Resource Round Up

As anyone who has followed my blog probably knows, there are no ads. No banners. No AdSense. No clickbait.

I don’t accept advertising nor do I often pass along information from others. Sadly, as Dan Meyer explained many years ago, many people make many dollars from those clicks, and I think that educators and parents want a website they can trust. So, I don’t do sponsored posts or the like.

Every once in awhile, however, something comes along that I think is legit: the people running it are working to support teachers and students, they engage in genuine education reform or improvement, and/or the message resonates loudly enough that –even if they take ad money or are directly selling a product — I am willing to share their wares.

As it happens, this past week, three sites came my way that fit this “every once in awhile” phenomenon. I will share a bit about each here:

BestSchools.com

First, I was contacted by Herrie Coralde at BestSchools.com about the possibility of sharing information for students about, as you might guess, the best schools that offer online degree programs. Many sites, like the ones Dan mentioned in his blog post, create these guides or portals with the intent that someone will click from them to the online program and they get a kickback.

Not so with Best Schools. As they note on their About page, they exist for two reasons:

The first reason is simple: there are too many online programs out there. It’s impossible to keep track of the industry’s growth. And if you turn to Google for help, you’ll see a glut of for-profit schools. It’s hard to know what’s legit and what’s not.

The second reason is more complicated, and it’s the reason why we started BestSchools.com. The existing ranking systems aren’t anywhere close to perfect. They look at metrics like graduation rates and extrapolate them into a ranking. While graduation rates can be a telltale sign of a high quality school, metrics like that don’t tell the whole story.

Moreover, they offer many articles that tell this broader story about online education such as Kristen Hicks’ (no relation) “For-Profit Colleges: What Every Student Should Know.” After providing a list of pros and cons for these types of schools, she advises the reader:

In short, if for-profit colleges continue down the path they’re on now, they may not have much of a future. But if they evolve to better meet the needs of current students and appease the governmental powers currently challenging them, they may just weather all the current storms…

Do your research. Don’t just listen to what a representative from a college has to say, get online and see what else you can find about the school you’re interested in.

Overall, I appreciate the way that BestSchools does their research and presents their findings. For instance, and not just because they pick my employer, CMU, as #1 in the state, they provide an overview of the state’s programs and then dig in to the top 10.

BestSchools.com Screenshot
BestSchools.com Screenshot

Overall, BestSchools.com appears to be legit and I appreciate having a balanced, research-based team looking at the many options available for online learning. So, finding two in one week was quite interesting, as I will share next.

OnlineMasterPrograms.org

The second query I received came from Lauren Ford at Online Masters Program. Again, I did some looking around on their site, and found their About page compelling, too. Given my criteria for such sites, listed above, I noticed two things about their page work:

Are you affiliated with the programs featured?

OMP.org is an independently run site. We are not affiliated with any master’s degree programs or schools. None of our links to particular programs or schools are sponsored. These programs were chosen because we regard them as some of the most reputable graduate schools.

How do you make money?

All money made through our site is done so via 3rd party advertisers and affiliates. All ads found on this site, be they banners or forms, are labeled as such. The material we produce ourselves and the tools we offer are all ad-free and 100% free to access. We will never require visitors of our site to use or endorse advertised or affiliated content.

So, fair enough. They are clear about their advertising policy, and I appreciate it. More importantly, they provide a good deal of information for each program, as evidenced here by this entry for CMU’s masters in education.

OnlineMastersPrograms.org
OnlineMastersPrograms.org

The site includes public, private non-profit, and private for profit listings and the reviews are written, like BestSchools.com in a balanced, research-based way. Their data comes from the Bureau of Labor and Statistics, U.S. Department of Education and the Database of Accredited Postsecondary Institutions and Programs.

Again, this makes for a very thorough and useful site as someone begins to review online programs. Of course, there are other ways for teachers to get online, too, and this third resource shows how.

Start Blogging Online

Finally, I got an email from Mike Wallagher who manages Start Blogging Online. His purpose is straight forward:

I began blogging in 2009 – and since then I’ve managed over 20 blogs, some with 200,000 visitors. I started getting tons of questions about blogging from people all over the world, so I thought it’d be a great idea to pack all that information onto one site where I could share it with everyone.

