My Continuing Education

Sonnets Aren't So Scary

2011-01-13T09:33:00.003-05:00

My sophomores in British Literature class are writing sonnets, and when I mentioned this at the family dinner table the other night, my husband's reaction was not surprising. He hated sonnets and especially that iambic pentameter! We've talked before about his experiences in high school English class and from those conversations I've developed my own primer of what not to do to my students as their English teacher. But, they just HAVE to write sonnets, and I do my best to make the experience as non-traumatic as possible.

First, we have studied poetry throughout the year and they have developed skills, and hopefully, confidence in previous writing assignments, including a character sketch in rhyming couplets and accentual meter ala Geoffrey Chaucer and a poem in the style of the Anglo Saxon poet including caesuras and alliterative verse. Now, the ultimate challenge - the sonnet :)

I introduce the concept in its historical context as a popular form of writing during the English Renaissance. Poets would write sonnets to prove their worth as a writer. It's considered a puzzle to the writer and it's a puzzle to the reader - who doesn't like puzzles?! We also talk about other forms of art that we have made and how satisfying it can be to create something beautiful. I show them a double wedding knot quilt that I spent a year making and we compare the pattern to the pattern of the sonnet.

I guess what I try to emphasize is that if you develop and set the right attitude sonnets, like anything else, can be tackled and conquered. Push yourself, be creative, and you may discover something about yourself - that you didn't know before - You CAN do it! That's what real education should be about.

So, those are my intentions, how about the results? All of my students scored A's and B's on the sonnet quiz (higher grades than on previous assessments). And now, they are writing some pretty strong sonnets of their own. Here's one that not only fits my Shakespearean sonnet assignment but also was entered in a 100 word contest about technology:

It has always been deep in our nature to want
to break the chains in which we were bound by birth.

Each law of physics or nature is like a taunt,

or an obstacle as old as mother Earth.

But no walls ever built will always last,

for we were all born to break them down,

doing what we have done throughout our past;

reinventing ourselves and breaking new ground.

Sure, technology is not always right,

but it’s few failures are easy to forgive.

And anyone who, against it, puts up a fight,

forgets that technology allows them to live.

I hope he wins the contest :)

I've also asked my students to respond to this post with their perspective about studying sonnets to help me improve for next year. I'm watching them write right now. Some are counting syllables on their fingers, some sharing lines with a neighbor and smiling, others thinking hard - looking up at the ceiling, closing their eyes and bending their head, then scribbling another attempt. All working, trying, and experimenting with words. Though challenging, I hope that they remember this one day as a challenge they faced, not a trauma they survived.

This brings a little tear to my eye

2010-09-07T15:11:00.003-04:00

Here is how students use and benefit from laptops in the classroom.
First week of school. Second year teaching this group of students. Third year they have used laptops in the classroom.
One of my students knew that she would be absent and knew that the day's class period was time for working on a paper with a partner. So, she made arrangements. First, she talked with her partner to coordinate getting the work done. Then, she emailed me to let me know that she would be absent and that she had communicated with her partner.
During 8th period that day, all students were working on separate Google Docs to write scripts. My absent student was also working on the Google Doc with her partner and using the chat function to clarify directions and plan together.
Here is a screen shot that I took from my computer. I could watch them talking to each other and interject my own pointers along the way.
Why was this so seamless? The students were familiar with the applications used. They had experience using Google Docs and understood how to use it for their own purposes. These were also highly independent students. They did not wait for me to remind them how to use this online tool to their advantage, but instead took charge of the learning situation for themselves.
It brings a little tear to my eye when I see that ultimately my students don't need me. They can function and excel in this brave new 21st Century world just fine on their own!

Senior Exhibits

2010-04-02T17:39:00.002-04:00

One of my favorite aspects of my job as a teacher at Fredericksburg Academy is the opportunity to work with students as their Senior Exhibit mentor. Students begin a year long study in an area of their choosing the spring of their junior year then complete a learning activity, application, and formal presentation by the spring of their senior year. I have worked with some great students in the past on their individual projects, including learning to become a certified Red Cross instructor, working with the elderly, and setting up a new program at our school to benefit students in the future. This year two juniors have asked me to work with them and I am very excited about their initial ideas. You can follow their blogs about learning Russian culture and physiology. I can't guarantee that they will still be with those topics come next spring, but they are both off to a great start!

Book Versus Scroll

2010-03-28T09:17:00.010-04:00

Over the years my English department has tried to incorporate tech in our classrooms, especially when it makes learning better and more economical for our students. This is all made easier as I teach in a one-to-one laptop school. I have used a program called Vital Source, but I have found that the texts are not always accurate or as complete as their printed counterparts; for example no line numbers on epic poem texts. I have also used some e-texts with my classes but haven't always gotten the best feedback from students when I use these resources. We can't annotate them as we can a book. They are not as easily referenced during class discussions, although when the Ctrl F search feature works finding the same place to discuss is quick and easy. Of course, managing distractions is always an issue when anyone, not just students, are working online. Learning to self discipline in this area is a life skill that I encourage my students to practice. Ignoring Facebook, chat pop ups, constant checking of email, and more are all real distractions which I find myself falling into often, so I certainly sympathize with my students struggles in this area as well. For example, I set aside some time to grade lovely satires written by my sophomores and here I am writing a blog post (for the first time in three months!). An advantage to the e-text, besides the free price, is also the ease of access-no book to forget at school.

This morning I found some recent research that describes my biggest struggle with using online texts. As someone who has always studied books, I find it difficult to find my place in online texts. Maybe I need to use resources like Diigo and its annotation feature more often. I have also thought that this is because I am a strongly visual learner and "see" where on the page I am looking for in order to locate a relevant quote or section when analyzing a text. But this research suggests that another factor is memory processing.
So my questions are:

Do students of this new generation have different memory functioning than I do? Am I just getting old and losing it!
Is the digital world that they are growing up in changing how their brains develop (I know that there is research on this out there)?
Should I use online texts in order to facilitate this development, continue using a combination of print and online sources, or go back to the "good old days" of tattered, well read paperbacks?

I hope that teachers who have used scrolling texts share what they do in order to use this resource effectively as a learning tool. And I hope that students also share their perspectives on these questions as well.

One more thought, more than anything I have found that variety is not only the spice of life but also the best way to teach. Whether for "keeping it fresh" and interesting or to reach students with multiple learning styles in the same 45 minutes. So I guess I'm leaning toward sticking to the combination (I have turned in my book list for next year), but what about the year after that (do teachers plan two years in advance?!) I'm also always open to change, which helps adapting to this whole new world of teaching a bit easier.

Information Consumption

2009-12-10T19:53:00.002-05:00

What would your pie chart look like?
I asked my students who are overwhelmingly computer based, with high use of phone, and variable amounts of TV.
I use the TV very infrequently, but question what these categories actually mean. I no longer subscribe to cable so I get no TV at my house, but use my computer to access hulu.com, netflix, and youtube for TV shows. Does that count for computer?
Also, what about reading print material on the computer, as opposed to reading non-print blogs and other social media sites? I think it's time to get more specific on the computer category.

Future Trends

2009-12-08T08:23:00.002-05:00

I just stumbled across this from my Diigo education Group. It's a "Map of Future Forces Affecting Education" made by Knowledge Works. Have you seen this map or know anything about the company. We're getting ready for exams next week, so I won't be able to look into this too closely, but it's something that I want to come back to soon. Happy holidays!

the business world

2009-11-10T12:24:00.002-05:00

I just skimmed some new posts in my aggregator and was surprised to see that a prime topic of discussion these days is how businesses are using social media and online tools to improve their business model (and ultimately their profitability). The cutting edge of education is actively using and exploring available online tools to 1) enhance learning and 2) better prepare students for work in the 21st Century. We may not know what exactly that work will look like, but we do know that it will involve harnassing information available on the Internet. With the rapid growth of the Internet industry, it's also safe to say that learning to be flexible and adaptable to new technologies is also a key component of future jobs. What else do you predict we are preparing our students for by using technology in the classroom today?

Getting Students Involved

2009-10-10T08:16:00.003-04:00

To enliven a presentation on the history of the English language and how Old English was formed for my British Literature class, I got all student involved. As they entered the classroom, I gave each student a card with a role: Saxon, Celt, Roman, Christian monk, etc. I told students that I was playing the role of the scop, the Anglo Saxon storyteller, and they would be various characters in my production. I began the story of the "Birth of the Little Baby English Language" and throughout various students entered the "stage" and participated as everyone listened and waited for their part.

When my story was finished, I asked everyone to open a new blog post on their class blogs and record the same story for themselves. In this way they too became the scop. Here are some of their posts:

Their stories aren't elegant, but the facts are there and they are all pretty consistent. Getting students involved as active participants in their learning instead of passive listeners makes learning more fun and ultimately more meaningful.

Stepping Out of the Way

2009-10-10T07:46:00.005-04:00

One of the best conferences that I went to last year was not a technology conference. The speaker spent the day reviewing recent brain research and how it applies to teaching and learning. This school year I have been consciously applying some of the lessons learned with great results in my classroom.

Friday was Spirit Day, the culmination of a week of dressing up, competing for class spirit points, and general chaos. Class periods were shortened for the end of the day parade and pep rally. Here is a picture of my class that day:All students were actively engaged in a task that involved reviewing dates in American history. It certainly wasn't the task that was so engaging, but how it was framed and presented. After a quick review of our last unit, Puritanism, I told the class that the rest of the period would be spent in a class challenge. My next class period would do the same task and the groups would be timed. Their task was to match dates to important events in American history, but I also told them that it was not important to know the date but instead to understand the overall chronology. I then gave a stack of dates to one half of the class and a stack of events to the other half. No one moved at first so I asked if anyone had a strategy for tackling this task. Students jumped up and started posting the dates in chronological order on the board while other students sifted through the events.

Whenever the students reached a stumbling block I threw out a question, not about the task but about how they could solve the problems they encountered. At one point everyone was standing around the table looking at the cards. I said "are these all of the resources that you have available?" and looked pointedly at each of them. Someone tentatively suggested that they could use their history books. I said "why not!" Then they pulled out the computers too. When the same thing happened in the second class, I showed one student this picture of the first class as a hint. "We can use our books and laptops," he announced to the rest of the class, and they opened notes from a Power Point used in their history class. This was a curious point for me, why did they wait until I gave them "permission" to use their outside resources?

In the end, it was a tie between the two classes, which was also interesting because one of the classes has twice as many students. Instead of having everyone copy down the dates, I'll send them digital pictures of the board.It's not the task, but how you frame it that helps create a productive learning environment. Students now have a sense of how different the time period was between the Puritans and the Revolutionary writers, like Thomas Paine. They are now prepared to tackle their reading, "The Crisis, No. 1," with a general understanding of who he was, what he was writing about and why, and how all of this makes him so different from his Puritan predecessors.

Authentic Writing

2009-09-13T08:48:00.003-04:00

Throughout their study of American literature, my students are asked to examine who they are as Americans. We are beginning the year with a study of The Road by Cormac McCarthy, a contemporary novel that does not challenge students in decoding language, but rather in uncovering meaning for themselves. I hope that my students are coming to an understanding that they bring meaning to a text from their own experiences and prior knowledge. The questions that they bring to the text are just as worthy of consideration as any question that I could propose as their teacher. I like the idea that we are studying a novel that I have not taught before and that others have not taught and prepared lesson plans posted online. We have a situation where there is no "expert" on this text in the classroom or online.

