students to access the "notes" while at home. It would also be helpful for a student if they happened to miss a day that had a lecture - they could listen to the podcast to receive the information I covered in our discussion.

October 27th, 2009

I have decided that I want to create a imovie using still photographs. When I was thinking about what photos I have, it became apparent that I have the most photos of my son. I think that I want to show his transformation from birth (or maybe before) to now.

October 20th, 2009

When I was creating my role, I started by deciding on a name. I knew once i had taht, some of the personality of my character would already be there. I then thought of existing characters that would fit the role of a parent who believes that Google is making us stupid. Carol Brady came to mind. She seemed the perfect fit, from what I remembered of the TV show. after I decided on playing Carol, I went out and got a picture from the Creative Commons on Flickr and put it up on the Ning. I then had to think of the language Carol would use. I didn't think that she would sound too professional, and instead made her be a happy-go-lucky mom with an edge.

Most of the arguments that I came up with revolved around Carol's many children. I was able to give examples of how the use of the internet and phone technologies had effected her children's attitudes and work ethic.

I mainly used the sites Beach posted to look at arguments until we were all making arguments on the Ning discussion board and in the chat room. I then went out and found research that either proved or disproved what people were saying. That ended up being fun - information at your fingertips is a pretty incredible thing.

My position in this role-play were different. My personal position did not change, but it was interesting looking at the situation from another point of view.

I think that the use of an online role play would be a great tool to use in the classroom. I think that there were some kinks in ours that would have to be ironed out - the feeling of being overwhelmed when we were both posting and chatting being one. I think it would be good to have the students stay out of the chat room until the forum posts were closed. Then the students would know what to focus on. Also, I wonder if it would have been better to use tappedin to have the synchronous discussion and use the wiki to have the asynchronous discussion (I didn't feel that we needed to be on at the same time to post arguments, only to reflect at the end).

October 13th, 2009 - Wikis in the classroom

I have had some experience using and teaching Wikispace. Last year Sobriety High did not have enough money to have four full time teachers at every site. It was proposed that all the teachers create online curriculum that we could share between sites. The main proponent of creating the online curriculum, Larry, was a huge fan of Wikispace. He showed us the "Wikis in Plain English" and sent us off on our way.

Looking at Larry's finished product (a creative writing class), it seems that he was not using the wiki for any purpose other than a place where students could go to get their assignments. Then, the students were to create their own wiki page where they put completed work. He never (and through his example we never) used a wiki for collaborative work. The students would also post replies on nicenet to prompts and each other. It seems that this couls just as easily be done using a wiki page.

I can see using a wiki page as a resource for both the parents and the students, not to mention for me as well. I was thinking of setting up an Arona Language Arts Wikipage. On that site, there would be links in the sidebar to each of the classes that I teach - for example there would be a reading and recovery page.

When you get to the front page of the wiki, there would be a description of the class and what the student expectations are. On the sidebar to the R&R page, there would be links to each of the books we reading the class (This would be a cumulative list from all the years I taught this class). The student or parent would be able to click on those links and go to that wiki page (like the Comeback wiki page).

When you get to the front page of the Comeback novel, you would be greeted with - yes you named it - more links! These would include: a section about the authors, an overview of the book, journals, project ideas, and handouts/worksheets.

The first two sections would be mainly set up by me with links to other websites detailing the biographies and excerpts from the books if I can find them. The journals and Project Ideas links would be mainly student run and would increase in size each year I taught that same book. I would probably begin with having one journal question under each chapter. Then, I would have the students brainstorm journal questions and put them under the appropriate chapter. That way, they are taking ownership of that section and the journal possibilities will continue to grow. Same would go for the project Ideas section, except that I may not put any ideas under there to begin with. The students would use that section to brainstorm ideas and write a description of what the project is. I think that I would just need to make sure that the final product have enough work around it. I would do so by commenting on their page.

I would put the last section (handouts/worksheets) up as a resource for the students - if they missed a day they could just go on and see if there was anything they missed. Is there a way to put a calendar on the wiki page? That may be helpful.

Here is my class wiki.

October 6th Class Post

The topic that I chose to find images for was that of beauty. I did not want to go the traditional route with this topis and only select images that society would deem beautiful. I chose to look at the beauty of aging. I looked on Flickr and found pictures of people from various cultures that had one main thing in common: wrinkles. That was actually my search term.

I feel like our society is afraid to age and get wrinkles . So afraid that we now come up with anti-aging creams and injections to stop that process. The people in the photos, however, have embraced their wrinkles and are beautiful because of it.

Dixie and I were talking about how to include Flickr in a poetry class. She was talking about haveing them come up with both images and song to go along with a selected poem. I took it one step further and thought it would be fun to have the students 1. write a poem, 2.put images and song to the poem and, 3.trade poems with a partner and have them put pictures and music to that same poem. After that was complete, the students would watch both versions and discuss their differences (if there are any) in the interpretations of the poem.

