Bringing Life to a Line...Digitally

We're using an app called Phoster to create digital posters of a slice of text from the The Diary of Anne Frank.

Students dig for one image that helps us see the line if text through their eyes.

Additionally, manipulating the text (font, boldness, color, spacing) should also affect how the reader receives Anne's line of text.

In this respect it takes on some of the properties of poetry--isolating words or segments of lines on the image tells its own story.

Students then attach the image to a blog entry about their work--why should anyone care? Why should anyone see Anne's line through your eyes...what does the reader gain by having you guide him/her to the line?

Why is it important to you?

Students will blog (@8grwriters) and tweet their work throughout the following week.

Attached here is one example of a mentor text I created for class. On an upcoming blog post I will model a response to a different poster and line.

Visual Story: Love Conquers All

I set out with the goal of creating a narrative guided by one (or a combination of) of the four main story types discussed in class: love story, someone goes on a journey, worlds collide, or a stranger comes to town. Just images. No words. This is a great activity to get students working and talking with a writing partner.

Digital Is...in my world.

Tomorrow is Digital Learning Day for the National Writing Project and their "Digital Is..." initiative.  I've been following the build up on Twitter and want to weigh in.


My plan for Digital Learning Day is more than a day--I have taught the lesson in increments and tomorrow will be just one more day in that build-up to a digital product.

We are writing visual stories.

Taking a cue from a group on Flickr I am asking my students to compose a story with five images.  We are currently studying "Story" --their notes highlight that there are four basic types of story: love story, someone goes on a journey, worlds collide, and a stranger comes to town.  We also dig deeper in the concepts that all stories have some form of conflict, obstacles, and change.

We are going to attempt to demonstrate those aspects of storytelling in our visual stories.

Students have asked if it could be more than five images.  I like the five image limit in that it is like poetry--we have to be precise.  We have to select just the right image and place it at the just the right time.

Students are allowed to use any pre-existing images from home, new digital images, drawn/painted images, other creative composition images (construction paper, etc.), as well as anything from our school subscription to ImageQuest (a compilation of royalty free/public domain images hosted by Encyclopedia Britannica).

Rather than log the students into Flickr, we will use our own Moodle site.  Students have used this to load podcasts along with other products.  I'll have create a link on our classroom wiki that takes viewers directly to their visual story from their individual online portfolios on the wiki.

Planning something for this day inspired a thought--are we at a point where separate, isolated computer labs and classes are an inefficient model?  Considering the rate in which technology is evolving, and the varying differences in comfort and expertise among teachers, would we be better served if technology was blended into rooms, departments, or teams?

Our building is a 6 through 8 middle school--could we see the day where a technology teacher was assigned to each grade and learned to blend his/her curriculum in with the rest of the subjects of the school?  For the sake of argument, a tech teacher could spend week one in Teacher A's Science class, week two in teach B's Social Studies class, etc.

Of course, rooms would have to be revamped--more outlets, USB ports, and hardware--or perhaps mobile carts traveled with the tech teacher.  He/She could rotate--in our school we have twelve core subject teachers in 8th grade.  We would potentially co-teach once every twelve weeks--three times a year. 

I'm just think out loud, inspired by the spirit of tomorrow.  I'm wondering if any schools have a blended technology plan rather than a plan which sets technology as isolated rooms (technology dumps)...

Another advantage to this approach, would be the ability to train and develop the tech saavy of all of the teachers throughout the year...something that I believe our education system needs to consider nationwide.

Tech Review: cel.ly in the 8th grade classroom

My 8th students and I gave cel.ly a try this week--essentially cel.ly is a website that enables an individual to create a "cell" for conversation.  Students can use their cell phones to text responses and participate in classroom polls.

I chose to use curator mode.  This sends all text messages to the teacher first--I was then able to choose the best (appropriate) replies and release them out to the rest of the phones in the classroom and to the display in the classroom.

First impression and lasting impression--a little clunky but full of positive possibilities.

It took a good 10-12 minutes to walk my students through the process of sending a text message to the correct "cell"--I was surprised by how many students experienced difficulty performing what I consider a simple task: text "@samplecell" to "1234."  This should have been the same experience as texting a vote to American Idol, but many of my students grappled with the execution.

In the name of safety, I chose to make the "cell" private and I also wanted the students to need my "permission" to join.  Immediately, I learned that I had to explicitly demand that they do not use their name (or full name as some tried) as their user name.  Students were immediately willing to be trusting of the technology and none offered any reservations about entering a name.  Without my guidance, I know I would have had many who entered their names.  Now, I believe the site was private and I believe the owners of the site when they say no one else will see these cells, but this demonstrated the importance of having these types of conversations with our kids--whether they are our classroom students or family.  Just for this lesson alone, the experience was worth it.

The teacher is allowed to either hand click permission as each user requests access to the cell, or the teacher can use commands on a cell phone to admit all with one key stroke.  There was lag time between this key stroke and students entering the cell.  I felt the impatience build in the room as students wanted to immediately jump in and start using technology--the 10-12 minute setup took some of the starch out of the room.