Of course, I am the expert reader, modeling questioning and how to discover valid hypotheses about the text, the author's intentions, and the universal meanings presented by the story. In their discussions, my students are beginning to make some great connections between their own lives and the circumstances of this novel. A question that I would like them to continue to explore is: What can this novel say to me in my life now?

Now it's time for some assessment. How can I test their understanding of this process of self discovery that I hope is building a foundation that we will continue to develop throughout the year? In terms of examining the novel, reflecting, sharing their ideas, and developing understandings about McCarthy's impact as a writer, my students are working on a class wiki. They use individual pages to post initial thinking about the novel, group pages to post their group discussion notes, and a class page when we have whole class discussions of the novel. I will use these pages to construct a final unit test including sections of quotation explanation, vocabulary enrichment, and McCarthy's writing techniques. These sections will be individualized to each group using ideas and points that they found to be most relevant in their discussions. (I'm not exactly looking forward to making six tests though!) But, I think that makes them more authentic, especially in light of the unit goal that students understand the validity of their own examination of texts, not teacher or expert driven. I hope that the test does not ask them to "regurgitate" any material that I alone value, but rather to synthesize ideas examined throughout the unit in their own reading of the text and in their small group discussions.

A writing task: my English department has a consistent approach to writing and as a school we produce strong writers. I would be remiss in serving this goal of my department if I didn't include a writing assignment in this unit of study. In continuing the concept of self discovery and the idea that we all "bring something to the table," my students are going to make short presentations about who they are. After these oral presentations I want them to synthesize all of the ideas presented by their classmates and write a paper about "who we all are as Americans." At this point, my writing assignment is as vague as that. They could write an essay focusing on certain qualities shared by a number of their classmates. I want their papers to be interesting and authentic so I am trying to consider alternative audiences besides just myself and their peers (they're not going to read all of the papers anyway).

As I imagine this paper I keep thinking about The Breakfast Club and the final letter those teenagers left for their teacher. And, as a teacher of the 21st Century, I think something like that would be really cool too!

What ideas or suggestions do you have? If you were to write this paper, what kind of direction would you want me to include in the assignment sheet?

Learning to Understand

2009-09-07T08:51:00.002-04:00

The entire faculty at my school is studying Understanding by Design by Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe this year. While the ideas are not completely new to me, it is an interesting exercise in trying to get the whole school thinking on the same page. I find that every year I am rethinking my classes and approaches and making small adjustments. Using web 2.0 technologies both in the classroom and to build my own personal learning network has certainly prompted and encouraged much of this thinking.

This year my American Literature course is getting a bit of an overhaul. I'm starting the year with the contemporary novel The Road by Cormac McCarthy. Students are studying it in cooperative learning groups, recording their work on a wiki, and then sharing their insights with the whole class. Working with such a contemporary novel has been an interesting challenge for my students and myself. While they do not need to decode language, the structure of the plot and the message are mysteries to them at this point. I am trying hard not to give them ready answers and instead encouraging them to see this overarching idea:

There is no right answer to what the text is about. But that doesn't mean that all answers are equal. There may be no right answers, but some answers are better than others, and figuring our what that means and how it can be so is one of your major challenges. (Grant 143)

Working in their own literature circles, with their peers, I encourage them to be persistent and not give up on a discussion question too quickly but instead to "consider, propose, test, question, criticize, and verify" (129). In developing their own theories about the literature and seeing these develop and change throughout their reading of the novel, I hope to instill the understanding that they make their own meaning from the literature that they read which is based on their own skills and prior experiences and not solely reliant on an expert opinion about the literature. If they can then transfer this confidence in their own reading and theory making to our next unit, a study of Puritan writings, I'll be ecstatic!

Personal Connections

2009-08-15T07:23:00.005-04:00

Here is the value of Twitter and my RSS reader for me. I was playing around online for about 10 minutes, saw the following and got inspired to write this blog post. I started out by skimming my RSS reader and stumbling across an invitation to check out #steconf on Twitter. Summarized, this is what I gained:

checked out and added one new follower
searched for the hashtag #steconf to find out what was happening yesterday at the Social Technology in Education Conference
Saw this tweet and thought it was worth reflecting on in my blog

As a classroom teacher/facilitator, I think that one of my main jobs is to facilitate personal connections between my students. Or maybe it's because I'm an English teacher and our classes tend to be discussion based. I need my students to think and consider alternative points of view in order to develop their own opinions. So first and foremost they need to get along with and respect each other.

This is particularly challenging for me as my school has about 100 students total in the Upper School. Sometimes it's difficult getting my students past the assumption that they know each other too well. And sometimes it's an advantage for them to know each other so well.

One of the reasons that I have jumped into using web 2.0 tools is because they are an avenue for facilitating these personal connections. I have used discussion boards to not only encourage students who are less likely to speak up during class discussions to voice their opinions, but also to connect different sections of a class so that we could get more opinions and ideas into our discussion of a topic. Of course, blogging and helping form connections with students in other schools is valuable too in gaining a broader perspective, which is so important for my students in their small, insulated school experience.

As a teacher, I want my students to know and discover who they are and who they want to be. In this journey of self discovery, seeing the potentials offered by the experience of others is invaluable. Of course, breaking down stereotypes by recognizing generalizations and assumptions are a means to this end of valuing others. It's not about mastering a particular curriculum or who knows the most. Instead learning is about seeing what others have to offer and whether that insight can help you develop yourself in positive ways toward your own goals in learning and in living a rewarding life.

I learn and gain so much from the social connections that I make online everyday by following others' blogs, skimming tweets on Twitter, and the various Nings that I belong to. Thanks to all of you for sharing yourselves and helping me to develop my ideas and learn new things about myself.

The New Progressivism

2009-08-10T14:26:00.002-04:00

I kept a folder on my desk last year and titled it "Ideas." Throughout the year I put in articles to ponder, strategies big and small to use, handouts from faculty meetings, my own lists of notes and intentions for next year. It's next year now so I dusted off the folder this afternoon, found some gems and threw away just as many pages that are now either not as thought provoking or have become incorporated into my lesson plans already.

In the batch I found an article titled "The New Progressivism Is Here" by Peter Gow for NAIS, National Association of Independent Schools, April 30, 2008. Here are my notes.

Gow defines key characteristics of the New Progressivism as practiced in independent schools throughout the nation as the following.

assessment against high standard: drawing on Gardner, Wiggins, and Sternberg including backwards planning, variety in assessments, project & problem based learning, and seeing textbooks and teachers as resources
professional development is mission-driven and collaborative
encouraging students to make real-world connections
multiculturalism as a process, not a program
character and creativity are encouraged and rewarded and "help students discover and strengthen deep and abiding personal values"
civic engagement
technology as tool to enhance learning and "freeing the mind for more interesting and worthy challenges"

the goal: "innovative, flexible, and resourceful citizens and thinkers"

Now for my reflections:
This year I'd like to spend some time evaluating my assessments. As a school, we are reading Understanding By Design by Wiggins and McTighe (that should take care of the prof dev point too). Stage two in the UbD pattern is on assessment, so I prarticularly looking forward to that part.
Do you have any great assessments that encourage your students to be "innovative, flexible, and resourceful"?

Dusting Off the Computer

2009-08-08T09:01:00.005-04:00

It's been a while since I wrote a blog, so it's time to get back to work. I gave myself the entire month of July off. Off of the computer, Twitter, Nings, blogging, my RSS. Off from reading educational treatises online and off, off from reading school books. Now, I'm feeling a little behind the eight ball, but refreshed and ready to start a new school year.

I've been reading the latest issue of The English Journal (Vol. 98, no. 6, July 2009) and enjoying the theme of fun in the English classroom. Teaching is fun for me and that's why I do it. I spent too long in college and graduate school because I refused to get into a career that was not intrinsically rewarding to me. I didn't want to spend my life earning a paycheck. I wanted to spend my life pursuing a calling that would allow me to continue to grow and learn about myself. A career that benefited others, but also (selfishly?) benefited myself. My first couple of years in the classroom were tough and I vowed that I would stick it out for ten years then find myself another calling. After my fourth year, I no longer entertained thoughts of ever leaving the teaching profession. I am now excited to begin my thirteenth year of teaching and looking forward to the changes and opportunities that this new school year offers.

I enjoyed Tom Romano's essay "Defining Fun and Seeking Flow in English Language Arts." I was first introduced to flow, a concept identified and studied by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, in my senior seminar for Psychology majors in college. Now I'm thinking about how to help my students experience it in a 45 minute class period. I find it to be a bit unfair to put this kind of goal or expectation on ourselves as teachers. My students travel from class to class with two minutes of passing time, social concerns buzzing in their minds, a laptop to distract them throughout the class period. How can I create a meaningful learning experience which they value and willingly participate in. Well, that's the real challenge isn't it. And, I'm not afraid of a challenge.

The following points are summarized from Csikszentmihalyi's descriptions of elements reported by people who experienced flow in Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience.

we can experience flow when we confront tasks that we have a chance of completing
we must be able to concentrate on what we are doing
concentration is possible because the task has clear goals and provides immediate feedback
deep and effortless involvement removes from awareness the worries and frustrations of everyday life
enjoyable experiences allow people to exercise a sense of control
concern for the self disappears, and the sense of self emerges stronger
the sense of the duration of time is altered

Thinking of teenagers with these concepts in mind is daunting. Can I invent a lesson that distracts a teen from the worries of his/her social life, left just minutes before in the hallway before class? Can we complete tasks in the 45 minute class period (minus settling in time)? In the above list, numbers 1-4 worry me, but 5-7 give me courage that this is possible and that these are the goals that teens want for themselves too. And, while no one is going to experience flow in my English classroom everyday, not even me, this is a goal worth setting for ourselves.

Romano continues in his essay to examine various angles of the English classroom and curriculum that invite fun in to help in achieving these daunting goals. This year I'd like to work toward emphasizing these areas in all of my classes:

read a poem to the class (and have students take turns) for the fun sounds of language every day. This would be a great way to start class on time and get everyone focused on language, whether they just came from study hall or math class.
read more essays throughout the year to make contemporary connections and to examine this idea from James Moffett from "English literature has maintained a marvelous tradition fusing personal experience, private vision, adn downright eccentricity, with intellectual vigor and verbal objectification. In color, depth, and stylisitic originality it rivals some of our best poetry."
encourage students to write in and develop their own authentic voice, which Romano defines as voices which "provide substantive information, use narrative at least a little to make their points, and surprise readers with interesting perceptions." And most particularly encourage students to use humor in their writing. Keep it fun.
I also want to check out and consider multigenre writing on Romano's website.

Teaching literacy these days is a huge challenge as the definition of literacy is currently in such flux. But the end products of literacy "thoughtfulness, judgment, and vision" (36) are so crucial to a satisfying and meaningful life that we English teachers may have the most important job in the world. At least, that's what I like to think.

National Conversation on Writing

2009-06-28T14:49:00.004-04:00

Just submitted this video that I made with my sophomores this past year to the National Conversation on Writing project. We made it at the beginning of the school year, but I had trouble uploading it to You Tube or Teacher Tube. Just tried Vimeo with great success. Guess I'll be using that for my video projects in the future.

wikispaces in the classroom

2009-06-28T07:50:00.004-04:00

In the recent e-newsletter from Wikispaces there was a call for sharing stories about using Wikispaces. Here is my response to them. It's a little pro-wikispaces, but as I was writing it I realized that each year I am finding even more ways to use and tie this resouce into the daily work of my classroom. Here are a couple of non-Wikispaces wikis that I used this year as well: Black Ice literature circles, A Thousand Splendid Suns book study.

