I am a teacher first and a techie second, so I will never be the frontrunner with my tech teaching. But since the summer is for review and reflection, today's topic is Google. I certainly am not the most educated user of "the Google," but I do find myself expanding my tools regularly. Though my skeptical half worries that Google "is taking over the world," my getting-through-the-day side lives and breathes Google. I did not realize how useful the myriad Google tools are until my husband asked me about my iGoogle page. So started an hour of show and tell discussion about just the few tools I use. If you are a Google beginner, here's a quick overview of some of my Google favorites:
Blogger: my first tools were on Blogger. I now have three blogs, Healigan's Home, where my students write, Healigan's Second Home, the blog you are reading now about teaching in Healigan's world, and Movies at St Marks, a blog that I am trying to get going with my Film Club crew at school.
Blogger is free, easy to navigate, and though not as zoot as WordPress, does the job.
Reader: I just switched to Reader from Bloglines. Both are owned by Google, but Bloglines is no longer supported efficiently, so I switched all my RSS feeds to Reader.
Google Docs: just starting to use word processing in the cloud. My most recent project was taking notes and tracking links as I read American Gods with @1B1T2010. Cool. And since I think I am going to attempt the book with my Phase 5 (Honors x 2) World Lit seniors next year, I've already got a core source for my lessons. My colleague Mike D. just used Google Docs for his annual research essay with his juniors--start to finish. I 'm looking into that too.
GoogleBooks: no more do I have to worry about students who "lost" their book or left it at home. Not my problem. Any book no longer under copyright is being scanned into GoogleBooks faster than I can write this. Many books can be read online or downloaded for free. Nuff said.
GoogleScholar: this is a great source to start your students on a research project. A search engine that contain only articles, mostly actual research, on your topic. My students resist researching with tools other than Google, so Scholar offered a happy medium for my classes. I teach English, so take that with a grain of salt if you teach other subjects.
Gmail: I love the way it tiles conversations.
Google Calendar: I access my calendar from my iGoogle page. It tracks personal and professional calendars and I link it to the calendars from members of my family. Now that everyone is 18 +, our schedules are wild and not totally under my control, so this feature helps.
Google Translate: each year I teach several students for whom English is a second language. For some of them, using Translate for small blocks of text which are difficult is a real boon. One Chinese student survived Frankenstein this way last spring.
Google Earth: I first used Google Earth for Google Lit Trips to Macbeth's Scotland and the Odyssey. It gets better and better. It is just too cool to miss. Considering having one of my classes build a LitTrip next year--Oohh, that would be fun with American Gods!
Sites: I am investigating Sites this summer as a possible replacement for my wikispaces pages.
Picasa: I only keep blog photos on Picasa. Not a great lover.
So there is the minimal scoop. Enjoy.
25 June 2010
DIGITAL DOSSIER: Your Life on the Net, Part One
This April, we watched the Digital Natives YouTubes video in class before I assigned a Digital Dossier project to my seniors. We were approaching the end of the year, zero hour, and I thought I might hide the unit on World Poetry I introduced in APRIL ("you are one wild woman, Ms Healey," Ben told me. Really.) if I added this "fun" project too. What a laugh! The drama, the angst, the panic... I figured after a year with me, the Tech Center could hold no sway over their tender egos. I was wrong.
It appears that only two of my honors seniors had ever even considered their identities on the net--and those two are wannabe hackers (maybe real hackers, but it could just be panache). So the project became more important than the World Poetry Wiki. (scroll to the bottom of the wiki page to click on their individual wiki pages.) So we began with Facebook--how many friends do you have, how many of those friends have you actually met, photo tags, QUALITY of the photos in which are you are tagged, etc. While they were proud of the number of personal photos on Facebook, some admitted that they were not so happy with the prospect of me seeing them. SCORE. And so it went. Discussion, then work, then many questions in many emails at night.
The amount of time that they spend watching (not creeping though, they swear) others is astounding, unless you consider that in high school, what peers think and believe is truly more important for many than what they think themselves. I laid out some parameters for the project--letting them know up front that I was new to this too--and gave them a deadline. We moved the deadline as needed. I requested that they post their dossiers on our secure school site (Studywiz Spark--another post required later). And when they were completed, discussion began anew.
Not one student asked what I was going to do with all this personal info on the official school site. Not one. And every single one gave me some info and photos that they could not possibly have wanted me to see. SCORE. What are you doing, people, giving me all your personal info? AND posting on the school site, where any teacher or dean could access it? They did not know that I was not going to scan every photo or read every post, or that I would take it down the minute I reviewed that they had completed the work. (I know enough to realize that nothing is ever really gone, but really, there was nothing illegal or disgusting, just high school). Your life is yours. Time to start asking questions, people, with respect of course.
