920-Session 12-Creating a Classroom Blog & Deliverable #4

After reading your comments from sessions 10 & 11 it seems like many of you are amazed at how easy it is to use a blog. I would like to make one clarification about informally surveying your students about blogs. Just like many of you were not aware that you were using a blog in this class, so are the students unaware. They don't always use the term 'blog.' Also try using synonyms like, "online journaling, myspace, facebook, xanga..." Give them examples. Then I am sure that you will see more students admit to using them. Obviously the correlation of usage increases with a student's age, but my student body here at Middletown High School cannot be an anomaly.


Andrea mentioned the global negativity associated with the word blog from most people over the age of 40. I fight against this mindset all the time w/i my own district. I have found that w/only 24 hours in a day I have had to focus upon those 'open-minded' enough (like the participants of this course) to at least discuss the possibilities of using this technology in the classroom. The expanding rate of the 'technology and Internet explosion', along with the 'Web 2.0 movement' means that these tools are just becoming more and more a part of our students' lives. Can we control the nature of writing on their MySpace accounts? No, but we can use the tools that they are so familiar with, to focus upon the very areas in which they are lacking (reading, writing, and arithmetic).

Also, don't close your mind to the possibilities of using this resource as simply a communication tool for parents and the community. Some of your schools block access to any, and all, blogs, w/o consideration for any of the educational benefits.

Thankfully though, you don't always have to bring the class to the lab to integrate blogs within your teaching. Some teachers just post a writing prompt once a week and the students are required to post their individual comments over the next seven days. This allows students who don't have immediate or daily accessibility to computers, time to gain that access. Additionally, we don't have to assess them on everything they do.

And keep in mind that you can set up the email function with Blogger. That allows you to post to your blog via email, if your site is blocked from school. Keep in mind that these are just temporary work-arounds until the rest of the educational community, including the administrators, begin to realize the educational benefits of edublogs in the classroom.

You can also use the "moderate comments" option which allows you to screen all postings. This eliminates all inappropriate postings from being seen by others until you approve of them.

Please try to complete Deliverable #4:

-Pick the Blogging service that you think might be the easiest to use for classroom application and ‘share out’ how you could integrate this tool into your discipline (4 paragraphs)

by the end of this week. That way you will have plenty of time to complete your Final Project (DUE BY MIDNIGHT ON FRIDAY, 12/11).

Most of you have been working on your Final Project (Past participants' are available under the Final Projects posting below.) based upon the guidelines from the syllabus, but I will reiterate them here:

22%- FINAL PROJECT-Create a discipline specific TEACHING UNIT (includes multiple lessons and spans several weeks) that integrates as many of the tools from this course as possible. Due by midnight on Friday of the last week of the semester-- 12/18.
You will need to formulate several lesson plans for your TEACHING UNIT .

Expectations are as follows:
1. Lessons will be standards based, support the current curriculum, and will be developed around an appropriate topic within your discipline.
2. Lessons will culminate in a piece of writing.
3. Lessons will be complete with goals, procedures for pre- and post- activities, writing assignment or prompt, possible extensions, and assessment plans for student and teacher use.
4. Lessons will be graded by the attached rubric.

Lesson plans should include:
¨ Introduction
¨ Goals
-What do you want students to be able to do?
¨ Pre- Activities (give details about what lead up to this lesson so someone unfamiliar can get perspective)
-Consider discussions, brainstorming, use of graphic organizers, etc.
¨ Writing Assignments
-What is the prompt? Try to keep it as open-ended as possible.
¨ Extension and Adaptation
-What will you do for differentiated instruction?
¨ Assessment
-What scoring guide will you establish with students?

Your completed unit will obviously include a breakdown of each task in the unit, its objectives, learning goals, and student tasks. It will also include student expectations and any assessments you may use. There is a rubric and more details posted within our syllabus.

In continuing with the philosophy of trying to keep this course as pragmatic as possible I will not limit, or restrict, your creativity with any other 'hard and fast' guidelines. This will allow you to use your ‘educator creativity’ in an unfettered manner.

I've already posted past participants' Final Projects to give y0u an idea of what some of the models look like.

As always, please feel free to email me with any questions.

Good luck,

DF



2008 Summer's Final Projects and older past participants' Final Projects.

Fall '08 D#4's here, Summer '08 Deliverable #4's and older Session 12 comments and D#4's.

Final Projects

All Final Project details are elaborated upon in the syllabus, but basically:

Each participant will write a TEACHING UNIT. It will include:

· multiple lessons;
· possibly cover a span of more than one week; and
· integrate as many of the tools from this course as possible.

Your completed unit will obviously include a breakdown of each task in the unit, its objectives, learning goals, and student tasks. It will also include student expectations and any assessments you may use. There is a rubric and more details posted within our syllabus.

In continuing with the philosophy of trying to keep this course as pragmatic as possible I will not limit, or restrict, your creativity with any other hard and fast guidelines. This will allow you to use your ‘educator creativity’ in an unfettered manner.

To reiterate---- a summary of your Final Project will be posted beneath this entry by midnight on Dec. 18th. You may find examples of previous participants' Final Projects here .

Please also visit: http://wikidave.wikispaces.com/EDC920
and follow the instructions there. Your complete Final Project will be posted there.