In doing so, he has created a robust website with a clear approach, a clean design, and usable tips. For instance, the screenshot below shows step two in his step-by-step guide. You can see the clear advice, the helpful links, and (just barely at the bottom) a helpful graphic. Most of the resource pages on his site are designed like this.

StartBloggingOnline.com Screenshot
StartBloggingOnline.com Screenshot

He is also very clear about how he earns money from his affiliate marketing program, but that is not the heart of his work. He adds “Don’t get me wrong, it’s not because I want to make money from you. It’s mostly to keep my site up and running so I could provide you with the latest blogging tutorials, guides and strategies in the blogging niche.”

Overall, Mike’s work is smart, concise, and useful. Probably his most relevant page for educators is “Blogging in the Classroom,” followed closely by his “What is a Blog?” resource. In particular, I could see using that document as a great way to talk about audiences, purposes, and genres for blogging, not just for using blogs (ala Bud Hunt).

So, there you have it. Three coincidentally timed contacts in the past week, all of which have led to useful resources that I may have not otherwise considered. Please let me know if you check these resources out and what you think by leaving a comment below or following up with me on Twitter.

Addition: August 3, 2015

I was recently contacted by Matt Banner from On Blast Blog about his resource “Blogging in The Classroom: How to Get Started.” His post provides the following sections:

  • Ways to bring blogging into your classroom and daily lesson plans
  • The litany of benefits blogging brings to education
  • Deciding the purpose and goals of your blog
  • Setting up your classroom’s blog
  • Easy ways to promote and grow your classroom blog

He provides many useful links and suggestions, so I encourage you to check his post out as well.


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Welcome IWP Colleauges

IWP LogoThis morning, I am looking forward to a conversation with colleagues from the Indiana Writing Project about the ways that I use blogging and Twitter as a writer during their Advanced Institute: Get Your Write On! My colleague Susanna Benko will be getting the conversation started, and then I will be joining in to answer some questions that they have prepared for me.

Since I am sure that the time will go fast, I’ve prepared a few opening remarks here on my blog for them to read ahead of time. Then, we can use our time together for more of a Q/A.

How do you see yourself as a writer who uses digital spaces – like blogs and Twitter –as a way to reach others? What do you most often write about? Who do you see as your audience(s)?

One of the beliefs that I hold as a writer in any space, and especially in digital spaces, is that I want to contribute to the conversation. How can I add value to what other people are saying? How can my new ideas, reflections on old ideas, and notes that I scribe from other presentations offer something to other educators? If I am not contributing to the conversation in a productive, professional way, then I need to question why I am writing at all here on my blog, with Twitter, with my wiki, or any other digital forum.

As the title of my blog suggests, I most often write about ideas related to teaching writing in this digital age. I do not do personal blogging, and I reserve Facebook for any family photos or political opinions. So, my topics are mostly educational and, somewhat benign. I want to blog more about educational policy and politics, though I haven’t brought myself to do so yet. Here, I stick with topics related to writing, literacy more broadly, and educational technology.

My audiences vary, and are worldwide. Sadly, lots are spambots! However, I do know that I reach other educators because, most importantly, I hear back from them. They put comments on my blog at @reply me on Twitter. Again, I try to add to the conversation. I rarely check stats, but I know that I get many enough on my blog from Google and other search engines to know that it really is a person seeing my work.

What challenges do you see for teacher-writers who want to use digital spaces as writers more often, and how do you suggest teachers navigate those challenges?

This is a timely and useful question. And I have both a philosophical and technical answer. In terms of the philosophy, as we find ourselves in an increasingly hostile political climate, we as teacher-writers need to offer insightful visions into our classrooms that the media, policymakers, and the public may not see. While there are a number of overtly political blogs and bloggers, you do not have to take that stance as a teacher-writer. In the process of writing about your own experiences, you are taking a stance that shows how important the work of teaching is.

In terms of the technical challenges, the barriers to entry on blogging and social networking, at least initially, are really low (as you are likely figuring out today). Once you are part of the edublogosphere, then the technical hurdle is getting noticed (that is, having others find your blog or tweets, read them, and reply). There are some technical (and rhetorical) moves that can help with that such as linking to other blogs, using @replies and hashtags, and becoming active in regular Twitter chats.

