What I did on my summer vacation, part 1

Pig Races in Bear Creek, Montana.

Blogging and researching inquiry

Paul Allison has been doing some thinking about how to use Google Reader in the classroom. There was a Teachers Teaching Teachers podcast about blogging and research this past May, and there's a podcast about RSS scheduled for edtechtalk for this week.

Last year I had success getting students oriented to and enthused about Google Reader; that's the easy part. But this year I'd like to have students use this tool even better, and that means having them research things that matter. Paul has started a wiki about orienting students to Reader more efficiently this year. I like how he frames the next step:

How can we organize this in a curriculum for students? What comes first? How do we do this while also helping students start with their own questions and experiences?

Elgg Plans » Using Google Reader

For me, there's a question I first have to ask myself: where does my own inquiry come from? The answer? My own inquiry comes from my identity. It's where these identities intersect that we find our inquiry. Here's a link to a Google Doc that explains my thinking on this. And here's a link to how this manifested itself on the "Using Google Reader" wiki.

iShakespeare

I asked my seniors what medium made Shakespeare more understandable. Here's what they said.

Educational Social Networking

NCLB & authentic writing

The National Commission on Writing released Writing and School Reform a while ago outlining how authentic, personalized writing instruction can happen in today's standard-driven classrooms. If you haven't read it, it's worth reading now.

Ed Blogging Redux

Here's a link to a nice overview of educational blogging to date. I especially like its reference to a rationale for educational blogging and its links to top educational blogs.

student work

Here's a link to some enhanced podcasts and videos that students did at Nancy Miller Day, an arts celebration day at Judge. Most of these students had never really used GarageBand for enhanced podcasts or shot much video, so what they did from start to finish in three hours shows what students can do with little time or guidance.

Nancy Miller Day 2004

Thursday, April 26 is Nancy Miller Day. Here's a link to an enhanced podcast of a previous Nancy Miller Day at Judge in 2004.

Wiki in the English class

Here's a short video about how I use wikispaces in my English classroom.


If you're not sure what a wiki is, here's a helpful resource.

are they really different?

I hear a lot about how today's students are so much different than preceding generations. For instance, I heard David Warlick speak this morning at the UCET conference. Among other things he said that kids today are more competitive, risk-taking, sociable and self-confident than the preceding generation. I've heard him, Marc Prensky and others say similar things, but I'm not completely convinced.

They often cite examples of kids who multitask as evidence of the trend, replete with pictures of a teen plugged into an iPod and a laptop, chatting and playing video games all at the same time. These kids are bored with school because teachers no longer know how to hold their attention, they say. But then I think about how bored I was through much of high school, and how I multitasked by listening to a transistor radio with one earpiece, how I daydreamed, wrote song lyrics in notebooks that my teachers never saw, how kids passed notes (a precursor of "chatting"), and I wonder – are today's kids really that different than kids were back in the day? Have the students changed or are they just using different tools?

I'm no technophobe and I understand that we need to change much of how we teach, so don't get me wrong. I find myself agreeing with a lot of what's said by Warlick, Prensky, et al. I'm just looking for some proof (not anecdotal evidence) that the students I teach now are that much different than when I started twenty-some years ago. Can anyone cite any research?

Voltaire's voice

This quote by Voltaire is a fine metaphor for the writing voice (sent to me by Marilyn Olander).

"L'écriture est la peinture de la voix; plus elle est ressemblante, meilleure elle est."
"Writing is the painting of the voice; the closer the resemblance, the better it is."

- from Voltaire's "Orthography," in his Philosophical Dictionary

finding your voice

I'm interested in how writers find their voice. Here's an excerpt from a Critique magazine interview with Peter Elbow that I just came across:

"I want to emphasize something enormously simple about voice that in a sense I've only figured out in the last few years. If there's one activity that I think is the most helpful thing about writing, apart from just writing and writing, it is reading your writing out loud and also reading the writing of others out loud. Saying the words in your voice, with your mouth: I think that's the most powerful way to help one’s writing and to help one’s voice."
— Peter Elbow

dirty work

I just learned that teaching is the dirtiest job. The findings come from the Clorox Company. Here are some of the highlights:

Teachers’ phones, keyboards, and computer mice had the most germs.

Accountants' desks had the most germs of any desks sampled.

Lawyers had the least germy desks.

Publicists had the least germy phones.

Bankers had the least germy keyboards.

TV producers had the least germy computer mice.

"Surfaces regularly used by teachers, accountants, and bankers harbored nearly two to 20 times more bacteria per square inch when compared to other professions," the report states.

Sources: The Clorox Company, “Office Germs Research 2006 Results.” News release, The Clorox Company.

educational blogging

A lot of teachers are using blogging in their classrooms now. Here's a link to a useful Educause article advocating educational blogging. It's a little dated, but still valid.

Then today I came across an article from the Jan. 30, 2007 issue of the Chronicle of Higher Education called Blog Overload. It's a good reminder not only about blogging, but about all writing. Good writing is purposeful and authentic.

AP audit

The folks at College Board are conducting an audit to make sure that's what being labeled as AP in high schools meets their criteria. Here's a link to a Google Doc of my AP English Language and Composition curriculum. Feel free to give me any input.

Google Apps in my classroom

A quick overview of some of the Google applications I've been using in my classroom this semester.

Dogboy dating video

Since Dogboy Goo is a good friend of mine, I told him I'd post his dating video for him.

Google's Student Speakout

We recently completed the Global Warming Student Speakout in my English classes. It makes me wonder about the differences between digital writing and traditional writing. Here are four things I've noticed:

• Revision is becoming more visible. It used to be a black box. Among other things this is significant for writing teachers (e.g. a writing conference with more evidence) as well as for the writer.
• Linkage. It feels different reading a document that can link to the source material rather than just cite it.
• Web surfing for information during collaborative projects is more conductive to the ebb and flow of conversation, and is better suited to the psychological connections our brains make.
• Audience matters. Nothing new here. Audience influenced the choices we make in traditional writing too. But a potential immediate worldwide audience that allows others to interact with the content? That seems different. Maybe Marshall McLuhan's predictions about a global tribe aren't so far off.

Google Docs in the classroom

Is anyone else working on Google's "Global Warming Student Speakout"? Here are some thoughts on the first couple of days with Google Docs in the classroom.

Sound and Story

Jenny Brundin, a radio journalist from KUER in Salt Lake City, Utah visited my classroom recently. Here's what she said about sound and story.