friday yoga

Yes, I think clearly the world is changing for our students—– and yes, of course, teachers need to be mindful of these shifts. –The uncertainty that remains is, how to address this “difference” in what our students are currently exposed to. Requiring all teachers to do so may inadvertently take away from the effectiveness some teachers currently have with their students—while it will give to others. Perhaps the question should be: should all teachers address these shifts in the classroom—and what traditional—or perhaps not-so-traditional, but yet, not technological activities should be sacrificed? My answer to this would be to ideally find a comfortable balance between using these new tools—particularly those that open our students to an “authentic” audience, and those that teach online responsibility—with classical activities, particularly those that include movement such as: a walk through nature, planting a garden, drawing or building or writing in cursive—true hand-work.

How can we teach our students to be responsible? Through awareness—through classroom discussions and projects—through educating parents of these concerns and encouraging discussions at home as well– we shouldn’t forget that it truly does take a village to raise a child—it is just that the parameters of our modern village have shifted.

The best discovery for me by far was TED Talks. The ability to essentially attend a lecture on a whim where a discussion of a very relevant subject presented by a well-known and respected authority is taking place– is priceless. This will certainly aid me in planning my curriculum: “Are We Squelching Creativity in Schools?” “The Importance of Play,” “Are We in Control of Our Own Decisions?” etc. While I may never have my middle-school students view a TED lecture in the classroom (although I may)—what I learn here will certainly impact how I teach—how I address the needs of each individual student.

Pageflakes seemed like the answer to my needs in regard to offering assignments, advice, and resources to my students in one place. –That was until I discovered that Pageflakes was not as reliable as I needed it to be. In fact the tool isn’t consistently available in my school, as the pages wouldn’t load. So, I’ve learned not to jump in to these new possibilities with both feet, but to approach each of them very carefully, because we are still in the experimental phase—and much is changing and adapting to our needs very quickly. I will instead build a wiki for my English classes and do so by taking small thoughtful steps—ensuring that the tools I’ve chosen to use are reliable and truly support the learning of my students.

I have to be honest here. I have been checking my Google Reader, however nothing particularly interesting has come up, other than the daily news and a few articles addressing what is now wrong with our school system, i.e. “Do Teachers Have Boy Problems?”  –asking if schools are designed to squelch any creativity or independence a boy may have. No real studies or solutions are noted, though, and so I move on…

For the last week I’ve been house-sitting in a beautiful Victorian home in Inman Park. I mention this because The New York Times is delivered here daily, and I’ve very much enjoyed waking in the early morning and wandering out to collect the paper in the driveway while my tea steeps. I had forgotten how nice it is to take this time for myself before my daughter awakes to read over the paper. It is still a very different experience than reading the news online. It somehow lacks the urgency that comes with too many glaring headlines and links begging for attention from a brightly lit computer screen. We should be careful not to lose these quieter pleasures entirely. …And I remind myself that the same goes for my classroom–while I’ve learned a lot here this summer, I must be careful to first share what I love –literature and language– with my students and not become too immersed in the race to “keep up with modernity” (or is it “post-modernity”?).  I believe part of the interest in this ever-present flow of  information currently stems from its novelty; it is not necessarily the best and is certainly not the only way to acquire knowledge.

I love this video!

“Information Deformation” by Bill Farren

I also found the rss feed for Cybils; the Children’s and Young Adult Blogger’s Literary Awards, thanks to the recommendation of nbosch.

Thanks to tarak brahmi, I’ll also begin looking to think Mtv for inspirational videos and documentaries. –I had no idea…

All in all, I think there is a lot of information out there, although not as much for English teachers (other than ESL) as there would be for math and science teachers or, of course, technology teachers. I was also hoping for more material addressing students with learning disabilities. Perhaps it is best to ask a question and then develop groups based on those who are responding with like interests/useful information. My feeling is that there are many insightful teachers out there; it is just a matter of weeding through the “talk” and finding direct, more specific connections–a matter of being more proactive with the search to experience the best, most useful results. Like Facebook, I can see how this network could steal much too much time away from more productive projects, but if used correctly, Classroom 2.0 could be a helpful resource. –The “internationality” of it is rather fun and interesting.