As I had planned ahead, I had a poll waiting for students as they entered the cell.  A poll in the form of a text message was sent to students as access to the cell was granted.  Built on the homework from the night before, I asked students to select one of four possible answers to a question on plot structure.  The direction in the text is to enter a 1, 2, 3, 4--the corresponding number to each response.

I had students who struggled with the concept--some wanted to type the answer in, some wanted to type an "a" or a "b" instead of a 1 or a 2 (matter of habit from school testing), and others did not trust their ability to read the text and follow the instructions, choosing instead to ask me, "what do I do?"

While students took the poll, I displayed it on the Smart Board--we watched the percentages leap and build in real-time...and then I started a discussion on the percentages. Finally! the technology led us to a discussion about literature and our perceptions of the plot structure...more than 15 minutes into the class.

After a brief discussion, I wanted to try one more feature--the curated text.

I asked students to send a text as an answer to the following question, "What is the change in the protagonist that the author wants us to consider?"  Again, students struggled with the execution.  Some expected to have to reenter a code or recipient, some looked for a number choice (from the last exercise)--I had to reiterate, just type your response and press send several times.

The answers started scrolling across the screen of my phone--by pressing a 4 digit code I could release the responses I found most accurate or interesting to consider.  A bit of a tangle occured--as 30 students are thinking and writing text message responses at different rates, my ability to monitor bursts and floods of answers was challenged.  Just as I would read one response and begin to type the code associated with it, another three of four answers would appear, pushing the code I needed for the previous response out of sight.  Yes, I could scroll back to find it...but that allows more time for more responses to scroll in.  It became a new management skill for me.

Now, as I'm reading and deciding which texts to send back out the entire class, what are the kids doing who already sent a text.  Again, there is a clunky disconnect in the tool and the lesson.

It also dawned on me, what if I wanted to create a poll in the middle of a class discussion--this would take some time to type out.  Not a lot of time, but time nonetheless.

My experience reinforced that no digital tool takes the place of good pedagogy.  I really had to plan to use the digital tool, and if I were to use it again in the future I would have to modify the plan--this digital tool, the use of cellphones and texting, is a departure from what I have normally done over the course of a seventeen year career.  Yet, I did find a lot of value in the day.

The PEW research group, in their study titled Writing, Technology, and Teens, notes:

Teens write a lot, but they do not think of their emails, instant and text messages as writing. This disconnect matters because teens believe good writing is an essential skill for success and that more writing instruction at school would help them.

The lesson reinforced the need for meaningful professional development for teachers.  I would say I am very comfortable with using digital tools in the classroom but I also believe I am very far away from using texting and cellphones seamlessly and efficiently in a lesson.  It takes practice but it also takes training.

I can envision the cel.ly tool used in a middle school setting during a short film or reading selection in a Social Studies, English, or Science class--it could be a way to engage students in thinking as the video plays or as they read, and it strikes me as an interesting way for teachers to monitor student understanding.  Teachers could send out polls or questions (the time is there as students are engaged in viewing or reading) and all students would have an opportunity to respond.

There is definitely a use for this type of tool--and I know new tools and apps emerge everyday--I hope more teachers try them and share their experiences (even if it is just with their own colleagues).

A far cry from the traditional one-room American school house, digital tools such as cel.ly do remind me that the time for a national focus on digital literacy and digital tools in education is upon us.  These tools can actually bring the teacher another level of understanding of the literacy of their student population.  It condenses the classroom--imagine being able to monitor what your students are thinking as they engage in an activity or reading--imagine being able to redirect your class or your lesson based on what your students are understanding (not what we think they are understanding).  I really felt that with more experience and some training that using cel.ly or something like it would provide me a more immediate, accurate, and ongoing snapshot of the developing knowledge of my students in that specific lesson.

Resource Book Review: Because Writing Matters

Because Writing Matters: Improving Student Writing in Our Schools by National Writing Project

My rating: 3 of 5 stars
I should establish that the 3 star rating exists only because I am looking for books which can help teachers in their classroom now.  As you'll read this is a book with a long-range goal and noble message which all teachers should read.

Quite honestly, this is really a book for administrators and school boards or people who pull the strings. It is an excellent call to action for our nation's schools.  While the teachers are on the front lines, we can only march or fire or set up camp at the direction of those in command--we can't just teach what we want...no matter how correct it is.  For there to be change, real change, our leaders need to work together to inspire the change...or acknowledge the change which needs to occur.

What alarms me is that Because Writing Matters reminded me that the famous Newsweek article "Why Johnny Can't Read" hit the scene in 1975.

1975.

I was 7.

Actually, this belief that young people can't write is nothing new. We can go all the way back to Harvard University's creation of a writing course for all incoming freshmen in 1875.

Yet, writing scores across the nation continue to decline or remain well below expectations.

Why?

We talk about at work.  We make professional suggestions.  We encourage growth and offer professional feedback.  We read, and share, and discuss the scores from state testing.