To Wikispaces:
I began using wikispaces in my high school English classroom two years ago. In 2007 I learned about the power of using web 2.0 tools in the classroom at the VAIS (VA Assoc of Independent Schools) annual technology conference. After feeling overwhelmed, and a little inadequate because I was "behind the curve," I quickly started my own blog and wikispace. This is my main resource for my students now. On it I share my curriculum, classroom resources, and publish student work. Students have enjoyed using the discussion board feature to comment on each others' work. I have also created wikispaces for particular projects throughout the year. I have juniors work cooperatively in literature circles online. Here they complete their homework to prepare for the in-class group work, then record their group notes for the day. In a senior level course this year, students worked cooperatively to create a class novel. They used wikispaces to share their ideas and early drafts with each other to help them develop cohesive characters and plot lines. My sophomores have used wikispaces to work with a partner to complete research and present historical topics to their class.

I love using wikispaces because it is flexible and easy to manage. It has helped me take my previous lesson plans to a new level, making them more effective and meaningful to my students. My focus as a 21st Century teacher is on engaging my students in my curriculum to foster their own appreciations and curiosity in persuing the subject beyond my classroom. Wikispaces gives me the place to do this transparently online. Getting my students to think and work online cooperatively with each other and with me, is one of the greatest values of wikispaces that I have found.

Featured

2009-06-11T16:50:00.002-04:00

I was a little jealous this year when my husband was featured in a local magazine Virginia Neighbors for his extraordinary teaching and cycling (I can't say "hobby" it's more like a "lifestyle"). This week I got my own notoriety in the PLP (Powerful Learning Practice with Will Richardson and Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach) newsletter. I posted the entire article below, which sums up my intensive personal learning this school year.

Seeing Tech in a Different Light
By Mary Worrell

Jennifer Clark Evans is an English teacher at Fredericksburg Academy in Virginia and a member of the PLP International Schools Cohort. She's been teaching for 12 years. As the year-long PLP experience winded down, Evans had a chance to reflect on her personal experience and what she'd learned along the way.

"PLP has been an interesting process. I felt all along I wasn't sure what I was doing, but I've been using technology in the classroom for a while," Evans said. "It really gave me a chance to get outside support and ideas and make connections outside of my little school. That was the most advantageous part for me."

Even though Evans had been using technology, including wikis and blogs, in her classroom for some time, the way she viewed incorporating it changed over the course of the year.

"Whenever I think about my lesson planning, I'm always thinking about the benefit of doing it with technology versus just paper and pencil," she said. "I'm much more careful to ensure that using the technology is an advantage. Now it's more purpose-driven and more transparent to me and the parents than before."

Evans incorporates blogging into her classroom.

"I had my students involved in the blogging and they showed me the many different advantages they got out of the blog," she said. "Students were discovering it for themselves rather than me just telling them."

Another tool Evans uses in her classroom is wikis to enhance literature circles where students work in small groups together to study a book.

"Traditionally they would prepare homework on paper and bring it to class. With the wiki they can post it online and the group can see their homework," Evans said. "It much more ensures that they do their homework - their team is counting on them. And they can see how other people do their homework and can improve."

While Evans considered herself a veteran to incorporating technology in the classroom, her view of it changed over the course of her involvement with PLP.

"It's to the point where I don't realize I'm using it in my lessons with students," she said. "It's not an add-on, it's just a part of what we do."

Push to online learning

2009-05-05T12:13:00.003-04:00

I just got this on Twitter. I've been wondering, too, what would happen if my school closed, as we only have four weeks left. The last week is exams, so that doesn't count. It's the end of the year again, and again I am not where I would want to be in my curriculum. I have a bit of an excuse this year because we switched to a new schedule that makes little logical sense, but actually has many advantages. One of the biggest issues in shifting to the new schedule was that we would lose about two weeks of class time. There are blocks of unscheduled time for students to work at school with their classmates on group projects or with me conferencing about their writing, or just getting homework done earlier in the day. I have seen a tremendous decrease in the number of students posting blogs at midnight, and group projects completed outside of class but during school time have gone well this year. But, I'm still stressed at the end to "get it all done" on time without stressing my students out in return.
I have found, in the past couple of weeks, that I am turning more and more to online learning and discussing as opposed to directing it all from the classroom. To expedite our study of The Glass Menagerie my students created blog posts about characters in class, then revisited them for homework with the direction to 1) add new understanding in the original post and in comments on other characters' posts and 2) use that as the means to study for the upcoming quiz. Tonight students will use a Voice Thread to examine the meanings of symbols throughout the play.
One of the reasons that this works is that we have studied these concepts (character development and symbolism) all year. Now is the time for application, not introduction of ideas. I predict that this will also help as we are beginning to review for the final exam. My expectations of the students are that they will be more independent in their application of the concepts and their use of the online tools, ultimately really testing their understanding more authentically. Understanding does not, and should not, always be tested in a student's participation during class discussions or on quizzes. Using tools to replace some of these traditional real time class activities is beneficial and prevents monotony!

Analysis of Symbolism

2009-05-05T10:26:00.001-04:00

PLP F2F

2009-05-03T11:23:00.004-04:00

Friday was the final face to meeting of the PLP lead by Will Richardson and Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach. It was a powerful :) day after a very hard week for me. The part that resonated the most with me was this quote that Will shared at the end from Howard Gardner:

...we may well have reached a set of tipping points: Going forward, learning may be far more individualized, far more in the hands (and the minds) of the learner, and far more interactive than ever before. This constitutes a paradox: As the digital era progresses, learning may be at once more individual (contoured to a person’s own style, proclivities, and interests) yet more social (involving networking, group work, the wisdom of crowds, etc.). How these seemingly contradictory directions are addressed impacts the future complexion of learning.

We have plenty of teachers at my school who are not re-envisioning education in terms of 21st Century learning for many reasons. We hope that our efforts to create a Ning for our school faculty will engage more in these conversations, as active participation in the conversation is a key element of 21st century learning. However, some aren't there and that is discouraging to me sometimes. It was particularly on Friday as I learned some in-house decisions that are being made which will affect my family members, and not positively in the direction described above. Sometimes its hard to keep the personal out of the professional when they so directly impact each other. I'm trying not to be too specific here. But, ultimately, how do we dream and work so hard for the future when our own children may not get to particpate in that kind of learning directly themselves?!?

Here's my solution for now. 1) model it transparently at my own school and 2) teach her myself-now I'm going to help my third grader set up her own blog!

A colorful examination of The Great Gatsby

2009-04-09T08:44:00.001-04:00

Pop Quiz for Teachers

2009-03-31T18:27:00.003-04:00

My students know that I love the "pop" quiz, which isn't always very much of a surprise :)
Here's one for me from Jenny at Lucacept:

Am I “network literate”? I strive to be.

Am I “Googled well”? Yes. This gets better every year, and I love finding myself on other people's blogs and presentation wikis.

Am I learning with others “out there”? Canada, Australia, and all over the US - YES

Am I a “mobile learner”? No, I don't own a cell phone (maybe that will change soon)

Am I reading and writing differently? As an English teacher, I think NO. Although I try to skim online, it's very difficult for me. I go to catch up on my reader and get stuck on the first two posts I come across. There is SO much great info out there; I just can't skip over it. I'm fascinated by it all.

Am I collaborating, co-constructing and collectively acting with others? My collaborations have improved this year, but I want to do much more with this whole area.

Am I a learner first, teacher second? I don't know that I can put it in this kind of hierarchy. I feel that learning in a continual process running over everything that I do, and teaching is a framework underneath that - the structure and prior knowledge that I need to progress and help my students progress more efficiently.

So, final grade? I'm definitely a work in progress.

Words, words, words

2009-03-31T18:12:00.003-04:00

They matter. My students are studying diction these days, and whether it's "rain" or "bad" in A Farewell to Arms or colors and a rich vocabulary in The Great Gatsby, words matter. We think a lot about how writers use words to create particular effects, but we don't often think about the effect of some of the words that we throw around has on others.

I am particularly sensitive to some words because of my experiences in life. And, while we won't be able to predict everyone's personal sensitivity, some sensitivities are shared by so many that we cannot continue to ignore those effects. When used in a derogatory way, the meaning of a word changes. The poison spreads and then, there is no good, positive context in which the word can ever be used.

So listen to the people whom this harms the most. Stop the R-word, in any context, around any person. It is a poisoned word and should be allowed to die. I will never say it again.

Blogging Works - We Proved It

2009-03-28T17:23:00.009-04:00

I've used blogs with my classes, especially juniors, for three years now. I have told them each year that it was a good idea. I have modeled blogging with my own blog here, but they have never bought in and really experienced the various advantages until now.

I started my new unit on Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms with a new mission: extend discussion beyond the classroom to the blogs. Every year I am frustrated by not enough time to really discuss all of the great topics and writing developed in this novel. I am also really stepping back this year and have developed a class environment in which students direct and choose topics, not just me all the time. While I have skills to review and concepts to cover, I don't need to be the one who picks the direction of the discussion every day. My students have great ideas, passion, and interest in their reading, so I'm the last one who wants to get in the way of that.

I began a previous unit with a new blogging concept. Instead of writing a traditional reading log (reflect on the pages that you just finished before we have class tomorrow), I asked students to choose one or two quotations from the reading to comment on. This, I think, made the assignment more personal and interesting for the students. Reading each others' ideas also became more relevant. While some students had benefited from reading blogs written by more skilled readers, many students didn't comment on each others' work. Writing about a particular reading passage also lead to ideas which would quickly become outdated and irrelevant. Why look back at any earlier blog when we'd progressed in our class discussions?

For A Farewell to Arms, we started with a lottery. Everyone chose a name of a junior and selected a second junior to follow. Besides choosing a quote to reflect on, students also read and commented on two classmates' blogs. The first effect: students talked about blogs during class, their own and their classmates'.

When it was all said and done, I asked them to grade themselves with these directions:

I structured the blog assigned for A Farewell to Arms in a different way, so I would like to structure the grading of that differently as well.
The purpose of the blogs was to:

help you further your understanding of the main ideas of the novel,
give you practice in composing effective written communications,
give you more opportunity to share your ideas beyond class time, and
give you more immediate feedback to help you refine your ideas about each reading assignment.

Wow! That’s a lot. So, how did you do? Here’s where you respond to the following questions to help me assess how well you accomplished the above goals through blogging. (If your answer is not 100% yes, then please explain)

Did you write a blog post for each reading assignment?
Did you write each one quickly or thoughtfully?
Did you comment on your assigned classmates’ blogs faithfully?
Did you discover or clarify ideas through writing blogs yourself, reading others’ blogs, and commenting?
Who were the classmates who commented most often on your blog?
Who was the classmate whose comments helped you to develop your own ideas about the novel?
Did you ever bring up a blog post during class, yours or a classmates?
Did Robin ever comment on your blog and what did you think about that? *
What was most valuable to you about blogging with this novel?
What grade did you earn on this assignment? (review the 4 goals at the top)

* One of Dean Shareski's students who volunteered to comment on my student blogs as part of her college course.

The final result. Great learning and the majority of students took this opportunity to share and discover new things about the novel that they were interested in for themselves.