First rule in the digital world: no one will protect you unless you protect yourself.
Second rule: think before you post. Consider your audience--there are as many audiences as there are websites.
Third rule: You get to be who you want to be on the Net--maybe even more than one "you." But...make sure YOU decide who you become and don't let it just happen to you.
Another post below: what I learned about my students!
It appears that only two of my honors seniors had ever even considered their identities on the net--and those two are wannabe hackers (maybe real hackers, but it could just be panache). So the project became more important than the World Poetry Wiki. (scroll to the bottom of the wiki page to click on their individual wiki pages.) So we began with Facebook--how many friends do you have, how many of those friends have you actually met, photo tags, QUALITY of the photos in which are you are tagged, etc. While they were proud of the number of personal photos on Facebook, some admitted that they were not so happy with the prospect of me seeing them. SCORE. And so it went. Discussion, then work, then many questions in many emails at night.
The amount of time that they spend watching (not creeping though, they swear) others is astounding, unless you consider that in high school, what peers think and believe is truly more important for many than what they think themselves. I laid out some parameters for the project--letting them know up front that I was new to this too--and gave them a deadline. We moved the deadline as needed. I requested that they post their dossiers on our secure school site (Studywiz Spark--another post required later). And when they were completed, discussion began anew.
Not one student asked what I was going to do with all this personal info on the official school site. Not one. And every single one gave me some info and photos that they could not possibly have wanted me to see. SCORE. What are you doing, people, giving me all your personal info? AND posting on the school site, where any teacher or dean could access it? They did not know that I was not going to scan every photo or read every post, or that I would take it down the minute I reviewed that they had completed the work. (I know enough to realize that nothing is ever really gone, but really, there was nothing illegal or disgusting, just high school). Your life is yours. Time to start asking questions, people, with respect of course.
First rule in the digital world: no one will protect you unless you protect yourself.
Second rule: think before you post. Consider your audience--there are as many audiences as there are websites.
Third rule: You get to be who you want to be on the Net--maybe even more than one "you." But...make sure YOU decide who you become and don't let it just happen to you.
Another post below: what I learned about my students!
19 June 2010
DIGITAL DOSSIERS PART 2
The digital dossiers are gone because I copied them to a flash drive and then deleted them from the school website. I made sure to tell my students I did it, to model decision-making on the net. Teens seem to be sure that we are all watching them 24/7, so they got it. I doubt anyone at school was dying to see the digital CVs, except me. In fact, some of my colleagues thought it was just another one of my "techie" things.
But it wasn't "just" techie. It was one of the most important projects I did with my seniors this year. They are well read and had already written almost double the amount the school requires them to write each year (and none of them realized it). This was one last way for me to get them ready for the challenge of college. One last time to talk about WHO ARE YOU? This project will return for next year's seniors as well, because I learned so much! I will spend some time this summer ruminating over these facts and how they will influence my teaching next year:
1. Many of my students are entirely comfortable shopping online with credit cards, but not able to build an excel worksheet. ARGH!
2. The self-identified artists had done the most to create themselves online: deviantart.com, myspace, tumblr, youtube, etc.And those sites were wonderful, creative, intelligent.
3. Almost none of them is supervised, not even in a "how many hours have you been playing Halo 3?" or "What did you buy?" kind of way. (I am guessing many have their own credit cards)
4. The ones that did not have facebook accounts were too busy for facebook--many other things taking up their time, like volunteering, a job, close family (usually evidenced by their photo files).
5. They all visit youtube, but few had accounts. No one manages their viewing list on youtube. Few other video sources were noted, except the ones that I introduced like vimeo.
6. They visit many media sites but do not comment or register. (this makes their online lives easier for sure, but just by accident).
7. Some (three) protested "life on the net," and really had limited presence there. I can respect that, but advised that they keep track of what other people and organizations post about them.
8. The athletes were documented over and over, and could not believe how many places the same pics and stories were posted--and how far back they went (middle school, for some of them). That certainly led to a class discussion of whether newspapers were really dead or not.
9. The scholars were not documented anywhere near as often as the athletes, and most of them did not care. Scholar athletes noted the imbalance as well.
10. My students' perception of their online lives was baffling. Very few even noted our wiki or their blog postings on their dossiers! No collegeboard.com mentions. No COMMON APP, which I know 80% of them used as part of the college application process.
11. They did not note the brand new email addresses that most of them had received from their colleges. Teens as a rule do not use email unless it is with a teacher. We discussed how this would have to change, and soon.
