Back to Blogging

I know that I have not blogged since, well, the beginning of the school year. It seems that I have been just so busy with teaching that it is difficult to find time to blog. I knew this was going to become an excuse, but I hope to not use it anymore. I think one other reason why I didn't like blogging was because Blogger doesn't allow you to switch between your Gmail accounts easily, so I added my main account as an author.

Anyway, I just wanted to share with you what I have been doing in my classroom. As I blogged about in previous posts, we have improved our technology at our school. I have been using our new tech lab to introduce my students to Khan Academy. While I haven't found the best way for my class to use this, they love using it as a tool to learn more about math when they have finished their homework. I have a few students who spend about an hour a day on it at home! I hope to find better ways to implement it within the classroom.

We used the Chromebooks to work on some projects, so students got used to using Google Docs and other tools that Google has to offer. They learned how to share documents and view documents that were shared with them. I am planning on doing some projects that will utilize the sharing of documents and working at the same time, but that will be in the future.

Lastly, today I introduced blogging to my students. Right now, the blog is being used for our literature circles. Currently, students are broken up into groups of 4, and each group is reading a different book based on their reading levels. I started the blogging session off by having them preview the book and answer three questions: What do you think the book will be about? What challenges will the main character face/how will the main character grow? What will you learn from this book?

Once we got passed all the bugs of removing the captchas and giving them a limited blogger profile, they were understanding what they needed to do. I told them that they had to respond to at least one other person in their group. I also mentioned that it is proper to respond to people when they reply to something you have posted. They all did a great job and respond to many people as well as reply to the students who responded to them. I hope that we will be able to use this more effectively as we go throughout this lit circle unit!

The students are graded on their answers to the questions as well as discussing other students' posts. What I would like you to help me answer is this: Should students be graded on their spelling and sentence structure in a blog discussion? Why or why not?

My initial thoughts are that I would like them to practice grammar and proper communication skills. However, many of them are so used to not having to do that when online, texting, e-mailing, etc. Let me know your thoughts or what you have done with your students.

The First Day!

Today marked the first day of school. Talk about jitters! I felt unprepared this year because there was so many new things I wanted to do, but I made it through. While today was mostly a discussion of procedures with a bit of learning activities, it was a solid day. I love the class that I have been given, and I think the year will be fantastic! I just have to get used to being on my feet for so long and for talking so long!

How did your first day go this year? What was special about it? What did you do differently on this first day?

Back Again

It has been a while since I blogged. I planned on blogging more often since class officially ended, but the schedule of a new school year has left me with little time. However, I have finally found a good time to get in a blog entry.

This Wednesday we officially started our work days. We met together for a breakfast at the high school, met the new people, talked about benefits, etc. This day got me super excited for the school year. First of all, we have a new superintendent as our superintendent received a position at my alma mater, Dordt College. I have gotten to know him a bit over the past few weeks, and he is a great man to be around and has some great plans for our school. We also are bringing in several new teachers, both at the elementary and high school levels. This amongst other changes has me thinking about how great the year will be.

One of the main things our superintendent wants us to focus on is collaboration. We have developed collaboration teams for specific grade levels as well as departmental teams. Hopefully this brings unity between the different sectors of school, and we can create a fluid academic plan for the students as they come through our school.

I also got my class list, and I am so excited to have the students I do. This class was my wife's first class, so she knows many of my students and I have gotten to know them as well. I have high expectations for myself this year as I have reflected on my teaching practices. I know I won't be able to fix all of the issues, but I know that there is plenty for me to work on.

We have two more work days before the students come. I don't feel fully ready because we usually have more work days before the weekend comes. I still need to meet with our other teachers to develop our schedule, but hopefully that doesn't take us too long to figure out! The students come in on Monday evening to meet me and find their locker assignments, so I need to be pretty well prepared for then. Hopefully I can get plenty done that morning.

Classroom Blogging Activity

Course: 6^th Grade Reading

Learning Objectives:

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.6.1 Cite textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text.

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.6.2 Determine a theme or central idea of a text and how it is conveyed through particular details; provide a summary of the text distinct from personal opinions or judgments.

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.6.3 Describe how a particular story’s or drama’s plot unfolds in a series of episodes as well as how the characters respond or change as the plot moves toward a resolution.

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.6.4 Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in a text, including figurative and connotative meanings; analyze the impact of a specific word choice on meaning and tone

Blogging: Students will be invited to the classroom blog, so they can make entries. The students will be required to respond to teacher entries and will have to post at least one entry themselves. Students will need to respond to other student entries as well.

Activities: Throughout the school year, we read a classroom novel, and when we finish, we break up into small groups to read a smaller novel. We work on specific reading skills throughout each literature circle unit. For this activity, the teacher will post entries based on each group’s book. The entries will ask the students to explain what a piece of the text meant, draw conclusions from a question, define a new word based on context, or summarize what was read. The entries will rotate from group to group as there won’t be enough time or computers for each group to do it each day. The students will also be required to post at least one entry of their own. This could include questioning what a section means, asking for others’ thoughts when reading, etc.