What other advice might you give writers who are wanting to blog or use Twitter –especially novice users of either medium?

This sounds so cliche, I know, but just jump in, as you are today. You have to start somewhere, so just get started. Dip your toes in the stream of ideas, and you will soon be swimming. For some more specific advice, I would encourage you to:

  • Learn about RSS and begin using a tool like Feedly or Flipboard
  • After you sign up for Twitter, begin to use a social media management tool like Tweetdeck or Hootsuite
  • Take the advice of estblished edubloggers, of which there are too many to name here in the time I have…
  • Contribute and add value to the conversation!

My hope is that these responses get the conversation moving along, and I look forward to hearing more thoughts on this from my IWP colleagues later this morning.


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Updates from Recent Collegial Conversations

Over the past few months, I’ve continue to have wonderful opportunities to speak at conferences and workshops, publish my work, and then share in conversations with fellow teachers. Two conversations in particular stand out as we had for the end of the calendar year.

First, Kristen Turner and I were contacted earlier this fall by Brian Newman, a high school teacher from Joliet, Illinois. He had read our English Journal piece, “No longer a luxury: Digital literacy can’t wait,” and wanted to ask us our opinions about blogging and how to engage students as writers. After recommending Youth Voices as a tremendous resource, I offered some specific advice about having students respond to one another:

Over time, as they post — and respond — I would encourage you to pursue some self-evaluation strategies. Ask them to go back and review their best blog post, and why they think it is so. Ask them, too, to review the best blog post from someone else that they have read. Then compare those posts. In that process of writing and responding, talk with them about the power of peer response and specific praise and constructive criticism.

Recently, Brian wrote us back and told us about the work that he and Sean Hackney has shared on their blog, Ancient Geeks. In this post, he discusses the end of semester writing conferences that he had with his student bloggers.  He outlines 13 steps to take in order to become a better blogger and teacher of blogging:

  1. Make the posts occur regularly.
  2. Give them choices.
  3. Use the blogs as formative writing practice for summative writing assignments.
  4. Check in with them regularly.
  5. Get testimonials from previous students about the positives and drawbacks of the various blog platforms.
  6. Make them read each others’ blogs.
  7. Use technorati.com, the blog search engine, to get them reading blogs.
  8. Conference with them.
  9. Grade them with care, because they care about being assessed on how they feel.
  10. Identify your tech wizards in class and empower them to help others.
  11. Create opportunities for kids to teach each other how to do make posts more interesting.
  12. Help them expand the audience: email the links to parents, other teachers, or other classes.
  13. Oh yeah, and write along with them. That’s what got Hackney and I writing this blog in the first place.

I appreciate the work that Brian and Sean are doing with their high school writers, and hope that they continue to find success in the new year.

Image courtesy of Katharine Hale (http://teachitivity.wordpress.com/)
Image courtesy of Katharine Hale (http://teachitivity.wordpress.com/)

The second teacher with whom I’ve been communicating this semester is Katharine Hale, a fifth-grade teacher from Arlington, Virginia, who is working diligently to integrate digital writing into her traditional writing workshop. She blogs at Teachitivity and in her recent post, “A Fresh Approach to Fostering Digital Writers,” Katharine describes the multiple goals that she had for integrating technology and making her classroom workshop time more efficient.

The entire post is worth reading, as she has numerous lesson ideas and examples. She concludes that:

As I said in the beginning, this was my first attempt at truly integrating technology, specifically the iPad, into the writing experience. It was incredible to finish the unit ON TIME with not one, but two published texts. I especially loved the interactive flipped lesson. I felt I had gained a whole class period of instruction because I did not need to use class time to assess students and determine small groups. If you read their digital literary essays, you may even notice that many of my students’ conclusion paragraphs are the strongest part of their essay!

Katharine worked critically and creatively to both integrate the use of WordFoto and Thinglink, allowing her students the opportunity to go from brainstorming to publication on both a traditional essay and multiple pieces of digital writing. As with Brian and Sean, I wish Katharine luck in the new year as well.