12. Since I teach at a private school (albeit parochial), all have phones and many have smartphones. No one noted that that their phone apps constituted internet connections. This part seemed to upset them. Still not sure why. They did not seem to understand how texting worked either.
13. No one counted iTunes or another music source as an internet connection unless it was illegal. This is important to all of them, but they did not note it.
The last section of the assignment had them imagine what results would appear on a Google search of their name in 5-10 years. I read ALL of these and was delighted to see their dreams and their creativity. Some designed an updated Google page, and others noted their accomplishments. Most of them will be in the news (for good or bad), if their plans come to fruition. The last thing we discussed was how the internet would play a role in making their dreams come true. It was a great end to the year.
But it wasn't "just" techie. It was one of the most important projects I did with my seniors this year. They are well read and had already written almost double the amount the school requires them to write each year (and none of them realized it). This was one last way for me to get them ready for the challenge of college. One last time to talk about WHO ARE YOU? This project will return for next year's seniors as well, because I learned so much! I will spend some time this summer ruminating over these facts and how they will influence my teaching next year:
1. Many of my students are entirely comfortable shopping online with credit cards, but not able to build an excel worksheet. ARGH!
2. The self-identified artists had done the most to create themselves online: deviantart.com, myspace, tumblr, youtube, etc.And those sites were wonderful, creative, intelligent.
3. Almost none of them is supervised, not even in a "how many hours have you been playing Halo 3?" or "What did you buy?" kind of way. (I am guessing many have their own credit cards)
4. The ones that did not have facebook accounts were too busy for facebook--many other things taking up their time, like volunteering, a job, close family (usually evidenced by their photo files).
5. They all visit youtube, but few had accounts. No one manages their viewing list on youtube. Few other video sources were noted, except the ones that I introduced like vimeo.
6. They visit many media sites but do not comment or register. (this makes their online lives easier for sure, but just by accident).
7. Some (three) protested "life on the net," and really had limited presence there. I can respect that, but advised that they keep track of what other people and organizations post about them.
8. The athletes were documented over and over, and could not believe how many places the same pics and stories were posted--and how far back they went (middle school, for some of them). That certainly led to a class discussion of whether newspapers were really dead or not.
9. The scholars were not documented anywhere near as often as the athletes, and most of them did not care. Scholar athletes noted the imbalance as well.
10. My students' perception of their online lives was baffling. Very few even noted our wiki or their blog postings on their dossiers! No collegeboard.com mentions. No COMMON APP, which I know 80% of them used as part of the college application process.
11. They did not note the brand new email addresses that most of them had received from their colleges. Teens as a rule do not use email unless it is with a teacher. We discussed how this would have to change, and soon.
12. Since I teach at a private school (albeit parochial), all have phones and many have smartphones. No one noted that that their phone apps constituted internet connections. This part seemed to upset them. Still not sure why. They did not seem to understand how texting worked either.
13. No one counted iTunes or another music source as an internet connection unless it was illegal. This is important to all of them, but they did not note it.
The last section of the assignment had them imagine what results would appear on a Google search of their name in 5-10 years. I read ALL of these and was delighted to see their dreams and their creativity. Some designed an updated Google page, and others noted their accomplishments. Most of them will be in the news (for good or bad), if their plans come to fruition. The last thing we discussed was how the internet would play a role in making their dreams come true. It was a great end to the year.
03 June 2010
Let me break it down for you
Revising my poetry devices sheet for the 850th time last night, I realized that they were not using it because they did not see how it could help them. We had just used the Romantic poets to choose common examples of all the traits of poetry for their final exam study sessions over and over again. But no one seems to have put it together. I am embarrassed to say that that I forced myself to relate it to math: "It's an equation, people, all these add up to the prize=meaning and delight."
"I know.....right? Ms Healey, does this worksheet count towards my grade?"
Tonight I am thinking it is all a matter of semantics, of word choice. Let me break it down for you.......
I am confounded by their immediate, powerful response when I read poetry to them and then their complete shutdown when I ask them why they feel so strongly. It sucks the fun and feeling out of it for them, and I do not know why. Should I turn my lesson on its head-make them take control of the inner workings of the poet's mind? And how shall I do that--more to follow.
"I know.....right? Ms Healey, does this worksheet count towards my grade?"
Tonight I am thinking it is all a matter of semantics, of word choice. Let me break it down for you.......
I am confounded by their immediate, powerful response when I read poetry to them and then their complete shutdown when I ask them why they feel so strongly. It sucks the fun and feeling out of it for them, and I do not know why. Should I turn my lesson on its head-make them take control of the inner workings of the poet's mind? And how shall I do that--more to follow.
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