As for NING – This could be quite interesting. I found a debate on a topic that is concerning me as of late–the relevance of teaching grammar. The question thrown out by Madon T. Lastor “Is Grammar Teaching Passe?” has stirred a very interesting discussion.

I’m also considering attending the seminar “Planning for Success in Your Gradual Release of Responsibility Classrooms” presented by Nancy Frey this Wednesday afternoon. I like her choice of words, “…gradual release of responsibility…” This should certainly be among our goals as teachers of adolescent children.

I think I found here what I’m looking for for my classes. Page flakes allows me to combine much of what I’ve learned in this course together on one page. So, what I’ve done, after obsessing far too much on the layout and design or “theme” of the page, is design a practice site for my 7th graders. As you can see by looking in the link, I’ve added pages for each element of the course. The first tab is for the class and will provide the students with any introductory notes or instructions. It will also contain a reminder for homework assignments or upcoming tests. The next tab is titled “Grammar” and will contain the rss feed from Grammar Girls (thanks, Shelley!), embedded presentations for the part-of-speech or theme we are currently studying. (I will unfortunately have to re-format many of my presentations as the the fonts I had chosen are not compatible with SlideShare.) I can also provide notes and practice sentences/exercises here for my students. In “Literature” I can embed videos such as the Old Man and the Sea one embedded below, and I can also, I think, include an rss feed for our class blog (?), or in “Composition” my students could find a feed of their essays or other assignments like podcasts, etc. as they are turned in. These are all preliminary ideas and will most likely be “touch and go” this year, but I believe I’ve found the correct venue to serve our needs, and one that is hopefully not too complex for my students.

Here is a link to what I have so far: (Please notice the hours spent on design.–sad, I know.)

7th Grade Transition English 2009-2010

(I did learn that each page needs to be added or “published” separately. This is a bit time consuming, but also means that I can continue to add pages with notes to myself or incomplete data that are not available to my class. Hm, interesting…)

A casual reading of the poem “You, Reader” by Billy Collins:

(from The Trouble with Poetry and Other Poems)

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I had a short introduction to Google Docs last year when a colleague shared some of her notes about our students and asked me to add comments as well. Unfortunately, it didn’t go much farther beyond that mostly because I wasn’t confident with the medium. I now can see how beneficial Google Docs could be on so many levels. For example, in addition to  teaching in the classroom, I tutor before and after school as well as in the summer. Occasionally, families prefer to have the tutoring billed through Woodward. In this case I must send in an spreadsheet to the business office by the 10th of each month. When I tutor at home, I fear that I forget to add hours to the spreadsheet, because I have saved the spreadsheets (with the correct coding) at school. If I remember to email it to myself, that is good, but more often I forget. Now I could save the spreadsheet on Google Docs and will be able to add to it no matter where I am. That is nice.

I also understand the benefits of using Google Docs to correspond and take notes with the other teachers in my department about our students. I would like to follow a model that is effective for The Landmark School, a school based in Massachusetts that is known for its success in working with students struggling with language-based learning difficulties. As it’s a smaller school, the Landmark teachers have planned a “break” for the students at about 10am so the teachers can meet to discuss how the students were doing that morning. If any student seems particularly needy (hadn’t slept well, forgot materials, is having social problems, etc.) a teacher can be assigned to intervene and support that student, before his/her day falls apart. At Woodward’s Middle School, a school of hundreds of 7-8th graders, we don’t have that luxury. However, I believe that in the transition department in particular, we need to catch our students before they lose a day, if not more. One way we can communicate with each other, and simultaneously document each other’s comments, could be via Google Docs–provided we check the notes regularly. In this way, I can also see if a particular student is struggling to complete homework (for example) in classes other than my own. We might also be able to catch a student who is having social/personal problems, before it is too late.

