Here is a video of my digital story - I had SO many problems with movie maker during the video-making process and I could not get the video to save, so I ended up having to re-make it and record the "preview video" with my cell phone.  The video is a little shaky and the volume did not pick up well, but it is all here!  Another learning experience!  I have learned that there is always a way, so the next time my students tell me technology problems make completing a project impossible, I will give them this example and tell them to be creative!

I chose to create my infographic in Microsoft Word, so I had a lot of trouble adding a word document to my blog as an image for everyone to see - another learning experience!  Although I have had many struggles with technology during this course, the bright side is definitely that I have learned a tremendous amount in regards to finding a way to make everything work one way or another!  I LOVE the idea of infographics! So much information in such as visual, appealing, and concise presentation - something for just about every learner!

Digital Story Telling and Plagiarism

         I am very excited about this digital storytelling project.  In my previous course, I created a wiki "kit" for my students to use to create a digital story in which I gathered resources and created the outline of a project.  That, however, was where it ended.  I decided for this project that I would use this resource kit I created to actually make the digital story, mainly to use as an example for my students.  Because I had already gathered resources and laid out the project, my process for this course, so far, has been very easy.  The hardest part was getting my digital story script down to only 5 minutes!

     The digital story process is extremely similar to the writing process.  When creating either a paper or a digital story, one must brainstorm and collect ideas, draft, revise, and edit their script or paper, and pull everything together to create and publish a finished work.  The digital storytelling does require a few extra steps and elements such as gathering your photos, audio, and video.

     As I mentioned in a previous post, plagiarism has been an issue in the classroom.  With technology, it is much easier for students to just cut and paste information from sources into a word document, put their name on it, and call it their paper.  Luckily, with this easy access also comes easier ways to check student papers, using tools such as turnitin.com.

     Not all students that plagiarize, however, do it on purpose.  Some students simply do not know how to cite properly or at all.  To remedy this, I always include one large lesson on proper citation before my first paper of the year/semester, and then do smaller reinforcing lessons before each large paper or project.  My students also have citation manuals that they use as well as tutorials on the school library's webpage.  I feel that this is something that should be done in all classes that require the students to research to create a product such as social studies and science, not just relying on English classes to give the students all of their research skills.

My (limited) Experience Producing Information...

Assess your experiences producing information with computer and communications technology. Have you created podcasts, websites, blogs, or videos in your classroom? How? What were the results?

I hate to say it, but my experience producing information with computer and communications technology is fairly limited.  Although my school has excellent technological resources overall, it is sometimes a struggle to get computer time at school for each student.  It used to be that there were only 35 laptops and 11 desktop computers in the library, however there has been an increase in available computers over the past couple of years, which has coincided with the new availability of programs such as Moodle, Microsoft Photo Story (Story Teller), and others.  Of course my students have produced and submitted work using Microsoft Office and flash drives, however the recently there has been a trend towards having the students submit and publish work through Moodle.  I have also used classroom websites and Facebook to anonymously publish and display student work. I have used wikis and blogs as part of lessons and projects in the past as well as a means of publishing student work.

I have had mixed results with these forms of publishing work.  Most students enjoy having their work published online and on our networks, however I have also noticed an increase in plagerism as a result.  Often when we do projects with on-line publishing, multiple teachers within the department collaborate and assign our students the same projects.  Because of this, we have caught student in one class plagerizing the work of a student in another class, thinking that we teachers do not check each other's sites and boards.   This is something I feel will decrease with time and experience as the students learn that we do indeed check these things and we as teachers learn how to better prevent this.  

Literacy in My Social Studies Classroom (wk 3)

As an English and Social Studies teacher, literacy is much easier and more straightforward to incorporate than it would be for a math or science teacher.  In my social studies classes, I incorporate a lot of reading, writing, and speaking/debate.  As part of the WWII unit, I require students to read one book (biography or historical non-fiction) and create a written analysis and verbal presentation covering their reading.  We also do several lessons on collecting, using, and interpreting primary and secondary sources as part of their projects and research papers.  My students, in some of the classes, also are required to engage in a structures debate, requiring them to research, prepare their arguments, and then engage in a debate with their fellow students. 

