Wanna buy some parts of speech?

Yet again, it has been a while since I updated, but we have been having fun in my class.  My one class period has completed their wiki pages.  I'm doing my best to not peek at them until they display them to the class next Tuesday. 

The other new tech-related project my students have been working on is infomercials to sell me parts of speech.  After doing the standard "adjectives!  woowoo" that they don't buy in to and don't practice when offered the rote worksheet or practice sentences, I needed a new idea.  After searching the internet I found this great idea for students to demonstrate mastery through the teaching of others.  Their infomercial has to effectively describe/define their part of speech in order to "sell" it.  I have four classes working on this project and they are starting to come together.  As always, some better than others.  My students are quickly learning the need for memorization as they see themselves looking off screen to read a script or looking down and the whole recording is of the top of their heads!

Next week is our end of semester, so all of these projects need to be completed.  My incentive for students to finish early is that next Thursday is a tech assembly and their work may be displayed.

We are headed to wiki-land

I believe I may be officially crazy.  I had five groups in my 7th period start wikis today.  We are reading a period novel and I was expecting the students in this group to read quickly and spend more time on an interesting assignment, however I was thinking a period newspaper.  In class today I starting thinking of all the links and imbedded maps they could use if they just had wikis... so I blurted out "each group grab a computer!"  Of course, the first action of every group after creating their group wiki was to add me as a member.  :)  I'm a little concerned about what I have gotten myself into, but also truly believe in these kids and am excited to see what they will create.

I certainly have fear of the unknown, but I don't think they do.  I need to make sure my fear doesn't limit their project.  I'm going to send home permission to publish forms home tomorrow, after that maybe I'll be able to link to their wikis here.

We are entering a new frontier....

Staying Up to Date

This is one of the hardest aspects of my life... staying up to date.  We have had our computers for a while now.  Students are using them for more than just word processing.  In fact, I just put next weeks spelling list for struggling students on a website and linked it to my wiki site.  Woo Woo!  However, those accomplishments are not happening often enough for my high standards (of myself).

I was successful in implementing a technology book project prior to 4th quarter.  I used to put it off until the end because it was such a harried event.  This year, first quarter all book projects relied on some form of technology.  Their choices were to make a "breaking news" broadcast using iMovie, create an author or main character interview podcast using GarageBand, create a newsletter based upon the events in your book using Pages, or create a book jacket (with original artwork scanned by our librarian) and turn it into a slideshow using KeyNote.  I tried to reach all students comfort and ability levels with the project choices, but must admit they were not my ideas.  The power of the internet (and Google)!

I believe I was more successful with these projects because they had set  limits, such as a 2 minute movie or a 2 page newsletter.  However that is not to say all was smooth going.  I planned to allot one class period for the tech side - prep work completed beforehand was a requirement with points attached - however quickly moved that to two class periods.  As I only see my students 3 times a week this means that putting their projects into motion really took one whole week of school.  Can I sacrifice 3-4 weeks of school for this?  No, and hopefully they will become more tech savvy as we go along so I don't have to.  We also had individual glitches with each program; things such as not being able to see photos from iPhoto in iMovie when attempting green screen.  We did have limited success with green screen (really, green project paper taped to my wall - but hey, it worked!), but it can be greatly improved.  My project now is to record our successes and struggles to convey at our next tech meeting and use my colleague resources to help me celebrate and solve.

Moving forward... what am I going to do next???

And we have computers!

Woo Hoo!  We have laptops in the classroom!  I received my new school laptop about two weeks ago and late last week my eight classroom laptops were delivered.  I believe I have migrated all of my documents from my old Dell laptop to my new Mac.  This will make my classroom a complete Mac room (once the old Dell's get relocated).  There are still questions to be answered in regard to charging and storage, but the computers are in the kids hands!  Of course, the first thing we did was to complete our podcast recordings... and I found out our school does have a permission to publish form so I'm close to uploading some of the podcasts here (if I can).  If I can't accomplish that here they will be loaded to my wiki.

My next personal hurdle is getting the students to start using some of the more creative websites such as xtranormal or animoto.  I have to start formulating my first quarter book projects, so I'm envisioning some videos coming along soon.  Along with continued podcasts of course.  I was thinking today of creating a literature podcast series where they students are responsible for creating buzz about the stories we read via podcasts.

As for the wiki, I believe the next page I will create will be for organizing an essay.  My advanced class is already in the midst of writing a full essay and the other students need to be headed there soon if I'm going to do my CNN Heroes unit again this year.

Plagiarism Podcasts - let the challenge begin!

We are starting to record our plagiarism podcasts this week.  Oh boy.  This would be fabulous, but technology is always filled with glitches and this is no exception.  The first day was pretty tough because our computers kept crashing on us.  The few that did get recorded on my teacher station I didn't save correctly.  Duh, you need to "share" it to really send it out (I remembered that today).  Today the computers were very much our friend.  I have one finished "shared" podcast and a few more putting finishing touches on tomorrow.  This is our first attempt at podcasting so it is still a little rough, but overall I am super proud of my students.  Hopefully I'll be able to put some of the more creative ones on here to give you a listen.

Student News

Well, I have opened the proverbial can of worms.  Earlier this week my current events class was watching CNN's student news.  There was an item about the new school in LA opening.  The question of the day was what makes a good school - the building or the environment within?  My class seemed to agree that while an awesome building is great it's really "cool teacher's that don't just talk to you all day" that make a school.  So silly me went into the blog and we created a class comment.

How is that opening a can of worms you ask?  Well, today's item is about a district offering parents money for their student's college fund to attend open house, conferences, and the such.  As I was telling my homeroom class the basics of the item one of my students asked "do you have to have an account to add your comment?"  Oh boy - "no" I replied as I reminded him that all comments need to be appropriate.

The easing of control begins.  The biggest hurdle with technology is letting the kids use it without feeling like you need to monitor and review everything.... and it begins.  If nothing else this class year will test my ability to let the students truly have creative control.

If you are interested in our comment it was posted on Aug. 25 (it was post 56 so it's a ways down).

Glitches happen

Well, my opening letter says glitches happen and they do.  :)  As we were having issues getting students connected to my wiki page one of them spoke up and said "you said there might be glitches!"  Love that my students do listen to me. 

I'm trying to use the class wiki much more than the website last year.  I think it is easier since I can load assignments, links, etc. easier by adding a new page for them.  They are starting a plagiarism webquest to learn about copying/cheating early on with the understanding that there is zero tolerance in my classroom for those actions.  Most classes got a good start even with the technical glitches (we were able to direct them to the website for the webquest instead of having them go through my wiki page).

It's a good start.  Computers in the classroom the third day of school, wiki up and going, tech integrated in the first lesson, xtranormal already used, and podcasts planned for next week - I'm on a roll!