I could also see my students submitting their work to Google Docs so that I or members of their group could help edit or collaborate on an assignment–even from home. This could be quite useful, and may even in some incidents be better than the class wiki.

The presentation option is also fun to play with, and could be useful for many of the same reasons I’ve listed above. Whether simplifying my work/need for planning by allowing me to work on the presentation virtually anywhere, or as a collaborative project between teacher and/or students, using Google Docs will certainly be worth experimenting with further.

My daughter had a sleepover at friend’s house so I was able to spend the majority of last night watching YouTube. Fortunately, I was so impressed with the TED talks that I’d seen previously that there is the first place I searched. I looked for “TED talks + education” and “TED talks + psychology” and witnessed some very interesting lectures. The first one delivered by Philip Zimbardo, the professor known for his Stanford Prison Study that went way out of hand, was particularly disturbing, and would NOT be appropriate for middle school or even high school aged children. The comments posted in response to his lecture which introduces what he calls “The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil” were very heated. I have mentioned his prison study to my students when we study genocide, so my research and knowledge of who this professor is, I find helpful. If you are interested, here is the link, but be forewarned: “Why Ordinary People Do Evil… or Good.”

I then wanted to lighten the mood a bit so I watched the lecture by Stuart Brown entitled “Why Play is Vital.” –very much worth watching.

I then discovered Dan Ariely who I really like. He has a number of lectures on TED talks–one entitled: “Are We in Control of Our Decisions?” and another “Why We Think it’s OK to Cheat and Steal (Sometimes)” are both interesting and informative discussions concerning the study of irrational behavior.

I think my most successful discovery which I’ll try embedding here was a sketched animated-film interpretation of Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea by Alexander Petrov. I will be teaching the novella this year in November/December to my 8th graders, and can imagine a number of fun writing assignments/wiki discussions that could be assigned with this film in mind.

Unfortunately, my Podcast has not been a success, and here is why: Just under two years ago, I downloaded the audio program Audacity to my MacBook so that I could practice and play a bit at home recording my daughter and I telling stories together. To this day Audacity works well on my laptop, and I am able, while tutoring in my home, to record students brainstorming ideas for a written paragraph or simply telling a story. This is effective when I’m faced with a student with a stark weakness in his/her graphmotor facility in particular. By the time they reach middle school, writing for these students has become an obstacle to be avoided if at all possible, and their skills in this area are often extremely weak. By recording their work verbally, the students are able work through ideas, often complex, and enjoy flaunting a higher level of vocabulary and sentence structure than they would if asked to write their response. Listening to themselves recorded, and what their true capabilities are, is a wonderful boost of confidence to them as well. Students realize that it is not that they cannot do the task at hand, but that they need to use a strategy to help them skirt their particular disability–in this case the act of writing. Once the ideas are in place, the student can then work at a slower pace focusing on the writing (or typing) of the words while looking for mechanical errors, knowing that the content of the paper is where they want it to be.

What does this have to do with podcasting? Well, I believe because of this download, a setting has been changed for my microphone, and I’ve been unable to record my voice (with either the built-in mike or a headset) for any other program, including Voki, Vocaroo and Skype. Before downloading Audacity, I was able to use Skype without a problem. So, why don’t I just use the Audicity program for this assignment? Well, I did, and have a usable recording of my reading a poem I like by Billy Collins. The problem is that Audacity doesn’t automatically save the recording as an MP3. I knew this because of the work I’d done with the program at school.  I am first required to download what is called a LAME encoder. And it is just that…lame, because I cannot access it once downloaded, or at least I have not figured out how to yet. So, I’m posting my problems here with the hope that one of you may, perhaps, have a solution. Otherwise, I’d have to go into school to complete this assignment–and I’d be frustrated to think that I couldn’t create a podcast from home.

Any ideas?