Here is a partial list of some responses to number 9:

Writing about things that we didn’t necessarily cover in depth during class.
I enjoyed discussing our blog posts in class and debating over which ideas we thought were the most correct. I thought that it was fun to comment and read other people’s blogs, but what I enjoyed the most was discussing our comments in class.
The commenting, because it forced us to see what our other classmates were thinking and then we could receive a different insight
The most valuable thing about blogging this book, to me, was seeing everybody’s reactions to the book. I know not everybody would like it, and I enjoyed reading what people who liked the book had to say. It helped me understand it too.
The most valuable thing about blogging this book, to me, was seeing everybody’s reactions to the book. I know not everybody would like it, and I enjoyed reading what people who liked the book had to say. It helped me understand it too.
I was able to voice my opinions on the book easier.
The most valuable thing was probably the studying I can do from it.

Sigh. I love my students and my school for allowing this kind of experimentation.

The Changing Face of Literature

2009-03-18T16:59:00.002-04:00

What do you think about this?
How does it change how we think about telling stories, writing/composing, and studying literature? Will the novel be rejuvenated by making it more interactive? Can this open a new audience to the classics? Is this the next step after the graphic novel?

Sophomore Romanticism Presentations 2009

2009-03-13T09:37:00.008-04:00

Eric, Elizabeth, Rachel:

Lord Byron

View more presentations from JClarkEvans.

Maya, Jess, Ty, Josh:

Lord Byron

View more presentations from guest4716c.

Austen, Sofie, Tony, Lindsay:

John Keats Pwr Point Austen Sofie Lindsay Tony

View more presentations from JClarkEvans.

Prescott, Paige, Cory, Nathan:

John Keats Powerpoint

View more presentations from guest4716c.

Margeaux, Kahlil, Megan:

Colleen, Emily, Tyler, Maddie

Percy Bysshe Shelley

View more presentations from guest92992c6.

Mrs. Clark Evans's sample presentation:

Wordsworth Power Point

View more presentations from JClarkEvans.

Spicing Up Lessons with Video

2009-03-11T09:17:00.002-04:00

My sophomores are finalizing presentations on the British Romantic poets today. After reviewing the standard grading rubric that I will use tomorrow, I reviewed tips for making a powerful and effective PPT presentation by showing this video:

Find more videos like this on TeacherLibrarianNetwork

We particularly noted the reactions of the audience members, and I reiterated that should any of their audience members behave as the first example then they would definitely lose points on the rubric. I thought this was a much more effective way for me to make my point to them.

How have you used video to enhance a traditional lesson?
When have you been in the audience when video enhanced your learning or understanding of the main point?

Engaging Me

2009-03-05T08:38:00.003-05:00

I have really enjoyed reading and thinking about Will Richardson's recent blog post: Personalizing Education for Teachers Too. So far there are about 54 comments on his original post. Since I selected to follow any additional comments, I get a couple new ones in my email every day which have lead me to think about the issue from several different perspectives.

Blogging is such an interesting way to have a conversation. It's great for people like me who need the processing time between comments (I was never one who did well in the college history course in which my grade depended on how many times I spoke during the two hour class discussion). In following this conversation I have found my own thoughts developing from the multiple perspectives of the contributors who have commented, I have read online articles including "What Research Says About...The Continuum of Teacher Learning" from Educational Leadership, and I have contributed my two cents a couple of times.

Today I added:

There seem to be two threads to this conversation 1) how to best engage students and 2) how to best engage teachers. And, the answer seems to be the same-with direct one-on-one interpersonal interactions and guidance. This is an area that I am always trying to improve in my own teaching practices. And this conversation only solidifies for me its importance. Although time is always an issue, building meaningful connections with other people doesn't have to take a long time. It's the little things you do to show interest in the person. When you show that kind of interest more times than not the student reciprocates with giving your subject a more open-minded approach.
The same goes with helping colleagues open up to discovering the many opportunities that web 2.0 has to offer to the learning experience. Reaching out to them where they are, hearing their concerns, and giving them practical help where they need it will make their transition even smoother and hopefully "light the fire" within them which could spread to others. Is this too optimistic? I hope not. I can't see our institutions changing significantly any other way.

As far as taking time to learn the safe and efficient way to use tech, I'm not sure that's necessary or if that's even a luxury that we have at this point. The time to use tech in the classroom is now. The only thing you have to "learn" about using it well is to use it purposefully, not as a gadget or for entertainment value. How do you learn this? Seek out a mentor for yourself, in person or online. The resources for learning are all around you.

We know that students learn best when they are engaged. Engage them and they will be ready for the standardized tests. Engage them by using the resources available to you and to them to light their fire for learning.

I don't often get so involved in a blogging conversation like this one, but I'm glad that I did. Ultimately, I want to be able to help my students create these kinds of conversations in their own blogs. Just haven't figured out how to fit that into my prescribed curriculum yet.

Getting My Head Back in the Game

2009-03-01T09:24:00.002-05:00

I like this list of things that teachers should strive to do these days. I'd like to use this list to focus some of my own efforts. I feel that I am pulled in too many directions lately: new teacher mentor, PLP cohort member, writing teacher, literature guide, builder of personal connections, encourager, grader, lit mag advisor, student advisor, service organization club advisor...and of course, mother, wife, friend. How to do it all? How to do it all well?

It's good to sit back, take a breathe and reflect on what is going well. Number 10 on the attached list is one that is most intriguing to me now. How can I encourage and grade creativity and collaboration in my 21st century classroom? The first seems so subjective and the second is sometimes hard to assess because a lot of the work can happen outside of the classroom and my observation. My sophomores are currently working on a project-filming a scene from Macbeth-which encourages both creativity and collaboration. I tried to set it up with an open discussion "what do you need from other group members to make a successful movie?" I want them to feel accountable to each other more than to achieving a particular grade. Also, I told them that we would show their movie to the entire Upper School in hopes of encouraging their creativity-driving them to create an interesting film for a real audience. I'm excited to see what they produce and share it with our school audience.

"You mustn't take everything so literally."

2009-02-10T21:01:00.002-05:00

This is a quote from A Farewell to Arms by Ernst Hemingway. My juniors are being a new unit on Modernism and WWI, so I am beginning a new push for blogging. Here are my new guidelines. The goal is to get them reflecting about the book and the writing style and connecting to their own lives/world. We have tackled a short story by Hemingway so far and identified his propensity to leave out important information thus the need to work hard as a close reader and the ambiguous ending. Using blogs and actively commenting on each others' blogs could be a great way to help each other uncover important themes and techniques, important not because I lecture and say it is but because they identify with some universal idea and find writing techniques that they can begin to employ in their own writings.

So, here is my first blog:
I am rereading this book WITHOUT a pencil in my hand, and it's killing me! I have already marked it up in three different colors, so what more could I need to mark. Well, I came across two quotes that struck me as meaningful, not only for this novel, but also for us as readers and "interpreters" (thanks Stephen Crane) of it.
The first quote is my title, "You mustn't take everything so literally" (21). This is spoken by Ferguson, friend of Catherine. On the one hand this is so true for reading fiction; writers want us to think beyond initial reactions and identify meaningful, figurative ideas that we can apply to our own lives. On the other hand, much of this book so far is SO literal: pebbles in a river bed, the sounds of a gun battery waking Henry up in the morning, the green of new spring. So, why all the literal, Hemingway? That's one question I hope we can answer in our class discussions.
My second quote is (not required, but short) "Anybody can crack" (20). Catherine says this to Henry on the first day that they meet. I think that it's safe to say that we can all relate to the truth of this statement and add "under pressure." Whether that pressure is grading papers in a timely fashion :), taking tests and writing those lovely papers, or participating in or witnessing war-not all equally weighty experiences-but all pressure situations, nonetheless. I agree with you, Catherine, though from this point you get a little kooky. So, my second question is: what's up with Catherine?

Using the Tools for your Own Goals

2009-02-01T08:44:00.002-05:00

I liked this idea from Jenny Luca:

We have to start thinking about the tools we can use that are going to extend the thinking of our students and help them make some connection to the idea that they can make use of these tools for their educational benefit.

I think that I have really gotten to this stage. I am not planning lessons around tools but vice versa. I am thinking about ways to use online resources to enhance learning goals. Right now I am most excited about the work on my seniors in The Novel elective. As we study the development of the novel through time, we have started writing our own class novel. The students are beginning to have fun with their characters and to realize that writing is entertaining for the writer too.

My goal all along has been to publish their book at the end of the semester. I have no idea how close we will get to this, but one of my students talked on Friday about making money from our venture. I was so excited about that because my non-AP students are beginning to see themselves as writers, and they may never have felt that confident about their writing before.

So, where are the tools? We have a class wiki where students take turn taking the notes for the day. This is also where I post topics and information and link to each of our blogs, where we reflect on the big ideas of each reading. We also have a page for the class novel and can use the discussion board to leave notes and ideas about the developing plot of our own work. I made a working timeline on TimeGlider of some significant dates as our characters began to develop and interact with each other. Students have written character descriptions and dialogues, which they have posted to www.turnitin.com so that they can peer review each others' work. Finally, we'll self publish on a site like this. Or some other that we find before May. Do you have any ideas or other resources that we could use?

Final learning goal: my students will know first hand what a novel is by writing and publishing one of their own collaboratively.

And, I don't see how that would have been possible before.

Keeping up with the Blogs

2009-01-30T11:17:00.005-05:00

I want blogging to be more meaningful to my students and mostly I struggle with helping them get connected to a wider audience. Here is a student who "gets it" and I want to promote her work and encourage you all to post a comment to encourage her:

"However Mrs.Blashford totally changed my interest – after doing activities, projects, BLOGS, discussions I really became more involved. She is the person who got me in love with blogging! I have never been so into this. I’m not doing it because my teacher is forcing me to – otherwise I wouldn’t be replying to comments and posting extra posts. I do it because it’s a great way to reflect and see other people’s thoughts and opinions….it gets my mind thinking – as with others I see! I am constantly checking to see if new people are commenting on my posts – it’s like opening a present! If I could I would do this all day."

And, kudos to Mrs. Blashford for creating a classroom that allows her students to discover their passions! Here latest endeavor.

Twitter Mosaic

2009-01-28T08:19:00.001-05:00

Open Source

2009-01-24T07:19:00.002-05:00

Some comments on "How the Open Source Movement Has Changed Education: 10 Success Stories" March 2007:
The article reviews and commends various open source initiatives and applications that are changing the rules of how we learn and share our learning.

I liked the section below which commends the efforts of teachers of all levels who are "jumping on the train" and learning how to use and apply these online resources effectively in their institutions. I think that real change in education comes from the ground up. It's the educators who take the initiative to research and reflect that lead us to discover better ways to teach and reach our students. And, of course, the teachers can only do so much. While teachers still have some autonomy in their classroom, their efforts go only as far as allowed and assisted by their administration and support from colleagues. Do I go too far here? What other factors contribute to effective change in schools?

Instructors: Instructors, along with their educational institutions, have made the decision that open source venues supply the economic solution to problems defined by school budgets. Although the learning curve is not easy at times, instructors from preschool to Ph.D. levels have found resources that help them to decide what to use, when to use it, and how it's all done. These resources are often delineated by subjects, countries, and languages, but all can find resources on the Internet — like through the EduResources Portal — that can lead to solutions for open source questions.

I also liked the commendation for students. While we don't know what their futures will be like, they certainly don't either. The students who take the risks to experiment with new opportunities certainly must have an advantage in these changing times. I have a student this year who used his Senior Exhibit to start an initiative at our 1:1 laptop school to test the functionality of Linux in our classes. He and several other students took the risk to experiment with this open OS without the support of our tech coordinator, who doesn't have the time in her busy schedule of assisting students when needed to learn how to support them. While he has faced some frustrations throughout the year from unexpected challenges, taking this risk has allowed him to explore an area of interest and learn real world problem solving strategies.