Thanks to all of my colleagues who have shared their work — and their students’ work — with me over this past year. There are more books, blog posts, chapters, presentations, workshops, and other pieces of writing on their way in the new year. I will try to blog some more over the holidays, but if I don’t get to it then I thank you now for another year of reading my work and invite you to stay in touch.


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Create, Compose, Connect Blog

Create Compose Connect Book CoverMy friend and colleague, Jeremy Hyler, and I have created a new blog for our upcoming book. So, please take a minute to subscribe to Create, Compose, Connect! Reading, Writing, and Learning with Digital Tools and look for the book to come out in March 2014.

We also plan to have a wiki associated with the book, and it will house links to resources from the book as well as student examples for review.


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Two New Articles for Teacher Educators and Parents

In the past two weeks, I’ve had to wonderful opportunities for writing, one through my colleague Todd Finley via Edutopia, and the other from a group of English educators via their Writers Who Care blog. Here is a brief preview from each, as well as links to the originals.

Engaging Pre-Service Teachers in Authentic Writing Instruction

One of my ENG 315 students presenting part of her multigenre research project.

As a writer, I know firsthand how important it is for me to share what I’ve written and receive feedback on my work. And as a teacher of writing — from my initial experience in the middle school classroom up to my current work as a teacher educator at Central Michigan University and director of our Chippewa River Writing Project — I want my students to experience this, too. It is with this understanding in mind that I teach my methods course, ENG 315: Writing in the Elementary and Middle School.

Unfortunately, I know that many of my pre-service teachers come to my course with a jaded view of writing. If high school hadn’t already taken a passion for writing out of them, four years of college certainly have. Thus, I must teach my preservice teachers how to re-envision themselves as writers and, consequently, as teachers of writing…

Teaching Writing, Tablet Style

CC Licensed Photo (Some rights reserved by flickingerbrad.)

While I am very much an advocate for digital writing that incorporates multimedia content such as audio, video, and images, I also understand and appreciate the idea that writing involves — and should always involve at some level — the use of words. Very rarely, if ever, does a young writer need all the bells and whistles that come with standard word processing software.

This is especially true when it comes to using a tablet, given the limited amount of space we have for viewing and typing on smaller screens, especially when not using an external keyboard.

So, when it comes to helping our students to write, to put words into sentences and then into stories, essays, scripts, and more, I look for applications that make the writing process simple and elegant. As a teacher, this means that an app does not, should not, have to do everything from brainstorming to drafting to publishing…

Hope that you find the articles useful!


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Trial Run on Voice Dictation Software

This is the first blog post but I am composing not through the tips of my fingers (mostly), but through my own voice.

I’ve long been interested in dictation software, and I have had some experience using Dragon NaturallySpeaking in the past, I was never really a fan. By the time it would take to go back and edit my own thoughts, insert things like, this, and get the text to be somewhat manageable in terms of being a written texts was always is too much. And the fact that the spoken voice is not nearly the same as the written, and I was not a big fan of Dragon NaturallySpeaking. That said, about a month or so ago, Sarah and I downloaded the Dragon app for iPhone’s once I began using the Dragon now know probably efficient was, and the fact that I barely had to correct it anymore, I was hooked. And long heard about MacSpeech Dictate, and I wanted to give it a try. So, I convinced my department chair to let me use professional development funds for this year to consider going to a conference urges the MacSpeech Dictate software and here I am. Blogging with my voice.

I find this an interesting development of the digital writer into the digital teacher. As you can imagine or even might think to yourself, why would I want to write by simply talking. While the fact that I can get many, many, many pages out in the time it would take me to get just a few words with my fingers, even though I am a fast typist, is simply incredible. I am able to produce volumes and volumes of text, even though it’s all not as good as what I would like it to be in some ways is catching my first draft thinking even as I’m thinking. Which of course can be kind of scary.