Going into more detail regarding the WWII project, students are typically given a list of pre-approved books from which they may choose (other books are approved on a case-by-case basis).  The books can be either a biography of a WWII figure (famous or not or a historical non-fiction work covering a topic from WWII.  If I know a student will have trouble reading the books on the approved list, I do have a small list of less-advanced materials they may choose from.  The same goes for advances students – I also have a small list of more advanced books that they may choose from if they would like.  Once the students select their books, I require them to fill out three “journal” entry sheets covering their reading – the first one at the beginning of their reading to summarize the introduction and discuss their expectations, what they are hoping to learn from the book, and what they think the book will be about (a modified KWL).  They then complete one about midway through the reading covering what is happening in the book and if/how their expectations (KWL) of the book are changing.  The final one is completed after they have finished the book to reflect on it and begin planning out their project.  The project entails a written analysis of the book and a presentation (in digital format) covering the book. 

Social Studies requires a lot of reading, writing, and speaking, making literacy easy to incorporate into the lessons.  I can also see where literacy can be incorporated in to science and health classes.  I am struggling, however to see how it can be incorporated in secondary math classes.  I suppose that students could create word problems and mathematical scenarios, but I would think that would be limited in regards to literacy.  Does anyone have any ideas or tricks for incorporating literacy into a secondary math classroom?

Click HERE to read about Jennifer Faulk's theory regarding read-alouds in the secondary math classroom

Clicker 6 - an Educational Software Tool

Click 6 is an educational software tool available to elementary and middle school teachers.  The tool, which can be used through the computer and SmartBoards, allows teachers and students to experiment with reading and writing and aims to make the students more independent and able readers and writers.  There are so many different features that can be used in the software:

The ability for students to copy and paste text from anywhere on a computer or online (ebooks included) and have the text read to them through the program.


The students are also able to use the software to create their own writing and books using the software.


One neat feature is the "powerful adjectives" feature which reads what the students are writing and suggests places stronger words and adjectives can be inserted and even gives the students an automatic thesaurus to use to find new words.


Another feature the program offers is the ability for the teacher to create and save a book or assignment template for the students to use, which they can load vocabulary words or other information and words they would like the students to use.


There is also a huge library of images and pictures that the students can include to enhance their books and writing.  They can also use their own pictures or a webcam to upload images to be used in their writing.


When the students write, they have the option of using a feature that reads their work back to them, which allows for active editing and more conscious writing and punctuation.  They can also use the feature to create "talking books" which can be shared with the whole class.

Another useful feature that can be activated by the teacher and/or students is the "parts of speech" feature, which highlights words in the students' writing and color codes them according to which part of speech they are.

The software is great for encouraging creativity and strengthening writing and reading skills for students.  It also encourages the students to be more self-sufficient by using the program to help answer thier questions and to guide them in their writing.  It even helps with reading!

Click HERE to watch a video about Clicker 6

Here is part of a review one teacher wrote about Clicker 6 and how she uses it:

The initial introduction to the activity takes about 20 minutes to explain how to use the grids. On the first page the name of the story appears and an explanation of what the student will be doing. These explanations were given using buttons that had my voice recorded. On the next page the student is asked to read part of the story. Any words that may be difficult for these students are typed into another box. These words act as audio clues. The student clicks on the word and a computer voice tells them the word. This allows the student to get help on demand while still doing most of the reading alone.
The next step involved the writing of a summary about the reading. A series of questions were asked using numbered buttons, all of the words needed to answer the questions were put into grids. These grids, along with the vocabulary grids that come with Clicker, were color-coded for nouns, verbs and others. By using these grids the students were able to produce a summary of the reading that they were proud to turn in.