As always, please feel free to email me if you have any questions, and don't forget that if you have an idea to modify the requirements to better suit your setting then please let me know.

Good Luck and have fun,
Dave

920-Session 10 & 11

You may have noticed that I have added a cool feature to the blog. You can now double click on any word on the blog and you will be prompted with more details. The possibilities for a tool like this are astronomical when using edublogs in the classroom. Any word used by the blog author or poster can be defined w/o a student leaving the page. Give it a try on this word or any other: (epilepsy)

I have Sessions 10 & 11 combined b/c so much of the material seemed to meld together and it's definitely too much information for one week. This means that there won't be any weekly posting until (Dec. 1st), so you'll have two weeks to complete this one.

So, session 12 will be posted on Dec. 1st. I will upload Session 13, (our last official session) on Dec. 8th, but because I'd like you to focus all of your energy on your Final Project, Session 13 will be optional. (You may still want to download it so that you can view it some day in the future.)

The schedule is reiterated below:

11/17=Session 10/11
12/1=Session 12
12/8=Session 13 (optional)
12/18 (midnight) Final Project

There is a vast amount of information in this session, so you will have to pace yourself. While working on these sessions, I also strongly advise that you concentrate on your final project (which will be due by midnight on Friday, Dec. 18th). Please contact me soon with any questions you may have. I will also post past participants' Final Projects for you to use as examples. Contact me if you would like them posted earlier.

By now, most of you are feeling comfortable navigating our class blog. You will spend the bulk of this session being exposed to the multitude of possibilities for using blogs in education (sometimes called edublogs). We will look at video clips of students and their perspectives, and view dozens of variations. Unfortunately it seems that recently some school systems are using filters that block accessibility to many blogs, but where there is a will there is a way. You can't stop the evolution of technology, so for every site that is blocked I'm sure there will be ten others to take its place. (I read a study recently that predicts that by 2020 the predominant access point to the Internet will not be desktop computers, or even laptops, but smart phones. 95% of my students have cell phones and more than 50% of them currently access the Internet from them, so school filters may wilter away someday in the not so distant future.)

Also, take an informal survey of your students and ask them about their online journal or blog use. (They may call it something different, but the most prevalent is MySpace.com or Facebook) Obviously the 'older the students--the 'higher the percentage' of use---but if your survey shows you results similar to mine, then you will be very surprised at the usage statistics.

More then 95 % of my students here at the high school use some sort of online journal. The new trend is moving toward Facebook.com. And that number appears to be increasing all the time.

Blogs won't always work for every discipline--every day, but when you begin to grasp the versatility of their usage you will see that they can be a powerful communication tool. Even if you only use it as a webpage/bulletin board that can be quickly changed.

Additionally, if such a large percentage of our population is using a certain kind of technology then it is surely in our best interest as educators to become well versed in it as well.

You'll also notice some additional links to the left. They are tutorials for many of Blogger's tools. It can't get easier than that.

So "blog away!!"

Dave

920-Session 9-Free and Reliable Websites

In our business of education "time" controls everything. We have a limited amount of 'time' with our students in a day; a limited amount of 'time' during the day to plan; and even more restrictions on our 'time' when we get home. If 'time' wasn't an issue we could increase our impact upon students exponentially.

Unfortunately, 'time' is an issue, and the information from this course is only going to be practical for your 'everyday use' if it can save you time, help you accomplish your current goals more efficiently, and help you increase the quality of your teaching.

Just one of the many reasons why I let you download and save each week's lesson is so that you can go back through them at some point when you have some time. When learning anything for the first time, it takes you awhile to get comfortable with some of the technology and skills from this course. Take solace that once you get over the 'learning curve' these tools will make your job easier. Hopefully, I have done a lot of the 'leg-work' for you. In this session, I have pulled together information on free and reliable educational resources, and have also gone into some detail on the "Invisible Web."

We are all educators, and there is a certain amount of trust among us here in this course. Although the bulk of what you are learning is through your self-motivation, a significant benefit from this class is through your comments and suggestions to each other.

Our next few sessions will up-the-ante. We will begin to dive into the world of 'blogs,' and communicate with each other more directly.

Good luck and keep on posting.

Dave

P.S.---You may view past participants' comments here:

Summer '09

Spring '09

Fall '08

Summer '08

Older semesters.

920-Session 7 and 8

This week will be a heavy one. Sometimes it is challenging to break up these sessions, so I merged Sessions 7 & 8 together. This means that there won't be any session posted next week and you'll have two weeks to finish any outstanding assignments and begin to formulate plans for your Final Project.

To gear you up, and psyche you up, for this session I'd like you to watch the following video. It is simply titled, "Did You Know...". For those of you taking both edc920 and 921 this semester it will be a repeat, but for the rest of you--enjoy the show:




Also please read, "How Do We Teach Kids to Cross a Busy Street."

Many of you have seen how easily you can lose track of time while exploring some of the tremendous resources mentioned in this course. If you are like past participants you will have to save these presentations for future reference because it is sometimes too much information to digest in one sitting.

Also, some participants find it useful to skim through the comments of prior students before downloading each week's session. I stronly recommend it myself, so past participants' comments and reflections may be read here:

Summer '09

Fall '08

Summer '08

Older here

Have fun--DF

PS--As always--a back-up copy of this week's presentation can be found on Authorstream.com Just search for edc920 and view the appropriate session.