Electronic Portfolios

Looking over my blog, it is clear to me how much I have learned about digital writing in the last few months. I came into this course knowing very little about wikis, weblogs, vlogs (I had no idea what a vlog was), and using the many applications that we have explored. I now know how to create a video and upload it to Youtube AND link it to my blog. I am much more confident in discussing digital uses with my students and I've already incorporated much of what I've learned into my courses. One thing I have my students do now is to post their writing on their blogs and reflect on it. Having students collect their work in an electronic portfolio where they can reflect on it in a blog is a great way to get students to consider what they've done and how far they've come. I would certainly have students include their major writing assignments, but also pieces of prewriting and drafts of papers--with reflection--would allow(force) students to think about the writing process and how their writing changes not only throughout the year, but also within the context of a single writing piece. Students could also take in-class writing pieces and revise them for inclusion in their portfolios. Then they would be able to reflect on their writing and the feedback that they received on it.

Online Feedback

I am excited to use online feedback this year. I am especially interested in using virtual office hours, as suggested in the reading. I don't know why I never considered this idea before, but it is something I hope to incorporate in my class this year. My sophomores are working on their big research papers right now so I don't think I have enough time to get them on board, but next semester I think it will work. I plan to use the moodle chat feature to set up a time for writing conferences. My students are often not in the right frame of mind to discuss their writing either before school, since they'd have to get up early to see me, or after school, when they're drained from the day. I know that most of my students work on their writing pretty late at night. Since I have children, it would fit well in my schedule to conference with kids at 9 or 10 at night. I have a student whose work I recently used as a sample in my classroom. She is a decent writer, but has trouble with some awkward sentence constructions and word usage. I think it would be very helpful for me to insert comments right into her writing so that she could get a better understanding of the problems in her writing. Many of my students don't fully understand my comments of "awk" in the margins. Even if they know that it stands for awkward, they don't know how to reconstruct their sentences. Any extra conference time I can get with them is helpful. Both virtual conferencing, and inserting comments on writing will provide the specific feedback that my students need.

Readability

I decided to look at websites from two different school districts. The first is my current employer, Edina Public Schools, and the second is the district through which I got my education, Hudson Schools. The Edina website is clear. There are menus that display as the mouse rolls over them. The font is clear, and I think it is very easy to comprehend and navigate. The Hudson website, however, is not as easy to read. There is so much going on that it is not as easy to find what you need. The menus require you to click on them and they take you to another page--not as convenient as Edina where the options are shown as you pass over the menu headings. The Hudson font is small, and there is simply too much of it all over the page. Each column reads from top to bottom, which I think is not as clear as it would be if the initial page read from left to right.

Simply requiring students to complete this activity of searching and comparing would help them see what is needed for readability. In the past, students have not responded to my "list" of requirements for powerpoint presentations. I think they really need to see examples of clear sites versus sites that are difficult to comprehend and use. If students are asked to view sites as if they have a specific purpose, they may be able to better understand readability needs. Often sites look interesting when they have a lot going on, but they can then be difficult to navigate.

Box Logic

Check out my box logic: Midwest in a Box

Podcasts

I think that there are many possibilities for podcasts in my classroom. There are already activities for which we have students write out scripts. For example, we have students dramatize a whole novel or short story in a few minutes. Then, students generally act these out. The benefits of podcasting are that students can be more intentional in their scripting. They can correct mistakes through editing and actually work through a writing/production process as they complete a final product. Having the final product be a podcast (to be added to the class blog) will push students to create quality in a way that the classroom dramatization does not. Also, writing scripts and producing them as podcasts will make grading easier. I find it very difficult to grade classroom dramatizations, especially if I want the focus to be on the script quality. The fact that students can add music and sounds to their podcasts is also exciting.

I envision students creating podcasts as they extend their thinking beyond a piece of text. Podcasts can capture conversations between characters that we don't actually see in the novel. They can also capture monologues from individual characters. I would really like to incorporate podcasting into my lit. circles wiki that I plan to create for my American literature classes. I have several ideas for what the podcasts might be, but I am not sure at this point what I will require students to do.

Teaching Ideas and Final Project

My teaching idea for this technology--I'm having trouble using the technology to add this idea to the wiki, however--is that I'd like students to create character monologues, in the form of podcasts, when we read The Crucible. We always look at character motivation when we read the play, but I think it would push them to explore the characters in more depth if they were writing a monologue and delivering it via podcast. I will first have students focus on one character and gather information about the character from the text. Next, students will work on filling in information about their characters that is not presented explicitly in the play. I will give them prompts to help them figure out exactly what their character would say in a monologue. Then, I will have students collaborate in reviewing each other's written monologues. Finally, we will hit the computer lab to create the podcasts, which of course will be added to the class blog/wiki.