That said I’m absolutely fascinated by the possibilities that this dictation software offers. For instance, I could be out taking fieldnotes in the classroom using the software literally writing up my notes in the room for, or at least some of my work, at that exact moment. Having a conversation with a colleague where I judiciously use the microphone turned on and off and report different parts of my own voice we have those words and phrases that lead away from time and time again. Or, as in right now, to be used as a way to blog. It’s no secret that I have a blog nearly as much as I’d hoped to (as if any of us ever do anything we want you to want to like exercising or blogging for that matter). But now, with the idea that I could be using the dictation software to capture many of my thoughts, and use my blog as a way to share them, I am, indeed fascinated. I am also, sheepishly, aware of how many times I use commas in my writing and say words like fascinated.

So, I’m not quite sure what to think at this moment. I really do like the dictation software. I really do like the feeling of my fingers on the keyboard. I’m not able to compose things in my head nearly as well as when I see them on screen. For instance I was just trying to write an outline for a book chapter, and no sooner would I move from one idea that I would want to hop back to the previous one. But given that I’m using the software and I haven’t mastered all the commands, it’s very difficult to move around within the word processing program. There’ll come a point where I’m able to use the dictation software and my fingers to move synchronously and with the ease back and forth to different sections of the document. But for right now it’s still a bit awkward.

All that said, this really does he think about what the future writing look like. Of course, I’ve been thinking about this for many years, many of my ideas have to do with the idea of things being visual multimodal. Yet, I wonder with dictation software if I’m really in for a treat and will be interested in going back and looking at my own written words. Well, at least my spoken words, that are captured in written form. I do wonder when I look back at this as they are posted, and I do intend to post it nearly as it’s written right now, only with a few minor mistakes cleared up (NOTE: about two dozen minor errors have been corrected overall), I wonder what it will look like. Soundbite. We’d like. Will it actually someone am speaking? Or will it sound garbled, because my speech patterns and my writing patterns are not nearly the same?

All that said, the possibilities are very unique and I do wonder what I might be able to do with the software not only with my own children as they learn how to type and they could get huge chunks of text out and go back to practice editing area. What might it afford to my classes as well as my colleagues as we engage in research? I’m curious how are you using voice dictation software in your own writing and teaching any thoughts, suggestions, or websites that I might look to for examples of lesson plans and ideas.

And boy, if there was ever a year when I was going to participate in national novel writing month, this might be the one, now that I can just talk my way through it. Then again, probably not, because that takes some of the joy out of writing it.


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Teaching Blogging with Kathi Yancey

Today, I am at Fordham University, presenting at their summer literacy institute focusing on 21st Century Literacies. I am honored to have the opportunity to present with Kathi Yancey, and she is currently in the middle of her session about “Blogging Alive,” asking participants to think about the purposes and audiences for blogging.

She began by asking people to make a concept map of their blog search, beginning by choosing a question and then using Google blog search to find anwers to their question. She made the point that she was less concerned about the answer to the question than about the process of the search itself. She asked students to then create a concept map outlining their search, and to make sure to include the links from one blog post to another, thus showing the nodes that developed.

Next, she discussed a variety of purposes for blogging, including students writing to and with each other. She also suggested that students connecting their school lives with the world such as the the blog of unecessary quotation marks.

Finally, she asked how we might use blogs as spaces for online learning this year. She talked about the ideas of “misfires” and “workarounds.” Misfires in the sense that an assignment designed for a particular purpose doesn’t really work the way it is supposed to, but you can learn from it. Workaround in the sense that you may have planned for one thing, but got another (e.g., planned for a lab, but only got one computer in your classroom). She also shared Wordle, and showed us how to make a Wordle image from the words we used to describe the MAPS of digital writing this morning.

Image created using www.wordle.net
Image created using www.wordle.net

An enjoyable day all around, I appreciate the invitation from Marshall George to present as a part of the 21st Century Literacies institute this year.


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Personal Technology Learning and the Teaching of Writing

Today, I will be introducing my ENG 315 pre-service teachers to the idea of developing their “digital teaching persona” and thinking critically about why and how to use technology in their personal technology learning and to become better teachers of writing.

Each semester, I face the act of balancing the introduction of a number of digital writing tools — Google accounts for Gmail and Google Reader, Edublogs, Wikispaces, podcasts, digital stories — and the content of our course which includes principles of the writing workshop, reflecting on a midtier teaching experience, and examining our work as writers.