Students: Although some students feel that programs like the OCW deprive a student of the bond that often comes from a student/instructor relationship, most students have embraced open sources and open access with a budget-minded joy and with a skeptical eye toward college programs. An MIT survey of users showed that about a third of freshmen who were aware of MIT's OCW site before attending the university said it made a significant impact on their decision to enroll.
Other student benefits to using open source and open access include:

An increase in educational opportunities for those who can't access a classroom. [or outside of the regularly scheduled school day]
The ability to see the value and quality of courses offered before making an application to a college.
Access to supplemental learning materials. [and supplemental learning applications]

I find that the most exciting applications of Internet resources are those discovered by the students themselves which they use to assist in their own learning, not the ones directed by me. A class of students maintaining blogs to record their reactions to readings is not nearly as exciting as a student who uses a blog to discover new ideas about literature through her own questions and the comments of others.

a call for more tech in the classroom

2009-01-14T16:49:00.003-05:00

I was interested in a recent Read Write Web article which stated:

...there is clearly a pressing need for bringing more technology to the classroom to train students for a job market where these skills are now mandatory. It should be noted, though, that technology is often the least pressing of all the problems faced by some of these disadvantaged schools.

I agree that this is a "clearly" pressing need, but not even everyone at my 1:1 laptop school agrees on how pressing. In developing this conversation about the role of technology in the 21st century classroom, I believe that it is important to include as many voices as possible-the critics and the enthusiasts as well as the rich and the disadvantaged. But is it reasonable for this conversation to take precedence over other problems which plague disadvantaged schools? Or, can access to these new technologies help in alleviating some of those historic problems? Any thoughts?

technology in the classroom

2009-01-12T13:51:00.002-05:00

Here is an example of why we need technology in the classroom: because we are not always the experts, but someone in the world is.

My students are participating in the national Poetry Out Loud competition by reciting poems in front of their English class next week. One reminder that I give my students is that they should pronounce the words in their poem correctly, especially the poet's name. One student stayed after class today to get help on the pronunciation of her poet's name. Since this was a poet that I had never read before, Carol Muske-Dukes, I googled her name and found her webpage then went there to look for help with pronunciation. On her webpage I saw a link to an interview that she did on NPR. We listened to the interviewer welcome her and learned how to pronounce her name correctly: [mus-key]

Why wonder when you can find the answer in under two minutes?

"I...was born to be my own destroyer"

2009-01-11T14:55:00.003-05:00

My senior level elective class on the development of the novel will be blogging throughout this semester about the various "classic" novels that we read together. They have blogged in my class and for other teachers before, but we are trying to make the experience more meaningful by giving less specific direction for each blog post and more choice in what they choose to write about. The first criticism that they had about blogging was that blog posts were tied to specific reading selections and weren't worth commenting on later when we had gotten further in our understanding of the novel. We were really using blogs just as a record of the readings completed and a place for reading response. This did not create any kind of conversation and certainly didn't invite any readers outside of our school.

The goal for each blog post now is simply to write about some aspect of the novel, especially including personal reactions and connections. Well, week one is over and the first blog post was due on Friday. Only three out of eight students completed the assignment. Quite disappointing. This was the best one this week. Here's my response to the opening chapters of Robinson Crusoe:

While the adventure novel is not favorite genre, I was pleasantly surprised by many of the events in the first 58 pages of the novel. After 50 pages, he only just got stranded on the mysterious island somewhere in the Caribbean. Movies, which continue to popularize this 17th century novel, don't even touch on what really happens before the island. For anyone who enjoys action, this is the novel for you. Despite the 17th century language, readers will not be disappointed in the drama that unfolds. And, as I read I began to question Robinson in so many different ways: why do you disregard advice from your parents and mentors so readily? why leave the secure yet exotic life that you set up in Brazil? why do you seem to only look out for yourself?

My favorite quote of the novel so far is "I...was born to be my own destroyer." This really hit me when I was reading because I can certainly relate, and I think that everyone can relate to this at some point in their lives. Why do we do the things we do when we just KNOW it's going to turn out badly for us? Why do I always procrastinate grading papers? Why didn't my students just write that first blog post on time-after we had such a long discussion about it in class this week? Maybe one of the timeless qualities about this novel is that we are all Robinson Crusoe a little bit sometime in our lives: our own worst enemy.

How can we "do better next time" and how can we help each other? Because we are not so bad off as Crusoe and can rely on each other to help us with this very human flaw.

pondering the future

2009-01-10T07:22:00.001-05:00

I just left this comment on doyle's edublog "Science Teacher" in response to his musings about what kinds of skills teachers should be preparing their students for. Am I too idealistic?

I wholeheartedly agree with Spencer, preparing for the unknown possibilities of the future is simply recognizing that it is unknown. We cannot continue to prepare our students for factory jobs or middle management anymore. Now it's time to focus our efforts on creating creative critical thinkers who are flexible and independent in their learning when they leave us. Of course, this has been done for centuries in school settings, like your earthworm example in your previous post. Using current technologies is another weapon in the teacher's arsenal to accomplish the goal of facilitating learning, whatever the age or level of learner-there seems to be something out there for everyone. The evolution in education that is happening now should be a refinement of what we are doing well and an adventure in discovering how we can serve our students and create an even better future for us all.

My head is also floating around a conversation that I had with Scmorgan yesterday about progressives and conservatives. Seems that teachers fall toward one end or the other-embracing and running toward new change or staunchly trying to hold on to the tried and true, nobly. Where do you fall on the continuum? I wonder 1) if most teachers are more progressive which explains penduluum shifts in teaching methods, and 2) if most teachers today who embrace new technologies are more progressive, eager to give it try and less fearful of the brave new world before us.
I guess it's pretty clear that I am more progressive and actually enjoy the new challenges that Will Richardson and his web 2.0 revolution have presented me with. However, I attribute my sanity mostly to my husband who is a more conservative person and reminds me to preserve the successes of the past while building toward the future. The scary unknown future is not so scary when we remember that there WILL always be new things to learn and master and human by nature will look to teachers and masters to help them in their learning. So what does Socrates look like in the 21st century?

talking about wikis and collaboration

2009-01-08T13:27:00.005-05:00

Tomorrow I will attempt to Skype into a presentation in New Jersey lead by Patrick Higgins. He sent me some questions to think about and so I thought I'd post them with my answers here.

What pushed you to begin using collaboration with digital tools in your classroom? Fear. Will Richardson gave the key note at a VAIS technology conference in 2007. I had never seen blogs and wikis in action before. Will used a wiki to present from and shared so many examples and made such a compelling argument about the future of education that I really felt that I was doing my students a disservice for not knowing what these online tools were and how to incorporate them in my lesson planning.

Tell us about the first time you used a collaborative tool with students. I tried to hold back and learn things for myself, like how to use a blog by creating my own, but I was so excited to share the possibilities with my students that I created a wiki for a literature circle unit on Black Ice with my juniors that first year. The collaboration was already happening in the concept of literature circles, but I just added the element of recording and posting group work online so that they could see it and I could double check and participate in their work as well.

Student responses to using these methods within your classroom? I teach in a 1:1 laptop school so my students are used to learning and using new tools whether it's a new way to use Word or a new online tool. And they were accustomed to using their computers in different ways for different classes. When I remember to go slowly and make the curricular goals for using a particular tool clear, then my students are very receptive and even apply the tool independently in their own projects and learning outside of my classroom. When I let my enthusiasm for a particular tool supercede the learning goals of the lesson, my students begin to grumble and complain that the extra work of learning to use the tool is not worth their effort.

When you are designing your curriculum, what factors go into deciding whether or not to include a collaborative element? Now, more than ever I start with the biggest questions and course goals and work backwards. When thinking of my new novel course I ask myself: how does this help my students understand the development of the novel or help them to begin composing their own novel? Can this tool help acheive our course goals efficiently or will too much class time (and student energy) be spent on learning the new tool. Of course, I have the luxury of teaching my students for two or three years in a row and the luxury of an English department that works collaboratively to build on skills from one course to the next. ( Thanks Susan Carter Morgan and Susanne Nobles!).

It would be much harder for me to do what I have done so far with my students, in less than two years, if I did not have the help of my collaborations with other teachers at my school and online with social sites like Twitter (jclarkevans) and various NINGs. But, most importantly, I have students who work hard, take risks, and really try to get the most of their learning experiences at school. In return, I try to work hard, keep learning, and do all of this for them.

New Year, New Resolve

2009-01-04T07:34:00.002-05:00

I'm reviewing my most commonly used sites and prioritizing so that I can be more active. Of course, doing anything online I stumble across five new things that I want to join!
Here are my priorities:

International PLP NING with Will Richardson & Sheryl Nussbaum
my blog
twitter

I'm also thinking of

returning to www.librarything.com
joining http://englishcompanion.ning.com/
submitting lesson plans to awaytoteach.com
developing a webpage for my school's literary magazine

I'm interested in thinking and learning more about using assessments to inspire creativity. Some recent conversations with non-teachers have been very enlightening. It's so important not only to remember that my students learn differently than I do/did. When talking with other adults about their school experience, I get so much insight about how I might help my own students now.
In "Measuring Skills for the 21st Century" by Elena Silva on , she states

the skills that really matter for the 21st century—the ability to think creatively and to evaluate and analyze information—

I want to keep this in the forefront as I continue to develop my plans for this new semester.

Happy New Year and leave me a comment!

Worst Class... Best Class

2008-11-08T07:09:00.005-05:00

Friday was a crazy day for me. I have been very stressed about my workload this week and it all came to a head on Friday. My worst trait as a teacher is returning papers in a timely manner. I struggle with buckling down and pumping out the grades as opposed to giving time to each paper and enough constructive criticism to help each individual writer grow and improve, yet feel accomplished. It's hard to grade papers!

But, that's not the story today, just a background on my mood.

So, I was feeling pressured and overworked, but I always love losing myself in the class period and getting down to work with the activity/lesson for the day. The objective for the day with my British literature class was to review "The Nun's Priest's Tale" from Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. We had fun classes earlier dramatizing "The Miller's Tale" and things seemed to be going pretty well with Chaucer.

As an opening activity I asked students to briefly talk with a partner and write down some important ideas and a quote from the story to share with the class. We began the "go around the room" with a quote from the end of the story. The fatal moment came when I asked a follow up question. Then, the boom fell. Silence. The student who had offered the quote tried to explain and figure something out to say, but couldn't find the words. I asked the rest of the class to help, but...nothing.

I literally threw my hands up in the air and ended the lesson. I asked students to reflect on their lack of participation and offer ideas for ways to improve in an email to me.

My best quality as a teacher is my desire and willingness to reflect. I spent the rest of the day reviewing their comments, taking to another grade level teacher, and agonizing over how I could help them to be more successful. To work together, share ideas, take risks and make guesses. How could I help them feel comfortable and risk failure in order to achieve a deeper understanding. I devised a lesson plan and practiced it with my later section.

My second class British literature class also has problems with participation during general class discussions. A couple of students will attempt answers only after awkward silences. But the majority of students won't speak, maybe if called on, but it's so painful for both them and me that I hate to do that and put someone on the spot.

I started class by asking if they wanted to go with "regularly scheduled programming" or try something radically different. I would give them a task and when they accomplished it they would be dismissed, even if that was in ten minutes. They were a little reluctant but then encouraged each other to give it a try. They encouraged each other to get energized about a challenge in English class.

I showed this Power Point.