Yet, all across the nation, Johnny still can't write.

What I gather from this book as well as others is that we value other things more. We may say students need to write better, but in order for that to occur they need to write more.

Many studies suggest they write less in all of their classrooms.

Or if they do write, teachers have been trained or permitted to teach to the writing piece. Teachers have learned to assign writing and not teach the writer--and there is an enormous difference.  We lean on rubrics (some catered specifically to narrative, informative, or persuasive) and we point to hamburger charts and teach the correct composition of the five-paragraph essay.

Many studies suggest that students not only write less in language arts classrooms but they may not write at all some of their other classes. Writing, in our nation, has been swept into a tidy pile to be covered almost solely by English teachers...who teach content-based curriculum.

They have content to get to and through.  They also have traditional points of view to deal with when it comes to writing--the notion that if you are noting every error or slip in grammar then and only then are you helping them be a proficient writer.

We know enough to understand that literacy influences the rate of success and growth potential in our career.  People who do not write well, unfortunately, find fewer doors open to them in this world.

Yet, ask ten English teachers across the nation in 2011 if their classes are content-based or writing-based.  Don't be surprised by the response.

What good is it if a student knows about the different types of clouds or rocks, or the causes of the Civil War, or the Pythagorean Theorem if they can't write about it...especially with the technological revolution swirling around us.  As Kelly Gallagher suggests in Teaching Adolescent Writers, the merging of technology and literacy is a stampede heading dead at these kids.  They either need to start running with it, or they'll be passed by, or worse yet...crushed.

What good is it to ask our science, math, and social studies teachers to use writing in their classes if they have not been trained?  I can make a pretty solid prediction that many teachers outside of the language arts classroom would assume that they are not qualified to handle a steady diet of student writing because they do not feel capable of helping students with the conventions of grammar.

I'll also assume that many of those same teachers might be willing to do it if they were trained...and there will be still others who will want to be assured that they only need to assess the content of the piece..and leave the grammar to the English types.

A teacher reading this book might find it simultaneously enlightening and frustrating. We know where we need to go, we even know how we might get there...we are willing to do it as I imagine many were when I was 7 and Newsweek printed "Why Johnny Can't Write" but some of the roads are still closed.

So, when I say that this book is best suited for administrators or people who make the big decisions it is because this kind of evolution has to begin at the top. Otherwise, we're just a bunch of teachers in a bunch of different districts in a bunch of different states trying to do the right thing within a system which has not adjusted the rules of the game in spite of the evidence.  Among teachers, writing is called the Silent 'R for good reason.

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Resource Book Review: Because Digital Writing Matters

Because Digital Writing Matters: Improving Student Writing in Online and Multimedia Environments by National Writing Project

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Built more on theory and pedagogy, this NWP book provides sound, rational reasoning for building the digital literacies of ourselves and our students--in that order.

A generalization referenced in the book resonated with me: our students are "digital natives" and their teachers are "digital immigrants". I appreciate the idea that we (the teachers) are constantly working to fit in technology. The book goes on to point out that since 2003 when everything began to become networked and our cloud environment was in its infancy, our students are now no longer the people our educational system was built to support.

It is different than The Digital Writing Workshop by Troy Hicks in that there are scant few authentic examples of projects, student work, or specific digital technology. While BDWM will certainly provide some moments for you to chew on, it is not the book to reference for quick adjustments to bring back to your classroom.

This is the slow-simmer book. It contains the ideas to bring back to your colleagues and your administrators. It is the book to bring back to your school community.

Are things really just the same as they were 30 years ago just with nicer computers, or has the world dramatically shifted, and with it writing, composing, conferring, reading...learning?

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Resource Book Review: The Digitial Writing Workshop

The Digital Writing Workshop by Troy Hicks

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Rooted in sound process writing principles, Troy Hicks leads you through many possibilities of transforming at least a portion of what you do in your class. I liked that he stresses the concept that we shouldn't be writing digitally just for the sake of using a computer or a slick new program. The core of what we are working are still the principles of effective writing and that should always be the primary concern.

Understanding that that is platform Troy Hicks builds upon, The Digital Writing Workshop covers RSS, Social Bookmarking, Blogging, Podcasts, Wikis, and Collaborative Word Processors just to name a few. He offers many well documented sources and authentic examples of teacher and student work. We can see both in the book as well as by typing in any number of the sites Hicks suggests what modes we can influence in our own classrooms.

One of the strengths of the book is its clarity of purpose, audience, and execution. Each segment is covered thoroughly in a language which can comprehended by any teacher with any level of experience of technology. He offers links to wonderful sites which can take the beginner step by step through the basics, as well as links for the intermediate or advanced.

I borrowed the book from a library and took extensive notes in my daybook, but I am already committed to buying my own copy to have on-hand as a resource.

His style and vision is so helpful that I went and borrowed his second book, a collaboration, Because Digital Writing matters...which I plan on beginning once I end this sentence with a period.

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