As far as a final project, I am sticking with the idea of creating a wiki to help my students navigate our reader's choice unit next semester. I want students to create a very multi-modal final project for each novel. They will be working in groups and I'd like to set up a wiki so that they have a very organized way in which to participate in the final product. The final product will be required to have links to internet resources: images, videos, etc. They will also be required to have a podcast--possibly some type of character monologue again.

Twain's Mississippi Photos

My American Literature students are currently reading Huck Finn. This novel is always difficult for students, so we have been looking for ways to increase student interest in it. We are currently working on our final assessment and trying to create a project that is multimodal. I am interested in having students incorporate images from sites like Flickr into their writing. One of the topics that we always have students explore is the role of the Mississippi River in the story, especially as it relates the search for freedom.

The images in my Flickr Slideshow are all images of the Mississippi as I think it appears in the novel. Of course, the images are current, but most are taken from spots traveled by Huck and Jim. Students could certainly seek images that represent specific episodes in Huck's journey. They could use the images combined with images which represent ideas of freedom, morality, etc. to create a presentation about themes in the novel. My colleagues and I discussed having students create e-zines about Huck Finn. These images would definitely be useful in such a project.

Digital Mapping

I think tools like Inspiration can be helpful with prewriting across the board. We do a lot with thinking maps (NUA) at my school, and inspiration can help students create thinking maps digitally. When we compare/contrast different literary characters, for example, we do not use Venn diagrams anymore--instead we use the NUA double bubble. Inspiration already has a template for a double bubble! My students just finished double-bubbling Holden from Catcher in the Rye, and Jim Starks from Rebel Without a Cause. This could have been done digitally with the use of a digital tool like inspirations. The great thing about this is that with inspiration, students can then post their maps to their blogs. This is a problem I've already noticed with my students and their blogs. We do quite a bit of mapping, but then we don't have the opportunity to post it to our blogs because we create the maps on paper only. As more and more of my class becomes digital, I want to find ways to digitize the writing that we already do.

Web Search Methods

Any writing I have done in the last several years did not make good use of all that the internet has to offer because I didn't know how to make full use of web features to help me find information. I am really just learning about web features like bloglines, delicious, etc. I use databases quite a bit when I am collecting information. I also encourage my students to make use of databases. For me, the U of M provides me access to excellent databases. For my students, our high school provides subscriptions to many databases that prove helpful in their collection of information. In terms of credibility, I try to stick to scholarly writing which has been peer-evaluated. I am also able to determine the validity of a basic website pretty easily. Whether it is a .org or .com site, there is usually somewhere to access information about the creator of the site. By going to one or two other sites about the creator, it is usually pretty evident whether the creator is credible or not. I have never really used any online sites for help with categorizing or organizing the information that I have. This summer I had my first experience with bloglines. My students are just now setting up their blogs and once they feel comfortable with them, I want to introduce them to bloglines. The web is so full of information that I think it can be intimidating. Also, as mentioned in the course text, students often stop researching too early, or get too much information. Subscribing to sites and blogs on bloglines will help students bring the information to them so they can spend more time making decisions about validity and usefulness. If I can get them to the point where they can tag their sites and collaborate with each other in that process, then I think they will be able to make better use of the information that comes to them. I am starting early this year with my sophomores talking about credible sources. I'm hoping that by the time we get to writing the major research paper of the year, that my students have a good understanding of the need to validate information so they will make use of internet resources.

My First Vlog Visits

I very much enjoy the vlog, Minnesota Stories. This vlog is clearly intended for the Minnesota audience. The vlog posts speak to specific aspects of life in Minnesota. The vlog appeals to Minnesotans because it includes videos of places that many of us have been, and places/situations that we have some experience with. My best friend and I have a blog about our childhood neighborhood. I think video posts would be an interesting addition to our blog. As far as a more professional use, I think Dr. Beach's tutorials are a good example of possible vlog uses in the classroom. I could create a vlog to walk my students through online evaluation of a peer's writing. There is something about watching a video that is appealing. With a vlog, students can stop and start the video as they wish. Currently, in my classroom I am working with my juniors to help them see the value of writing in their texts--annotating and marking up their books. I could create a vlog that walks them through some helpful ways to annotate as they read. This vlog could be available on the sidebar of my class blog so they could refer to it whenever they want. There are many procedural vlogs that I could create as references for my students. Of course, these are just my initial thoughts on possible vlog use in my classroom.