Tuesday

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: education learning)

Then gave them the quote that the other class had struggled with. They quickly got to work, reorganized themselves into a circle in the back of the room and began discussing. In the course of their conversation they talked about the main points of the story, the final moral lesson presented by the Nun's priest, and how it related to one of the major themes of the Canterbury Tales. They made connections to their own prior knowledge and experiences. Everyone talked except for one student. Some students took charge at various moments, but others who had rarely shared ideas during class gave the most accurate and interesting comments. And, they praised each other, asked questions, organized themselves and almost forgot to use me at all as a resource.

When it was all said and done, they had reviewed the story, examined the text in close detail, and learned a little bit about themselves and their classmates. Now I have to figure out how to keep up this momentum. Or, maybe it's not that difficult. They accomplished so much with one quote (which I didn't even pick) and the freedom to examine it on their own terms with a clear mandate to include everyone.

One student wrote:

By the way Mrs. Clark Evans, I really really really liked this. You let us just figure it out and it forced us to talk. We heard from classmates who normally don't talk too! We should definitely do this again.
Now, back to grading papers!

Why I use web 2.0 tools in my classroom

2008-11-02T08:44:00.009-05:00

Tomorrow I will make a presentation with Susan Carter Morgan at the annual VAIS conference. Our presentation will focus on using online tools in the classroom. Instead of talking about WHY we will share HOW we use various online tools to enhance the learning opportunities in our English classes.
So, in a nutshell, this is the WHY for me.(Click each image for a larger view)

Effective learning of any concept involves three distinct stages. These can occur in any order, but in the traditional classroom tend to begin with information, then some manipulation of that information, but rarely are there opportunities to reflect on the learning experience. This reflection is crucial is determining if the concept or skill is mastered or worth further exploration. The process could go in the opposite direction. Starting with reflection: What do you want to know? or What do you already know about _____?
In my English classroom, these are the types of activities that I primarily used before web 2.0 tools:

Now, with free online tools, the variety and possibilities are greatly expanded in my classroom.

(Click for larger view)
The learning experience is not changed, it is enhanced through variety, authenticity, and many more opportunities for reflecting on one's own work as well as on the work and ideas of others.
I enjoy teaching with these new resources and have been very satisfied by the impact they have had on the effectiveness of my teaching practices.

Elegos form

2008-10-28T10:46:00.002-04:00

The Elegos team would like your feedback about improving our publication for you. Please answer the following questions for us. We really appreciate you input! Thanks.
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For juniors

2008-10-27T10:51:00.000-04:00

Link to Final Jeopardy question

FAcademy Awards for Beowulf 2008

2008-10-21T10:13:00.003-04:00

If you attended either of today's shows, please vote on the form below.
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Learn something new

2008-10-20T07:34:00.003-04:00

Found this idea on jennylu's blog, Lucacept-intercepting the Web. Use Google things to do to choose a wide variety of things to do on the web and discover. She suggests:

Imagine setting the task to find a new thing to learn and present back to their peers after a set period of time to demonstrate what they’ve learnt.

I imagine possibly using this with my juniors when we study the Transcendentalists who loved to learn independently and freely. It would be an interesting way to give them the freedom to go out and discover what they can learn when they set their minds to it.

Catching up...

2008-10-19T09:23:00.001-04:00

Been feeling guilty/stressed/unconnected so I sat down this morning on my favorite NING and this is where it led:
1-reviewed a couple of discussions on the English and FA groups
2-liked one of my responses so posted it to my blog
3-reminded of Twitter so posted a tweet about my blog post (nothing better than self advertising :)
4-went to email to clean it out a bit and found a message from my uncle about my blog post from Friday
5-liked my response to him so I posted that on my blog too
etc
etc
My learning process-discovering, reinvigorating, reflecting...in no particular order
I can help my students do that too.

A Call for Votes

2008-10-19T09:03:00.002-04:00

This year I published some sophomore papers in a different way. Recently they studied "Beowulf" and wrote humorous papers in the style of the Beowulf poet. Then, I had them each record their stories. I published their own recordings of their papers on my school webpage (in the resources folder at the bottom of the page) and invited the students to listen to each others' work and vote on which one they liked best. They didn't have to listen to them all in order to vote, but I am going to recognize the "winner" at our school community meeting next week with a little prize. If you go to the website you'll see that I voiced my vote as well. This is just a one more way to give a wider audience to my writers and recognize the effective papers.

Please feel free to add your vote too!

A Call for Help

2008-10-19T08:26:00.003-04:00

This year I am excited to be teaching a senior elective course titled World Cultures through Literature. Unfortunately it is only one semester, but I am trying to expose my students to a broad array of cultural experiences from around the world. Right now we are reading Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe from Nigeria. In a couple of weeks we will begin A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaleed Husseini. We will also read some more short stories from Latin America and poetry from Asia.
Here's where you can help...I'm looking for outside "speakers" to share their personal experiences in any of these countries. I have had a couple of live speakers, but I thought that some guest bloggers or a Skype chat would be a great way to hear from the world out there. Any ideas or suggestions? Add a comment or email me. Thanks for your help!

A Summer Time Metaphor

2008-10-19T08:23:00.002-04:00

How do we as full-time teachers find the time or mental capacity to keep up with all of this???
I'm going to return to my swimming pool metaphor to describe where I am with all of this right now. When I go to a swimming pool for the first time each summer, I hate to just slowly walk in and "get used to it gradually," I dive in and just force myself to adjust. When I first heard Will Richardson speak at the VAIS tech conference two years ago, I was devastated and thought that I was drowning because I had not heard of any of this (so how could I be a good teacher). I used my dog paddling skills and quickly recovered back to the surface. When I got back to school I found myself overly enthusiastic and jumping into every pool I could find: I created a personal blog, a wikispace, I published my students' writing on my wiki, etc, etc, etc. It was too much but I was riding the adrenaline. But then I reflected :) and realized that I was just using and not necessarily improving the learning in my classroom.
Now, I've learned :) to be more cautious, and I don't fear missing out on some great new technology because I know that what I am doing with my students is meaningful and enriching to them (well, not all the time). It's much more manageable to think of each of these applications as separate pools which I can dip my toes in at times or sit on the side and dangle my feet. There are some that I swim in more regularly (wikis and blogs), but one thing that I'm coming to enjoy most is that we are each developing specialty areas that enrich each other. Imagine what a diverse experience our students are getting when they come to my class and share group work on a wiki, or Katie's and create a personal blog, in Susanne's class they can use Google docs in such meaningful ways, or Susan's and use VoiceThread.
Is anyone else starting to miss summer ;)

Stories of Excellence

2008-10-16T14:43:00.002-04:00

I just found out that my submission to the "Stories of Excellence" contest on the NAIS ning was chosen for their publication. This is comforting recognition, which teacher's don't often get, especially in the middle of the first semester with grades due next week. This gives me the encouragement to keep my nose to the grindstone-trying new things, polishing the old, and starting fresh each day on my adventure as a teacher and learner.

Becoming Poor Richard

2008-10-15T09:14:00.004-04:00

Try your hand at some of the lines made famous by Benjamin Franklin in his popular Almanac. Fill out the form below by completing each sentence with words that you think make sense. Try to be witty and precise in your word choice and you may wow your audience with your writing prowess.
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If you'd like to see Franklin's versions you can access that here. (But don't go there until you give it a try yourself!) Happy writing :)

stories worth telling

2008-09-28T14:47:00.002-04:00

This is an amazing story about parents, mothers, daughters, and how to tell a good story.

Writing for Real Audiences

2008-09-21T18:41:00.002-04:00

While we English teachers can't always make every writing assignment available to a real, outside audience (nor do we always want to), we can strive to offer a variety of writing assignments that introduce types of writings which are common in real jobs and academia. My juniors are writing proposals for an imaginary research grant to the Smithsonian. We discussed the wide variety of proposals including research grants in graduate school, building business opportunities and seeking new clients, and even my husband's sponsorship proposal for his road racing team. For my assignment, they are required to write a formal business cover letter and a proposal that is at least one page, including a concise proposal statement, details from their research and a bibliography.
One student has already talked with me about finally understanding why business letter format is so picky and precise, even though he wrote them all summer for his father's business.
Another student recently told me that she will have the opportunity to use her new skills in writing a grant for money and supplies needed to start up an art therapy program for refugee children that she has been working with.
As I was creating this project and working through stages of writing it with the class, there was a lot of push back. I even joked one day and suggested that they would just prefer writing another essay, but to my surprise several of them said "yes!" It's hard to try new things, sometimes they don't work and sometimes it's a rocky road trying to communicate and form expectations, but as I told my students that day, it's important to be flexible and work through the problems. "Come on you 21st century learners, show me what you've got." And they have. Now they have a deeper appreciation and understanding of picky editing requirements as well as the confidence to succeed in this real world type of writing.

Publishing Web 2.0 Style

2008-09-21T06:51:00.003-04:00

One of the most interesting conversations that I have with my students each year is about the quality of sources they can/should use for their research papers. The most valuable part is when we discuss the differences between print and non-print sources. No longer can we say print vs. online sources, as many credible databases make both available online. So, how to explain the value of the print sources? I read this in a recent Tweet by bernardlunn

Shirky: "the filter for quality has moved from publisher to subscriber" 08:50 AM September 18, 2008 from TwitterBerry

As we educate our next generation, the emphasis should be on teaching them to become automatic evaluators of sources of information: educated and informed subscribers. I am fascinated by sites like Digg where subscribers validate and recommend news and can set up accounts which direct them to articles that others like themselves recommend.
I am most interested in considering how we ensure a variety in our sources of information and avoid developing sources that take us down one slanted path consistently. I suppose traditional news sources have always done this as newspapers and major TV networks certainly have their own agendas. I hope that now is a time when we can break down these hidden barriers and develop networks of information that offer a broader perspective.
I guess this means helping students understand the value of seeing issues from a variety of perspectives. And, we've been doing that for a long time in education. So, how do you help your students broaden their perspectives and what online resources help you do this?

For Presentations

2008-09-14T08:42:00.001-04:00

I'm going to share this with my students who will be making visual presentations in a couple of weeks. A different way of thinking about and using PPT.

Presenting with text

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: presentation design)

Videos in the classroom

2008-09-14T08:23:00.004-04:00

I've enjoyed using YouTube videos this year as an introduction to the lesson as suggested by S. Nobles. We've watched Leonard Bernstein's "Let your garden grow" while discussing Candide. A trailer for the movie Beowulf and Grendel and compared it to the poem. I just found an interview with Khaled Housseini discussing A Thousand Splendid Suns. Great!

Back to School Night

2008-09-11T12:46:00.002-04:00

Tonight is Back to School night, and I am excited to share my class goals with parents. I hope to also be able to use a projector during my talk and show them our online work.