This is another project where the research is endless… My first experience with podcasts, or what could have evolved into a podcast started with an audio project using the Audacity software. My eighth grade students were writing their own sonnets and were asked, once finished with the writing, to record an explanation of the assignment, a reading of their sonnet and author credit (or first name). To this recording, the students searched the copyright-free music made available to the students through our middle school IT department and included music that faded in and out appropriately to the back of their recording. I, unfortunately, never got as far as posting these recordings online, but we did enjoy listening to each other’s projects. It was a fun, if time-consuming, project. Most students were not able to improve upon their work at home for one reason or another–and not all projects were audible; but I suppose for a first try, that is to be expected. I also tried a similar project two years in a row with my 7th grade students where they recorded their own short stories describing a day in their fictional life as a “ratero,” a street-kid, after reading Ben Mikaelson’s novel Sparrow Hawk Red, and researching the lives of homeless children (resources were made available to them through books I had provided for the classroom, or from websites I had “tagged” on delicious.) These recordings were to include an introduction with an explanation of the project, a reading of their story and author credit. Each recording also included background music selected from the copyright-free folder, as with the 8th grade project. In the future, I hope to have the students post their podcasts on our class wiki so that they could listen to each other’s work outside of class-time, but also practice commenting (constructively) on each other’s work. This, of course, also allows the students to experience a completed and published project, rather than working merely for a grade.

I also can see my creating podcasts to help clarify directions on perhaps more complicated assignments, or to reinforce instruction given in class. Podcasts I’ve enjoyed listening to are those offered by NPR–particularly Books, Foreign Dispatch, and Fresh Air; BBC’s World Book Club; and DemocracyNow!‘s regular news updates. Other podcasts I’ve discovered through this exercise that I’ve been enjoying are the Miriam-Webster Dictionary’s Word of the Day, and class lectures in psychology or literature from MIT and Yale, respectively. PBS also offers podcasts that I’m finding very useful for my personal and professional interests: I’ve downloaded the Education Podcast with John Merrow, FrontLine/World, Great Performances, Jean-Michel Cousteau’s Ocean Adventures, and P.O.V. -a showcase for independent non-fiction films.

I don’t yet have an iPod or MP3 player; however, my sister often threatens to buy me one for my birthday–which is today. So, I suppose time will tell. If not, perhaps it is a sign for me to go out and get one…

One thing I love about Web 2.0 tools like delicious and LibraryThing is their organizational aspect. I crave being organized and love to see items, books or websites, that interest me all gathered and accessible in one place. I see LibraryThing as mostly beneficial to me personally, and I am really enjoying watching my library build. I’m also interested in gathering suggestions from other users who enjoy the same books. I just wish I had more time to read….

I feel compelled here to tell of an experience of mine that I’ve grown tired of retelling, but, here I go again: I lost my home in Hurricaine Katrina–everything. The entire house was pulled into the sea; all that was left of my home an belongings was a pair of my daughter’s first mittens, strung around twisted and arid branches. Fortunately, my daughter and I evacuated with our photographs, or I don’t think I would have ever recovered.

But there is something else I miss–it is not devastating, but it is annoying, particularly for an English teacher–my book collection. Playing with LibraryThing during the last couple of days allows me to rebuild, if only virtually, some of this collection. I am also enjoying seeing lists of all the books available by some of my favorite authors, that I was either not aware of, or had forgotten about. The website, of course, like many of these Web 2.0 tools, has the potential of devouring much too much of my already limited time. –very dangerous, but I’ll do my best to keep it under control.

So, yes, LibraryThing has been a personally enjoyable journey; however, having said that, I can envision one area where the tool could also benefit my work. As it turns out, I am currently looking for short stories or novels with an African American theme/protagonist that would appeal to middle school students. I have noticed that our current curriculum is simply not giving enough attention to this wonderfully rich genre, and I’d like to change that. Most of what I’ve read–and would love to teach, Toni Morrison, Righard Wright, Zora Neale Hurston–would be, perhaps, too difficult, too advanced for the level of students I teach, and I am looking for suggestions… LibraryThing seems to be the perfect venue for helping me find the kind of stories  I am looking for.