Here is my slideshow:


Using VoiceThread was great. I wasn't sure how easy it was going to be, but the tutorial was right in saying it wouldn't take very long. I didn't want to use pictures from Flickr, but I don't have too many personal photos on my computer. I pulled a few of these pictures from the website I made in the technology course while I was in the initial licensure program. On that website there was a section titled "About Me" which showcased my family. So, that is what this VoiceThread is about.

Sept. 29, 2009

I watched a blog I found on YouTube titled "Andrew's Blog (The Enchanted Playground One)." Andrew is a part of the cast of Mary Poppins. He, along with the rest of the cast went to the City Museum in St. Louis. The City Museum is, as one trip advisor user says, "like no other museum you've seen before, this imaginative learning center features a multi-level enchanted forest, giant aquarium, participatory circus and a museum of oddities." Andrew describes it as a ten story recycled jungle gym.

I think that the main audience of this vlog would be those that went along with him to the museum. It looks like something they would be able to look back and reflect on. In a larger sense, I think that it would be good to look at for anyone (like me) who thinks that there should be more hands-on places for adults to go and play like a kid again. It does a good job chronicling what a trip to this museum would be like - and if you were thinking about visiting I think it would hook you.

For the most part, the vlog takes you, the audience, through all the things you can do, go through, participate in during your visit to this museum. But, there are also moments where Andrew stops and tells you where they are in the museum (the roof, the caves, etc.). This just gives you a sense of place, especially if you have never been there yourself.

I definitely think that this was a good, fun, entertaining vlog. Here, watch for yourself:


I had quite a time creating the vlog. I have never before recorded myself, and try to stay out of things when my husband is taking a video of my son. It is odd to watch myself and hear myself - I totally agree with Ashley. I also felt like it took me some time to feel comfortable with what I was going to say. I had to practice a couple times before it seemed to flow. I wonder, though, if practicing takes out some of the authenticity of a vlog.

I have created it, but am having some difficulty with uploading it. It has been "processing" on Youtube for quite awhile. I will put it up as soon as it is done.

Okay, here is what you have been waiting for:


Here is my concept map I made at Bubbl.us:

Frustrations

So, I was reading in Teaching Writing Using Blogs, Wikis, and other Digital Tools about students using blogs. It said that one teacher found that if it was a requirement that students would do the bare minimum. Then, the book went on to say that if the blog was not a requirement, it seemed as though the students participated more readily and had more of a community. This seems all well and good, but what will work for the students who just don't do anything? They don't participate in class discussions, they don't complete their homework, they don't go to the library to get materials, they don't use their classroom time appropriately, they don't have computers at home. They just don't.

How am I supposed to engage them enough to want to go and do work that isn't required - work they wont get a grade on. My students, apart from being "bad" students, have a lot of things going on in their lives from work, to harsh family life to meetings for their sobriety every night of the week (for some of them). I am not trying to make excuses for them, but sometimes it seems that these kids are the exception to the glorious work that is being done in the digital world.

I would love feedback or ideas or to sit down and discuss this more in depth with people. I am just getting frustrated because it does not seem like this class will have any benefit for my current students.

Final Project Idea

I am planning on writing a unit that incorporates technology into the reading of a play. I hope to make the unit available for use with multiple plays - meaning have the basic structure of the unit set, but be able to have it general enough to work with many plays. I think that this would be really good for the population of students that I currently work with. They do their best work when day to day structure is kept the same. I feel that if I use the same basic structure whenever I teach a drama unit, they will get used to the structure of the unit and be able to better understand the process.

For this final project, I will probably base my unit on the teaching of Macbeth. I hope to include the use of :Vlogs, Wikis, a webquest, and possibly a blog. I am (obviously) still learning the best way to incorporate these technologies, so I am not sure how I will use them yet or if I will change which technologies I will use. I am not yet sure how I will use digital note-taking. I liked the idea of using Inspiration, but am not yet sure where I will fit it in.

I have to admit that I probably have not used a database to search since I completed my undergrad/initial licensure programs back in 2004. I am pretty sure the database I used to use when searching was MNCAT. Unfortunately, that means I now rely a lot on Professor and Dr. Google to answer many of the questions that I come up with.

After last class, I now understand how bloglines could be a valuable tool in research. I liked that you could subscribe to a particular journal/magazine/etc. or you could ask that a particular topic's information find your way into your bloglines account. As far as determining the validity and credibility of the information, I guess I would first need to determine the validity and credibility of the site the material is coming from. I would have to say that I could do this by using the handout I give to my students when they are completing their research project. This rubric has you (the reader) rate multiple criteria on a scale from 1-5 to determine if it is a valid site. I will probably subscribe to many online newspapers and try to find some educator blogs/websites that I want to get updates from.

Class Notes for Dixie

Any questions or comments?

• We talked about the idea of transparency - anything you put on the internet willremain there forever.

