Yeah! I Did It!

Final Video for EDUC 518: How to be Successful in the Alternative School!

Follow this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ya4Kb3VdyBo

Digital Storytelling

Alternative Rules

I'm going to use an avatar like this one from Voki to present the Rules and Classroom procedures to my class during the first week of school. I think the novelty of the presentation alone will help my students to pay attention. If I have enough time, I'd like to lay out a script where the Avatar has a conversation with my co-teacher in real time. I would have to leave pauses on the Avatar and provide a script to my co-teacher in order to make it work, but it could be fun.

I also think that it would be fun to have my students create one of these. Rather than just right a standard "paragraph response to this essay question", what if I had them make an Avatar that would tell me there response. I see some real possibilities here and I think it would ramp up the quality of work that I get out of my students.

Assesment Used In My Classroom

I use Formative Assessments all the time. I use Socratic Questioning to assess whether they are really understanding the topic we are working on and what level of mastery they have on the assignments. I do this informally in one-on-one conversations and demonstrations with the students. The Summative assessments are built into my curriculum, there are end of unit tests and final exams and I don't use any other elaborate method for Summative assessments.

I use the Ipsative Assessment with my higher performing students who are excelling in my curriculum. I challenge them to get an even higher grade, or make even better progress. Because all of my classes are self-paced with the reward that they get to go home early if they finish early, this assessment works well with my students. They are motivated to find better and better ways to complete the assignments successfully. The difficult part is to make sure they are actually learning something and not just getting more efficient at taking tests.

I use Peer Assessment with a few assignments. I have my students partner for a Process Essay assignment and they critique each others work all along the way. This works fairly well and has produced better work since I began doing it this way. The essay's are more logical, the writing is clearer, and they also tend to spot each others grammatical errors, even though that's not a grading emphasis with me. I also use Peer Assessment when a student is willing to publicly display some of their work, whether this is a presentation, or a writing assignment. One of my assignments is to write a "Commencement Address", and then if they are willing I have them give it in front of the class. Then I lead a discussion on what worked and didn't work with the speech. This is not mandatory in my my class, but when the student is willing this is a highly effective learning process.

Questions for EDUC 518 from June 14

Search vs. Research

           

            Search is utilitarian and objective driven. You search for the location of a restaurant or you look up the hour a movie starts. Search is black and white…answer oriented.  Research on the other hand is about shades of grey and is more about figuring out what questions you should be asking than it is answering them. Professor Guy Claxton says that Research requires, “a tolerance for confusion, hanging out in the fog, allowing questions to become difficult and complex before they begin to give up a result.” (Grant)

            I sat with a student today helping them research an essay question for a Dual-Credit class they were taking. We were using the Miller Library at WNMU and finding it very frustrating to look through article after article without finding the exact information we needed to answer the essay question. But I shared with the student that research was often like looking for a needle in a haystack and that you often don’t really know what you are looking for until you find it. Research requires a little skimming, a lot of reading, and “the chasing of rabbits”. Sometimes the best sources are in unlikely places.

Grant, Ian. “Search vs. Research.” Encyclopedia Britannica Blog. Sept. 8, 2008. Web. June 6, 2011. <http://www.britannica.com/blogs/2008/09/search-vs-research-britannica-hosts-a-debate-on-the-issue/>

Cell phones in the Classroom

            The problem is that a phone is just not a phone these days. Cell phones are miniature, portable, computers…in addition to being a verbal/textile communication device. I allow and even encourage my students to use their cell phones to place reminders on their day-timer/calendars, to record audio reminders, to use a calculator, to listen to their vast libraries of music, to set an alarm, to use the web browsing capabilities to Google and access the web. All of these uses and more are perfectly allowable in my classroom. The problem arises when my students want to cross over into the communication functions of the cell phone, ie.: the problem is when the phone is used as a phone. Because this kind of communication is “hidden” and “unaccountable” and too often serving merely a social agenda. How often does a student text another student in the middle of class to ask their advice on applying the Pythagorean Theorem? So, I can find a hundred uses of Cell Phones as Computing/Media devices, much like any computer. It’s the social/communication functions for which I struggle to find redeeming educational use.  

Games from Spree Learning

            I liked the game called “Green Globs and Graphing Equations”. I find that students are very often bored with the graphing section of Geometry. This game brings some fun into the equation. However the link was broken when I tried to actually play the game. Another game I thought worth the effort was called “The Curfew” and it is a role-playing, decision making came. This might be good as a writing prompt for Language Arts or a tie-in to a lesson on Social Studies lesson on Civil Liberties. The game took a while to load though, so I’m not sure how easy or practical, or reliable it would be to use. I also like the whole category called “Critical Thinking”. It had a number of puzzle solving and logic building games. Of course I enjoy these games myself, but I’m not sure all my students would enjoy them other than for the novelty of playing a game in class. All in all, a lot of good resources and games.

EDUC 518 Wiki

Here is a link to my trial wicki.

http://dhs-alternativeschool.wikispaces.com/EDUC+518

My Ning Blog Entry

Here is a link to my Ning Entry

 http://educ518-summer2011.ning.com/profiles/blogs/make-annoucements-for-a-large


I often lament that there is no easy way to communicate with my students on a timely basis. My students often don't have e-mail addresses or don't check them or their e-mail addresses change frequently. Their phone numbers change frequently, they are always changing providers or getting new phones and new numbers. So, maybe if I set up a Facebook page as a way of communicating with my students it would work better. They would always know where to go look to get up to date information. If I made the Facebook page Public, then even if they didn't have an account they could still see the information.

Link to Google Doc

I have used Google Docs in my classroom as a means for students to have a central place of saving documents in order to work on them from home, from other classrooms, and then also from different computers in my classroom. Because I don't have assigned seating, I often have the problem of students who have work saved on specific computers and then they can't get to their work when someone else sits at that station. So if I set up Google Docs for all my students it would solve that problem because their work would be "in the Cloud". The problem I had when I set this up with a few of my students was that they didn't have email accounts. So we first had to work through that process.


https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ObA9qsBnKuMNx6yiyn6phaRSP3bP_rX33yOBooRbdsc/edit?hl=en_US&authkey=CLCoqOsO

Podcast for EDUC 518

This podcast took an enormous amount of time. I went from a WAV to an MP3 to an MMV to a Flash video to upload to YouTube. Surely there has to be an easier way to do this?

I plan on having my students do a Podcast this coming semester. Even though it was a difficult process I think my students will enjoy it and find it meaningful. I'm thinking of using it with my Book Talks. This is an informal assignment where I have them present information about a book they are reading with information such as the author, plot, main characters, conflict, etc. etc. The idea was for the students to present to the whole class, but each student finishes at different times and it was difficult to find the group time to do the presentation. I'm thinking that if have each student post their Podcast on YouTube they will have fun listening to each others presentations. They will absolutely love putting a soundtrack along with their presentation. So we'll see how it goes.