Assessment: Students will be assessed by their blogging activity: are they commenting, are there comments thoughtful, did they post their own entry? Many of the entries posted by me won’t necessarily have a right or wrong answer, but I do want them to develop certain reading skills. The demonstration of those skills, such as searching the text for evidence or using clues from the text will factor into the assessment as well.

Activity Timeline: While we have not decided on what books we will use for this project this year, this is what the timeline would look like:

Day 1: After reading the title, viewing the cover, and reading the back, what do you think will happen in this story? (Read assigned pages)

Day 3: Now that you have read a bit of the book, what is your impression of the main character(s)? (Read assigned pages)

Day 5: Pick out three new/difficult words. Based on the context, what do you think these words mean? Respond to others as well. (Read assigned pages)

Day 7: Write a detailed summary of what has happened so far. Remember to include key details. Do not make your summary too long.

Day 9: Look at your entry from day 3, where you shared your impression of the main character(s). How does the character compare now? What events shaped the character to be this way? (Use specific references from the text, not your personal opinions). (Read assigned pages).

Day 12: Now that you are finished with the book, have a blogging discussion with your classmates (We will allow the discussion to continue for a few days, so you can respond to your classmates). What was your favorite part about this book? Why? What did you like least about this book? Why? What do you still have questions about? Describe what you believe to be the main conflict and how it was resolved. How would you resolve it?

Final Notes: The different groups would have a different blog so the posts do not intertwine with each other and confuse students. The activity timeline is only a general timeline that could be used for the majority of the different novels. During the “missing” days, students would be reading a section and possibly working on a different activity. More specific questions could be addressed when the books are finalized. This is also a general overview of how long it might take to read through the novel. Reading sections could be extended or shortened to allow for a different length of the unit.

Khan Academy

Yesterday we spent the day at a workshop for Khan Academy. Our school has received a grant from the Albertson's Foundation, allowing us to purchase a total of 6 Chromebooks per classroom. We are piloting the Khan Academy program.

I learned many great things that I can do with Khan Academy. It can be used as a supplement with lessons. It can be used to fill in gaps that students may not have mastered in previous years. It may be used in whole units. And it may be used as a core part of the curriculum.

As I look ahead to this school year, I am unsure of how I will use it. I am glad for the workshop we had to give us some ideas, but I am looking forward to meeting with the other teachers in my building to possibly set up a share program. We discussed sharing the Chromebooks, allowing one teacher to have 24 Chromebooks at once so as to allow every student access Khan Academy.

While I am grateful for the grant we have received, I also want more! I have come to recognize that there are relative advantages to using technology, but many people don't know how to use them in that way. I would love to have a class set, so I can use them more with blogging and other writing activities.

I will be taking a grant writing course next semester. Perhaps I can use this as an opportunity to apply for more funds for Chromebooks.

Let It Begin!

The summer is always a difficult time for me. I love having the break from teaching and being able to do other things. I get to go on vacations. I get to help my in-laws with their farm work. I get to relax and sleep in! I also take online classes, which sometimes can make the summer not so fun.

This summer, however, the courses all started coming together. I was learning practical things that fit my situation. As I have mentioned, we were going to be receiving Chromebooks, so I felt like I could do much more with technology.

I recently had a webinar on our new grading/communication system called Renweb. This also got me excited as it was something new and had a lot of features that we didn't have before. After the webinar, I was able to talk with our tech guy. He showed me what we can do with the Chromebooks, and he gave me my teacher one to take home! He also showed me the new tech lab in our high school and said that our elementary one would mirror it. Rather than having individual computers, we have monitors with something (I don't remember what he called it) attached to them that sends the data to the server, making them much faster with little technical problems.

I also had to screen a new 6th grade student. This student was transferring to our school, so I needed to see that she was prepared for 6th grade and advise her on what she could work on. She was such a sweet girl and very outgoing. This made me even more excited for school to start!

I love kids! I love the kids around this age as well. I remember this was a weird stage in my life, so it is fun to see what they are going through and how I could relate to that. They are thinkers! They are opinionated! They are humorous!

I can't wait to see what this year brings. I am looking forward to going back and trying all of the things I want to do. Oh, I just can't contain it!

EDTECH 597 - Audio Post

I was searching for some podcasts about educational technology and came upon the website Teaching with Technology Podcasts. Upon browsing this site, I found a podcast about blogging in the classroom. The teacher gives an example of how she used a blog in her music classroom and how she was able to make it successful.

Here is a link to the blog. It is a good example of a blog where the teacher posts a prompt and students comment. I think she is having success in this manner, and I will continue to follow her to see how she incorporates it into her classroom next year.