A New Kind of Wiki

2008-09-11T12:43:00.003-04:00

I am trying out the intodit.com wiki with my juniors this month during their class study of Black Ice by Lorene Cary. It is different than wikispaces in form and a little in function. For the most part, I like it. I can't leave a comment on a particular page unless I do so directly on the page itself, which takes away a bit of the ownership. That's my only criticism at this point.
http://blackice.intodit.com

Removing the Deadline

2008-09-09T19:40:00.002-04:00

As I explore education in the 21st century I am frequently reminded that it is not about the tool but the methods. It's time that we rethink how we teach so that our students can learn to teach themselves as this is the most important lesson they can learn to prepare themselves for an unknown future.
So I threw the deadline out the window. I gave my senior level World Cultures a project intended to give them the opportunity to creatively explore the main theme of the novel and apply it to themselves. The initial two weeks of school for us were more than normally chaotic as my school has switched to a new type of schedule (a different order of classes each day) and we had an Upper School retreat at the end of last week. The day before the project was due I realized that I hadn't spent much class time reminding them to work on the project or asking about their out of class project. I made the executive decision to scrap the deadline when I realized that I would rather get a great final product than a rush job.
As I considered what to adjust the deadline to I realized that a more valuable lesson could be learned. The work that we are now doing in class is not contingent on them having completed the project so there really was no reason to have a deadline. When I initially announced my inclination to extend the deadline, I was a bit surprised that none of my students jumped on this. Not one of them asked for the extension. In talking more with them I found that this hesitation was not due to their prior organization and readiness to actually turn in the project on time. The hesitation was actually a fear. They wondered: Is this some kind of test? Is she trying to catch the ones who haven't even started yet?
Finally after a bit of a one-sided conversation on my part, my students began to warm up to the idea of this kind of freedom. When I said that they were so used to being told what to do and when to do it by teachers, several sighed and laughed a little. I was touching on some chord that these students had not encountered in their educations (remember: they're seniors). We realized that there was no need for a deadline on this project, and talked about why there was a deadline on the reading assignment. The only final deadline we could come up with is the end of the marking period because the grade will be on this term.
After all of this thought about the unimportance of an actual deadline it is interesting to consider if the assignment itself is worthwhile. I still think so and now more than ever. Now it's really about working for yourself and being completely responsible for yourself.
Today (the original deadline) we went around the room and each person explained their idea and how they were (or were going to) execute it. Yes, some still haven't started yet! I pointed out the blank wall in the back of my classroom where I am going to hang all of the projects as they are completed and I do have one all ready to hang. So we'll all know who and when these projects are completed.
I'll keep you posted. And I'll keep asking them to reflect on this and hopefully learn even more than the original intended lesson. I'm open to exploring new avenues.

Being a student

2008-09-08T14:48:00.003-04:00

Today I participated in the PLP (Powerful Learning Practices) F2F at Fredericksburg Academy led by Will Richardson and Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach. My school is the host school and I was released from classes today to participate in the conference. After the second break out session I left the classroom in a daze and came to face-to-face with some of my own students. As I slowly came to reality I realized that they were laughing and one had spoken to me. I felt like they sometimes look when they come into my classroom from a different class. Dazed, out of it, and not ready for any new information. They were forgiving and repeated what they had been trying to tell me.
"Our class had a good discussion too"
Today while I was away learning, I confidently left my students to learn on their own. Having set up a wiki and class norms for book discussions, my students decided that they could conduct the second discussion of Black Ice on their own. The sub's report: "They had a GREAT discussion on the book" and the other class' assessment of themselves reassure me that:
1. I am not the only expert in the room.
2. Students want to learn.
3. I work at a great school that allows me the freedom to explore these new tools to enhance the learning environment in my classroom.
I don't think that I ever felt so good about taking a day off and leaving sub plans.

things to remember always

2008-08-23T08:38:00.002-04:00

Here is a great letter to teachers to think about before the start of school and come back to throughout the year. I'm posting it here so that I can remember to do that.

choice reading for Brit Lit

2008-07-30T07:45:00.002-04:00

I'm working on a new assignment for my 10th grade British Literature class. I'd like them to read a choice novel and learn a bit about British history. My idea is to have them choose an historical fiction novel to read then research some of the historical details to compare them to the presentation in the book. Finally, they will write a review of the book. If anyone has any ideas of good book choices or collaboration ideas, please let me know.

intodit

2008-07-22T08:02:00.002-04:00

Here is a different kind of wiki. I like the annotation page on this wiki and the emphasis on citing sources. I will use this to update my 10th grade wiki assignment on Regeneration.

contest

2008-07-18T08:23:00.002-04:00

Dangerously Irrelevant posted a Twitter-style contest. Here is my entry: The Time Traveller by H. G. Wells - Time Traveller uses technology to discover disturbing truth about our future: a seemingly beautiful utopia turned cannabalistic nightmare.

Think I'll use this with my students for their summer reading choice and required novels. It would be fun to see what they come up with and we'll create a great list of recommended reading for each other. I'll get working on my others soon!

The Technology Autobiography

2008-06-23T08:07:00.002-04:00

Sophomores read The Time Machine by HG Wells for summer reading and start the school year with a personal writing project, a technology autobiography, in which they write about their experiences using technology throughout their own life. Here is a video from Ted.com about the beginnings of the computer age. Students can see how science has changed society, and how this change is happening exponentially all around them today. Wells examines this change through his writing and this is the starting off point for the course, which examines how the written word changes society by surveying British literary traditions and the pioneers who challenged and changed that tradition.

finding choice novels

2008-06-23T08:04:00.002-04:00

Students read novels of their choice throughout the school year. Here are two sites that could help them pick out a book of interest or share with their friends: www.zoomii.com and www.librarything.com

Utopias aren't all what they seem to be

2008-06-22T06:23:00.002-04:00

Interesting article about the New Atheists from a Muslim-American view. He discusses the warning signs that Americans are not thinking for themselves, or reading. This would be good to use with the seniors in World Literature as suggested by SNobles.

Year in Review

2008-06-16T06:45:00.004-04:00

From Wordle

Using images

2008-06-07T19:38:00.002-04:00

Two free sites for finding images to use in presentations: www.freefoto.com and http://www.freeimages.co.uk/
This one also give tips for creating an effective presentation with images.

student product

2008-05-16T13:46:00.002-04:00

Our students work on a Senior Exhibit for a year and a half, which includes a learning activity, an application of their learning and a written document. Students work with a teacher mentor throughout the year, and I have encouraged my seniors to use technology when that can enhance their work. Besides recording their personal journals on a blog: lpappas, jdixon, mpscolyar, one of the seniors developed an online written document by developing her own webpage. She found this site and did this work on her own. I just gave a little nudge in the direction of expanding her ideas about using technology beyond gaming and social networks.

new projects and some old ones

2008-04-10T08:08:00.002-04:00

I guess I'm just reinvigorated after the technology conference. The juniors are finally posting their final research papers. I'm excited that the wiki allows the entire process of building their paper to still exist through the history tab. We have started using the class blog again as well. Students are reading their own choice novels, reflecting on them on their own blog page, and commenting on others' ideas too. Some of the students have the same novel, so their discussions should be particularly interesting.

back to blogging

2008-04-09T12:16:00.001-04:00

I'm starting a new reading assignment so thought that it was time to get back to using the class blog. I got a bit discouraged when my students were really only using it when I said so and because I said so. I didn't really see the independent learning that I thought I was encouraging them to do. After discussions with my school's tech guru and some time to process and give us all a break with it, I am diving right back in with a new and improved plan for introducing the class blog: back to blogging.

beyond ppt

2008-04-08T12:09:00.003-04:00

If we want students to present in alternate ways and not always rely on the dreaded PPT, then we as teachers need to model other ways of sharing visual information. I made a timeline on mnemograph and projected it during our class discussion. While it's not collaborative, I was able to create a url from the site and email it to my students. The timeline is interactive-they can zoom in on specific areas. It's very easy to use, and I certainly foresee using it with my classes again.

web 2.0 tools

2008-04-07T13:43:00.002-04:00

Tools that I have used this year and examples.

presentation

2008-04-07T11:18:00.003-04:00

Presented with Susan today about using web 2.0 for personal and student learning. My concept is that learning has not changed, but the means of engaging in the learning process is enhanced. By using web 2.0 tools for myself I have practiced and learned ways to use the tools effectively in my classroom. I mainly talked about using wikispaces and blogs. If we think of learning as a process and not a product, then the reasons for using online tools become more self evident. Learning hasn't changed, but the opportunities for varying lessons, collaborating, and reflecting are greatly enhanced. Using this tools makes the learning process more authentic, rewarding, and engaging. I enjoyed sharing my successes and challenges and meeting some new people with whom I can now collaborate. The most important thing that teachers of 21st century students can do is model 21st century learning themselves.

notes from the conference

2008-04-06T15:57:00.002-04:00

Here are my notes and thoughts on the keynote presentation about the flat classroom by David Warlick. I am considering, once again, of joining the Second Life world. There is a education island apparently.
David talked about three converging conditions:
1) preparing our kids for an unpredictable future-the walls of the classroom are disappearing and it is in our best interest to let them disintegrate instead of trying to fight it in order to maintain any traditional authority that we might have as teachers.
2) we have information savvy students-I see my students engage in this in my classroom when they jump online to goggle an idea that comes up during discussion. I have seen myself fight against this (and fail miserably) when I try to monitor their computers during class or come down too hard when they go online during class. It is obvious when they are not engaged as opposed to when they are gathering info that is relevant, though it is not in the room with us.
3) we have a new information landscape-I try to incorporate web 2.0 tools. I want to do a better job at "baking in" instead of "adding on" as described by Gardner Campbell.

vais

2008-04-06T07:56:00.002-04:00

I'm leaving today for the VAIS (Viriginia Association of Independent Schools) annual technology conference. Last year Will Richardson was the key note speaker. This year it's David Warlick, and I am co-presenting about using web 2.0 tools in the classroom. I'm excited.

research wiki

2008-02-21T07:49:00.001-05:00

Launched my research project wikispace this week.
This wikispace is a place for 11th grade American Literature students to record and collaborate on their individual research projects on topics of literary or historical interest to them. Please explore and leave a comment or question for them on their discussion boards.
Please visit it.

web work this week

2008-02-17T08:00:00.003-05:00

Sophomores are making films of various scenes of Macbeth. I gave them the choice to perform live or film. Not sure if they were scared off by the memorizing or excited about using Movie Maker again.
Juniors are starting their research projects using wikis to organize their notes. We will also use a group Tumblr to share online sites and articles. Day one was rather slow as we were just talking about the whole project and my ideas. Then it took a while to sign everyone up. Tumblr was blocked so we have to wait to get that unblocked in order to proceed with that. One advantage of my school: we can request sites to be unblocked and they will be within 24 hours.

Six words

2008-02-12T19:56:00.000-05:00

Hemingway in the news today:

"Once asked to write a full story in six words, legend has it that novelist Ernest Hemingway responded: 'For Sale: baby shoes, never worn.'"
Choosing words carefully and concisely can be powerful. What can you do in six words? Leave a comment.

Hemingway

2008-02-09T07:25:00.000-05:00

From Scott McLeod's blog who talked about the purpose of school as a place to create lifelong learners as opposed to productive members of an economy:

"What place does the world of work have for Hemingway for the average American? Is there a reason related to future employment to take kids to the Barter? What happens to Monet and Yo-Yo Ma in a school system that thinks primarily about your future job?

I’ll leave you with this thought: Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire. The words belong to William Butler Yeats..."

My students' responses to Hemingway this year have been very invigorating to me. Their interest in his life and writing have sparked curiosities and ways of looking at literature and writing on a completely new level. They will not think about their own writing in the same way, and I'm sure that they won't read a book in the same way again either. More than anything I think that they are seeing the passion and dedication that he had in crafting and telling his story. If anything, I hope that they can discover some passion to dedicate themselves to in their own lives.