Setting up your feeds:

• A feed puts out posts to your audience (via email)
• Many ways to put up your feed One way - type it in. It is typically your blog url/Feeds/post/default This is your feed URL.
• I have a handout for you.
  
• Rick would like us to create a link to our blog on the class website. Go to http://digitalwriting.pbworks.com/Student-blogs
• Google bloglines and create an account

Bloglines:

• create account
• click on add
• type in blog URL you want to have a feed for
• click on subscribe
• now the blog will show up on the left hand navigation bar.

Feedburner

• Go to your blog. Go to settings. Go to Site Feed. Click on feedburner. Follow instructions from there. Click on the Atom one. If you have already created a feed elsewhere, you DO NOT NEED TO DO THIS STEP!

Since we are partners:
We need to subscribe to each others posts. I am going to do this on Bloglines.
We also need to go to each others blogs and become followers.
We also have another partner...her name is Ann.

We got another handout - "Chapter 6: Fresh and Forward Thinking: Using Blogs for Educational Purposes"

How can we use digital media (specifically blogs) in your classes?

• use wiki to have collaboration between students - especially good those that may not speak up in class.
• blogs good for teachers to have a personal learning network - give each other ideas and challenge each other in the classroom.
• doing exercises in code switching - between text speak and formal language
• create facebook profiles for characters in novels and have them update and interact with each other.
• have the students post things they learned in a pre-reading activity and post links to where they found the information.
• synchronous chats for book clubs. Then you get a transcript. Students can later reflect on their transcripts. Rick will go over a good sit for this later on.

PowerPoint Notes: (They may be on the web)
Inquiry based Instruction
http://inquiry.uiuc.edu - good website for inquiry based instruction

Critical Response Protocol (CRP)
Set of questions you get students to ask about a certain phenomonon. They get used to asking these questions - a thinking routine. One of the questions of often "what do you notice?" or "what do you see in this image?" "What does this remind you of?" "Do you see any connections?" "What meaning are you finding?" "How does it make you feel?" "What questions do you have?"
We looked at an example of CRP - gravestone example(Carolyn Clark).
There are a lot of interesting images you can use on Flickr -when using flickr use creative commons

Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS)
similar to CRP

Tagmemics
How do you define the neighborhood?
How has your neighborhood changed over time?
How is my neighborhood different from others?

Interviewing

• we got a handout

Kinds of questions

• develop questions based on prior research
• ask "grand tour" questions bout the "big picture" experience
• ask open ended questions vs yes no questions
• follow up questions
• "pointing" interviews to focus on specifics - have student bring in something with special meaning. Another students ask questions about that object. Then that student summarizes to the class what they learned about that object.

Ethnography methods - fly on the wall perspective.

Field Notes: Fieldworking

• Focus - selective perception
• Verbal snapshots - 5-10 details
• descriptive vs. general language

Seeing and Making Connections is important. this is where you get the knowledge (connectivism) - Stephen Downes

How do we learn? discussion

Break

go to the Ning. Click on the twitter link and join. Follow the class twitter.
AmyLou_12
normal password
gust0257@umn.edu

Social Bookmarking (have 2 handouts for you)
when you find something you like you tag it and then share it with people.
Rick suggests to sign up for one or both of these and play with it.

• Del.icio.us
  
• Diigo
  

Watched a video about Diigo

mypopstudio.com - good website. especially for teen girls.
youth voices - a site that other schools are part of and a place where our students can interact with other students from all over the world.

Uses of Blogs

I have never before used a blog in my everyday life. I think this is due to two main reasons. The first reason why I don't blog is time. I don't have time to put pen to paper, let alone sign on and blog about what is going on with me. Second, I worry that what I say would not be important for anyone else to read. To me, it is easier to write in a notebook that only I read because no one will read and critique what I wrote. I guess I have to realize that writing a blog is not only for others, but for me too.

Blogs have not been utilized in my classroom either. This is due to both my lack of knowledge of how to best use blogs and the lack of technology use at my school. I guess I would like to learn how to better use the technology and how it will help students a)learn to write b)learn to write better c)learn to love to write d)learn to want to write more.

In the classroom I have used Nicenet and google sites. I used the google site to disseminate the daily lessons to online students. Nicenet is a conferencing website and was used as a place where students would reply to both journal prompts and each others' replies. Right now I am using Ning in my reading and recovery classroom. It is being used as a place where they can learn what is going on in the classroom (day-to-day) and also respond to forum questions. After they respond to the forum questions, they respond to each other's posts - much like what we are doing. I hope to figure out what is the best digital media technology to use for my population and in my classroom.

As far as enhancing or hindering communication... I think that having them log could get the students to write more, but I wonder what caliber writing will come out of it. And as far as using blogs in the classroom, what control should I (as the teacher) have in giving them topics or reining them in if they are not staying on the topic.

I guess that is all for now.