And, each semester, I find that students initially (and sometimes in their final reflections on the course) say that the first weeks of class are overwhelming in terms of the new technologies.

So, I am thinking about how to make things only “whelming,” not overwhelming, and also articulate why I think that learning how to use these digital writing tools are critical to their success as teachers. Thus, I offer this brief list that I intend to share with my students today:

  • Understanding digital writing tools can be intimidating at first, yet provide opportunities for writers to share their work and read the work of others. This kind of publication ritual is an important component of the writing workshop, and digital writing tools enables students to easily distribute their writing to a wider audience.
  • Understanding and applying technologies to the teaching of writing — as well as understanding concepts associated with them such as copyright and fair use — has become the professionally responsible way to teach writing. Professional organizations such as NCTE, NWP, IRA, ISTE, the Center for Media Literacy and others have moved quickly and clearly in the past few years to show that integrating technology across content areas, including the teaching of writing, is critical for creating students who are literate in a variety of ways.
  • Creating a digital teaching persona — via one’s own blog, wiki, RSS reading, email address, digital portfolio and through other online tools — has become essential for teachers who are increasingly being asked to use these tools as they search for jobs and establish classrooms that use technology in critical and creative ways. By learning these tools in a pre-service methods course, and understanding the ways in which they can be applied as a part of one’s overall approach to teaching, pre-service teachers can enter the profession well-prepared to represent their work to a variety of audiences including students, parents, administrators, and other stakeholders.

My hope is that learning how to use digital writing tools will help my pre-service teachers accomplish these three interrelated goals — providing opportunities for student writers, being a better teacher of writing, and creating a classroom environment that fosters critical and creative writing.

While it is difficult to jump into new technology learning, and I acknowledge that the learning curve can sometimes be very high for some of these tools, my goal this semester is to help students in their learning by offering more time during writing workshop where they can collaborate and I can confer with them.

If you have other ideas about why personal technology learning and the teaching of writing are important, I welcome additional ideas to add to this list so my pre-service teachers can gain more insights into why and how teachers should learn about these tools and ideas.


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Reflections on the Semester and the Season

Been trying to get focused on writing for the books again tonight, but catching up on RSS reading and some recent posts from Andrea, Aram, and Sara reminded me to take some time with family and catch up on some personal reading (besides RSS feeds).

So, I figured I would reflect on a few things from this semester and then probably not blog again until after the new year, so I can so hopefully I can get caught up on those books and then be able to turn my attention to my kids and family over the holidays. In no particular order, here are three things that have been making me think as the semester comes to a close:

1. Reflecting on the experience of conducting a webinar

As I think about what I consider to be elements of “best practice” in teaching teachers how to integrate literacy with technology, two major points are clear: they need hands-on experience and time to play with technology outside the pressures of the classroom. While preparing for and conducting the webinar, I was continually reminded of the time constraint that we were under (apx. 50 minutes to present) and the fact that all the technologies we would introduce would not only not be played with by the teachers during the session, but would only be alluded to with links to resources later. Part of that was simply the function of the webinar, and I am OK with that. Yet, part of it seems to be that we have yet to fully embrace the idea of play in learning to teach, and especially in learning to teach with technology. My hope is that, given the opportunity to do a webinar again, I will be able to think about how to focus on something specific so that participants can walk away with a clear understand of what to do, as well as why and how to do it.

In short, the experience conducting the webinar — as well as the overall outcomes of the webinar itself — were good, based on the original intent we had for it. Now, I just need to reconsider what my intent for another webinar (or similar web-based presentations) would be. This will be important as we consider the work of our new writing project site at CMU.

2. Reflecting on teaching a senior seminar in 21st Century Literacies

This semester, I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to teach ENG 460, a senior seminar where students develop a final research project related to the course theme; in our case, this was 21st century literacies. My requirement for the final projects that students created was that it had to include some form of multimedia, and making a power point was the bare minimum. As I reflect on the final student projects — which included websites, informational videos, hyperlinked slide shows, and one student who created a Knol — I see a variety of topics that all integrated multimedia in some way. That is good.