Learning passion and dedication are goals of education too.

teachers retiring

2008-01-31T17:34:00.000-05:00

Just read this on NPR.org:

"Record Number of Teachers Set to Retire
NPR.org, January 31, 2008 · Teachers are leaving their profession in record numbers, especially at the high-school level, according to study released Thursday.
Some 40 percent of the nation's classroom teachers are now 50 years or older and an unprecedented number of them will likely retire in the next five years, a study by the National Center for Education Information said Thursday.
The number of teachers expected to leave the field is double what it was 12 years ago. Losing so many classroom veterans spells trouble for schools trying to meet federal guidelines to hire only the most qualified teachers - especially in math, science and special education.
The researchers said the current pool of teachers is graying because so many of them switched from other careers in their 30s and 40s. That trend is likely to continue.
The study also said 80 percent of teachers surveyed said they were satisfied with their jobs."

I find it interesting that this is especially affecting high school teachers and wonder if this is a break through time for new teachers and new ways of teaching. Also interesting that teachers are generally satisfied with their jobs. That number seems high, a pleasant surprise.

why we integrate technology

2008-01-31T14:59:00.000-05:00

Susan has asked me to contribute ideas for a column for a school publication. As a 1:1 laptop school the answer to this question should be evident by now to the entire school population. It's quite frustrating that it is not.
She has specifically asked me to talk about why I chose to use certain programs and what it did for the students. Here are my examples:

http://www.regeneration.wikispaces.com/: an online collaborative wiki application on which students worked with a partner to gather research and present their findings to the class. Originally intended for an oral presentation with visual aides but also became a vehicle for students to access each other's work outside of class time. They used the discussion boards to ask for further information and comment on each other's work. The students were motivated by the opportunity to use Internet sources in their research and the activity afforded authentic discussions on the validity of using Wikipedia, cross checking sources, and citing sources (with links).
http://www.turnitin.com/: an online subscription service which serves a variety of purposes in preparing papers and conducting alternative class discussions. I primarily use this source for students to upload their papers, peer edit, and check for plaigiarism. The originality reports give students an objective way to see their words and judge whether they have cited or paraphrased correctly. Again, leads to authentic discussions on plaigiarism. The discussion boards give students who do not participate in oral discussions as easily an opportunity to "get a word in edgewise."
Inspiration: a brainstorming and outlining program. I have used this as a visual aid during class discussions and a tool to help students learn to outline their ideas effectively. Being able to manipulate their ideas in a more symbolic way is a great aid for some students who are more visual learners.

There are a lot more that I could talk about, but I'd probably say that I have used those 3 tools most effectively in helping a variety of students to learn.

teacher motivating video

2008-01-29T18:10:00.003-05:00

Will share this with the new faculty that I mentor this year: http://eduspaces.net/dtruss/weblog/259839.html

wiki for research

2008-01-27T08:45:00.000-05:00

My 11th graders complete a research project this marking period. I am thinking of having them organize and collect all of their notes on their own wiki space. I can link all of the pages together so that I have access to their work for checks and feedback. It could also be an interesting way for them to organize and keep track of the progress of their research. In terms of teaching the research process, instead of notecards they would have separate pages for each source. I'm thinking that they would write the paper on a wiki page also. Using two screens (or more) to translate their research notes into their own text. I'm going to keep thinking about this and work out an example on my wiki.

expanding, or inventing, my PLN

2008-01-26T14:06:00.001-05:00

This week has been a new step for me as I am "meeting" new people around the world through video conferencing and Twitter. On Wednesday I tuned in to professional development in Utah and today participated in a session at Educon 20 in Pennsylvania. Besides listening to speakers there, and remotely from China and Qatar, I chatted, blogged, and "twittered"? Got to see Susan on Ustream :) Mostly, I made some new contacts that I am very excited about following and learning from.

EduCon 2.0

2008-01-26T06:33:00.000-05:00

Links to follow the events from Dangerously Irrelevant:

Educon 2.0 begins today. Do I wish I was one of the attendees? Absolutely!
Follow along at the conference wiki, via RSS, via UStream, via Technorati, in Second Life, and/or at Flickr. Kudos to Chris Lehmann and everyone else who worked on putting together what looks like an amazing event. I can’t wait to see what shakes out over the next few days!

Mentoring

2008-01-24T19:35:00.000-05:00

I am a teacher mentor at my school and have had difficulties knowing exactly what my job entails. I don't want to step on anyone's toes, but I am excited about sharing my experience and learning from different perspectives. I enjoyed reading Dana Huff's article on making a teacher.

sonnets recorded

2008-01-24T15:51:00.001-05:00

My 10th graders recording themselves reading original sonnets. Hear them here.

Voz Me

2008-01-24T12:40:00.001-05:00

My tech coordinator is always finding new tools in her explorations and passing them on to me. Many times I don't pursue the link but today I played with Voz Me and came up with an educational use in about ten minutes. I created this mp3 to remind my students to bring in their papers tomorrow. In case they didn't get the message from verbal instructions at the end of class, or from the post on my class webpage, here is an auditory reminder: http://vozme.com/speech/en/355fa282e37950507bf3182b37188461.mp3
Is there any other way that I can reach them? :)

knowledge: a level field

2008-01-23T20:05:00.000-05:00

On a chat at Openpd.wikispaces.com Ustream conference, Jeff in Shanghi talks about how the opportunity for knowledge is a field that is quizkly being leveled by the Internet and open source information. He says: "The ability to learn from anybody, anywhere, at any time." How can I help my students understand the competition that they will face in the global market that will exist by the time they enter the work force? Right now they feel very privileged to live in America, but are they also a little blind?

digital storytelling

2008-01-23T05:51:00.001-05:00

There is so much to be done with digital storytelling. This is an area that I would like to pursue, but for now I'm just going to record the resources:

Cliotech blog post

tecnorati

2008-01-22T19:21:00.000-05:00

I just joined Technorati because I've read about it on other blogs. I don't fully understand what it is, but I'm willing to dive in and see what happens with that.
Today I tried using an online survey with my classes, but I think that I accidentally locked it so none of their responses could register. I reassured my classes that the real point was to just get them thinking about their responses, but we couldn't help but be disappointed. I have to find better ways to set up new uses of technology and check for loop holes before trying something new in class.

Christmas present for myself

2008-01-13T12:36:00.000-05:00

One of my favorite Christmas presents this year was high speed Internet at home. It really was crazy to try to move into the new world of teaching with technology without fast access at home. The fact that I had dial up for so long was helpful in keeping my sanity, however.
I am a teacher at Susan's school and we've been having some problems lately: see her recent post. By the end of last semester I had stopped blogging, neglected my wikispace, and even stopped trying to use web 2.0 technologies in the classroom. When I reflected on why my efforts had diminished so much, I realized that I was suffering from a feeling of not being appreciated.
Having a break was a good time to get my head straightened out and my enthusiasm reignited. It's an exciting time to be a teacher, but real effective change takes time. I sometimes get frustrated by the roadblocks, but I still have my eyes trained on the ultimate goal: a future of teaching and learning more effectively.

new finds in 2008

2008-01-02T08:02:00.000-05:00

People who love words are always trying to tighten up our language:

http://www.lssu.edu/banished/discuss/?p=20

These comics are interesting to me in light of this blog and the Maus comic writing project that I have my juniors complete in the spring.

last year's comics

My Transcendental Journal

2007-11-16T09:52:00.000-05:00

November 15, 2007

The Transcendental fieldtrip. The wettest one yet. As we were driving to school this morning, and Bill offered visions of potential disasters-limbs from trees overweighed by rain falling on some unsuspecting junior, I actually thought that we may have to postpone the trip, though I had told my classes that we'd go no matter what unless the weather closed school. But when the temperature dropped ten degrees on our way to school, I realized that there could be other restrictions. Luckily, by 10:00 am the winds had died down, and though it's been raining lightly on us for an hour, there's no reason not to be here. In fact, I've realized that this is the best time of year for this fieldtrip: "To the attentive eye, every season has it's own beauty" (Emerson).

I'm sitting on a folded beach towel, hunkered under my purple umbrella, and balancing this journal on my knee. Uncomfortable-yes.

I brought some coffee in a thermos which I'm afraid to drink because I've already found that the bathrooms are locked. Inconvenient-yes.

I hiked around the perimeter of the park with the stream on my right hand side for an hour encouraging Transcendentalism. Annoying-yes.

I forgot my camera at the picnic area. (It's the first time I even remembered to bring it!) Oh no!

Interruption

How many times have I written this journal? How many times have I rediscovered this feeling? When will I learn to change like the leaves do every year? This year, the fall has been so wet and gray, but today I see how beautiful the leaves are. So orange and yellow and read and spottled. Their beauty persists.

In modern times our new worries-carpel tunnel's, back and neck problems, am I more machine because I rely too much-the more things stay the same. Emerson and Thoreau are worth knowing because they try to respond to the same fears. Will we lose our touch with nature? Will we totally destroy nature? Maybe we can; maybe we can't, but we can miss the point.

Thoreau believed that reform must start with the individual.

Every year I stress about this trip. In years past, Bill has even suggested that it is too risky; Can I ensure the safety of my students? There are dangerous things here in the world, outside of the classroom.

But my greater fear is actually that they won't "get it." This trip only amplifies and reminds me of a core dilemma in my chosen profession: My duty is to teach effectively-to reach them where they are and lead them, guide them, carry or cajole them further in their understandings.

But...

I cannot make them have an experience.

Transcendental resources on the Internet

2007-11-13T08:08:00.001-05:00

My AmLit students are studying Transcendentalism and planning their own fieldtrip "to the woods." Here are some resources that I will be using in class.

The Univeristy of Richmond has a summer program for high school students based on the Transcendentalists: http://summer.richmond.edu/scholars/courses/
History of Alum Spring Park http://www.historypoint.org/columns2.asp?column_id=1094&column_type=hpfeature
A map:
Walden: http://www.walden.org/
Thoreau's journal:
For teachers:

external validation

2007-11-07T08:31:00.001-05:00

Wow. I feel so special. Someone* recognized my wikispace on their presentation wiki at http://movingforward.wikispaces.com/Wikis. Once the hectic day-to-day routines of teaching began this fall, I lost some of my momentum in developing and using Internet sources to reflect on and record our class work. I haven't written many blog posts, I stopped reading the posts on my RSS reader, and I didn't add too many resources to my wikispace. Now that someone else has discovered and recognized my work I feel reinvigorated. I think that this is another useful application of world wide information posting: someone outside of my circle of collegues can inspire and encourage my work.
*Dr. Scott McLeod, Director of the UCEA Center for the Advanced Study of Technology Leadership in Education (CASTLE)

teaching to the test

2007-11-01T12:43:00.001-04:00

I'm so glad that I teach at a private school which is not constrained by mandatory state tests.

Recently posted on 2 Cents Worth:
"Then I run across a comment that I was mostly impressed with. But the author, a network filter administrator, said,
'When I go through the process of adding a new Universal Resource Locator (URL) to the filter database I actually personally evaluate the site to see which of the state standards can be illustrated or in any way taught by the content of the site. If I find that none can it is immediately blocked. '
Interpreted literally, this reminds me of a comment made by a keynote speaker I recently saw at a state school boards association conference. It was a great keynote, funny, and thought provoking — in a good way. But the speaker said something that I, personally, do not agree with.
'If your second grade teacher teaches a fantastic unit on dinosaurs, but dinosaurs are not on the test, then that teacher is doing harm to your children. Anything that’s taught that’s not on the test, is doing harm to your children.'
Are the standards of instruction intended to be the extent of the instruction? The answer to that question may well be, “Yes.” But should the state define the limit of instruction? I don’t think so. Safety, I would suggest, should be the only limit to learning in our schools."

The students at my school do take standardized tests and we compare then on local and national levels to other types of schools, but our primary goal as educators is to educate, not take a test.