Clicker 6 is also a great tool for the special education classroom! Click HERE to see how Clicker 6 can be used for students with several different disabilities.

There are, however some major downfalls to the program, mainly the price.  For a single computer license, the program costs $300.  This goes all the way up to $3000 for unlimited computer use.  If it is in the budget, I feel that this is a great program for the classroom.

Wikis! (week 2)

People (and I have found this to be true of myself) tend to confuse wikis and blogs.  Blogs allow one person (the owner) to create posts and then others viewing the blog can comment on the posts.  Wikis, however, allow anyone (sometimes permission is required) to post and edit them (think Wikipedia).  Wikis, in my experience, can be a great tool to use in projects.  They allow students to work together and collaborate on a while new level, however, they must be used correctly or they can lose all meaning as a true wiki.  When creating and using a wiki, I feel it is important to make sure that the students stay on-topic and that any posted information is relevant to the discussion/project in order to avoid a giant jumble of information.

I have created two wikis in previous courses that I am very excited to use in my classroom.  The first was a digital story kit covering women during WWII and the second was a class wiki for an exchange student project.   I love the fact that wikis require no special software or programs to operate and can be accessed and participated in from any computer (or smart phone!).  This is important to me because it means that students can work on the projects and collaborate with each other at any time and from anywhere - the project is not limited to the classroom or library like they can be with many other projects that require special software.  Wikis have been used at my school, but not to a great extent, so I do understand why the text classifies them as "emerging technologies" -- the big thing the past year or so has been Moodle, but I am hoping they will catch on!

I found a wiki related to teen literacy that I really like.  The wiki titled "Literacy in the Classroom - 21st Century Style" is essentially a wiki comprised of book reviews that students can post, add to, and edit.  The wiki is password protected, which I feel gives it a little more of a sense of reliability because not just any person off the street can add or edit.  One commenter stated, "I am glad you posted this where I can leave my booktalks, and I won't feel stupid about loving to read."  This is another thing I find appealing about wikis in general - people with similar interests can come together and work together on something they like and are passionate about!  The wiki is not that thrilling visually and does not appear to have been updated for a while, however, it is well organized and the information is still relevant and useful to those looking for book recommendations.  As co-sponsor of my school's book club, I would like to try to start a very similar wiki for our library!  Such a great idea!

I also discovered a wiki that appears to be part of a secondary english or literature class.  The wiki is extremely attractive, organized, and well laid out.  There are pages and links for different novels the students are reading and each page then links to projects, discussions, etc. for the students to use.  There appears to be good collaboration between the students and there is evidence or revisions and reworking of the student work based upon comments from classmates.  The wiki does have so much information and so many pages that I did find myself getting a little lost at times.  I am sure, however, that the layout and information makes much better sense to the students in the classes.

I think that, as far as curriculum is concerned, the second wiki would be the most effective.  It contains specific activities and content directed towards specific content goals.  The first wiki is geared towards getting students to actively participate in reading and writing, however it appears that it is used as an optional activity and not a required part or a class as the second wiki is.  The second wiki also appears to require much higher-level thinking and more in-depth, guided work than the first does.  Both wikis, however, appear to be effective when it comes to literacy in the classroom.

I found a site called Wikitionary in my searches that I thought was pretty neat - I have a hard time keeping up with some of the "lingo" of the students and this site allows them to add and edit word definitions that may not be in my Webster's dictionary just yet :)  I would not allow it to be used as an academic resource, but it is fun and can be useful for everyday use :)


click HERE for a wiki on the pros and cons of wikis :)


(http://teachbytes.com/category/cartoons/page/2/)

Resources:

http://westwilkeswickedwiki.pbworks.com/w/page/13929096/FrontPage

http://booktalk.pbworks.com/w/page/14903944/FrontPage

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Wiktionary:Main_Page