Yet, it is clear that some students “got it,” and were really able to take advantage of the multimedia component, combining their own original content with links to other resources and/or representing their content in critical and creative ways through audio, video, or multimedia. On the other hand, there were some students who simply delivered a pretty standard presenation and, instead of having a power point, made a basic web page, moving through their presentation with minimal interactivity and effective use of multimedia. Or, they just gathered other people’s multimedia and put it all together into one website.

I say all of this cautiously, for as a teacher I don’t want to offend any of my students or call them out, especially since they have made their work public and most were composing in digital environments for the first time. Instead, I want to say it simply to give myself pause to think about how I will frame projects like this in the future and how I will talk about the effective use of multimedia and design in light of creating a meaningful and substantive presentation.

I’m still learning, too.

3. Reflecting on teaching a writing methods course

ENG 315 gets more fun every time I teach it. I feel like I have finally hit my stride in terms of the content and pace of the course, as well as the technologies that I ask my pre-service teachers to engage with as they develop their voices as writers and teachers of writing. In particular, this semester I had them blogging their professional reading responses, sharing their field notes with my via Google Docs, and creating their own wiki page. I also invited, but did not require, them to make a podcast or digital story.

As I think about what I will do next semester, I am going to continue pushing in these directions and make some slight changes. First, for their portfolio of personal writing, a requirement will be that one of the pieces is digital. It can be an online photo essay, a podcast, a digital story, a piece of hypertext fiction, or a “kiosk” style presentation with hyper links, but I will make the requirement that at least one piece have a digital component.

Also, I am going to require that either their portfolio of writing or their multigenre project be presented as a website.

Finally, I am going to make a more concious effort to have them create a personal learning network, both inside and outside the class, using RSS, blogging, and microblogging. I am not sure if I want to move from a wiki to Ning as my primary means of communicating with students, so I have to give that some more thought.

The challenge for all of this, of course, is making sure that I continually remind them of how this connects to the writing process and will be applicable to them as teachers as well as to their K-8 student writers. But, it is a challenge that I seem to get better at overcoming each semester that I teach.

Well, that is about it for tonight, and for the semester. I really need to turn my attention to writing for the books and we have many weeks of busy family time planned over the holidays, so most likely I won’t post again until the new year. While 2008 has been successful professionally, my hope is that 2009 will prove to be a better year for me personally and for my family, too. So, I need some time to just pause and think about all that lies ahead. Thanks again to my friends and colleagues for reminding me to take some time to do that.

I wish you all a safe, restful, and joyous holiday season. See you in 2009.


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Notes from “Partnering Students, Parents, and Teachers Through Technology”

The second in a series of workshops from NWPM colleagues at MRA 2008, these are notes from Portland Middle School teachers Amanda and Garth Cornwell’s session on “Partnering Students, Parents, and Teachers Through Technology.”

  • Begin with questions from the audience:
    • How to get younger students to access technology on their own?
    • How do parents react, what do they want?
  • Our Hopes
    • To demonstrate daily uses of technology that serve a variety of purposes
    • To aid students, parents, and colleagues in realizing the technology of potential
    • To equip students with the skills that they will need
    • Michael Wesch vide: “A Vision of Students Today
  • Our Plan
    • To share the tech tools that we use with students and parents
    • To discuss why it is important to integrate technology when we feel like we are “giving up” time for content
    • To discuss how flexibility is the key, because teaching with technology always yields surprises
  • Students
    • Shared Drive
      • Create hotlists in word that students can click to for computer lab assignments
    • District Digital Dropbox
      • Track changes in word sometimes works with middle school students
    • Wikis
    • Nicenet
      • Classroom discussion forums
      • Good for access at home and school, because it is all online and doesn’t require a specific word processor (files lost, incompatible formats, etc)
      • Watching for IM language and asking students to express themselves more clearly
    • Google Docs
    • Podcasting
      • Buy inexpensive MP3 recorders
  • Parents
    • Blogs and Edline
    • Lack of participation and interest in training sessions
    • Considering teaming up with local libraries
    • Be persistent and specific
  • Teachers
    • Open yourself up to learning with your students
  • Our learning
    • Small, simple steps can be beneficial
    • Honor the time of the student, parent, or teacher coming to learn
    • Listen to input from students
  • Lessons and Student Work
    • Book discussions