http://deangroom.wordpress.com/2009/06/12/how-to-play-wiki-tag/
Noticed this cool idea checking through my Langwitches links.......gotta think more about this on Monday. I can use this with the seniors this year, as I am planning to start wiki projects earlier in the year. I still want to do the Poetry Pages near the end of the year, since by then, it is all I can do to keep seniors awake. The year end iMovie project linked to the wiki project should help us survive the last three weeks of class.
Showing posts with label langwitches. Show all posts
Showing posts with label langwitches. Show all posts
15 August 2009
05 May 2009
SOME LESSON IDEAS TO CONSIDER FOR NEXT YEAR...
1. From Langwitches:
a tentative plan to address copyright issues directly with juniors and seniors. This could be a good place to start planning a unit on the issue:
http://langwitches.org/blog/2009/05/01/teaching-students-about-using-images-off-the-web/
This is already an issue in all of my classes. I tell them what is kosher and what isn't, but I don't think 1) I am doing enough, and 2) following through. Their personal experiences regarding legal downloading do not reinforce this issue as critical or relevant to them. And we all recognize their "if I don't get caught, then it isn't wrong" attitude.
This would also be effective when matched with my mini-lesson on the Free Culture movement as part of my unit on Sita Sings the Blues. See the blog assignment at http://healigan.blogspot.com/
http://mleddy.blogspot.com/2009/05/maureen-dowd-weaving-not-linking.html plagiarism
http://www.boingboing.net/2009/06/01/what-plagiarism-look.html more plagiarism examples for discussion. Could this copyright/plagiarism unit really work?. I think so!
more gooies from pbworks summer camp: FlickrCC or Compfight allow you to search Creative Commons licensed photos, then credit the photographer (using his/her name on Flickr)...check into this
2. http://pearlsandonions.edublogs.org/ Great blog--goes with JUST READ blog anyway--the kids evaluate other blogs, make a rubric as part of the project. Also, they are compiling a list of MUST READs for high school students using GoogleDocs.
3. http://wanderingink.wordpress.com/2007/05/23/how-to-prevent-another-leonardo-da-vinci/
4. http://justread.wordpress.com/
May 8 entry regrading tracking color in The Great Gatsby and then producing individual Voice Thread presentations...... "how to read literature like a professor" Thanks, Ms. Huff!
5. Regarding the teaching of two different phases of Brit Lit next year, LEslie: do not forget to consult the "England in Literature" book for the Phase 4s. It contains better writing in the chapter intros as well as more content in the contextual background sections--the writing in our present book is childish and skimpy. Also, especially when you reach the 20th century, SEVERAL of the iconic poems are missing in the present book. I admit that Wilfred Owen may not last as one of the greats, but not to include Dulce et Decorum Est??? and DO Not Go Gently into that Good Night. They always get those two, and they remember them. I still miss my purple book!!
5. http://beyond-school.org/2008/10/18/diigo-blogging-current-events/ from Clay Burell-making Critical Readers--try this with seniors. I think I could adapt it to fit World Lit. Use something contemporary, like (British) imagist poetry or Lorca, etc etc
6. gotta revamp the class blog for next year: "guest columnists," a rotating schedule of student postings, what?? make it a little more flexible, for sure, and thnk more about it after finals. here's one I found online that used regular student columns--it is grade school but the columnist idea seems to work www.theskinny.edublogs.org It might be time to redesign the blog and have the junior classes plan, design and implement it. great beginning of the year project. I will hate to say goodbye to the leafy greenness of healigan's home as it is, though.
7. how to get more visitors, if that is what I decide to do:
Attracting visitors:
* my students and I visit lots of other blogs and leave comments
* the name of the post is important for search engines to pick up, eg: Fighter jets
* making links in your posts to other blogs and websites
* having an interesting post that lots of people want to read and comment on
* making sure the class blog URL is attached to my avatar when I make a comment
* having an activity linked to the page, so the reader has something to comment on
Sorry, I forget where I got this!
We teach them how to remember, we never teach them how to grow.
8. http://guessthewordle.pbworks.com/
use the wordle as a clue to a new unit starting, or vocab, etc
18 April 2009
I HATE POWERPOINT! THERE I SAID IT.......
I hate using powerpoint, though it is convenient, for these reasons.
1. The students concentrate on writing down everything on the slide. That means they are not exercising note-taking skills, nor are they listening to what I am saying.
2. Because they are not listening, they also avoid making connections and inferences about the topic. That means I have already failed them in two ways.
3. They assume that whatever is on the powerpoint provides the sum of what they need to know for assessment. WRONG!
4. They make lousy powerpoints for presentations, which was what first clued me into its weaknesses. If they could watch my well-constructed and designed powerpoints, and come up with the ones I was seeing, then something was not happening during the learning experience.
I teach juniors and seniors in high school. Practice using college skills is a major focus of each day, and since I started by teaching college, I know what students are missing when they arrive on campus. The lack of critical thinking inherent in the high school experience is terrifying for me, and I try to minimize the problem in my classes. I initially liked powerpoint, since I could cover a lot of material quickly, especially at the beginning of a unit (like "The Elizabethan Era"), but the reason to sit 30 16-year-olds in a dark room to learn escapes me. Perhaps the only accomplishment will be the large number of cellphones I acquire, since they do not realize that I can see the phones better in the dark. I am certain they are not texting about the Virgin Queen!
So thank you, Langwitches, for the following link. I feel vindicated. Now I will have to work on some of these suggestions:
http://www.nsdc.org/learningBlog/post.cfm/will-death-by-powerpoint-soon-be-a-thing-of-the-past
http://www.presentationzen.com/
UPDATE 4/28/09: My solution arrives! We will all learn to make an iMovie over the next two weeks. My Phase 5 class will be disrupted for the next two weeks, as many of the students will be waltzing in and out for AP tests. Apparently, this happens every year and somehow we just assume that they can absorb the chaos (and that I can too). So the iMovie is perfect--we will spend time on them this week all together and then they will punt next week....since this is assessing their magic realism "bottom line," I am going to let them work in pairs so that the tech part of this goes more smoothly.
UPDATE: To feed or to lead......
http://deangroom.wordpress.com/2009/08/05/to-feed-or-lead-class/
8/18/09
Even the British know!!!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/8207849.stm
This is very funny: http://teachertube.com/viewVideo.php?video_id=6102&title=How_NOT_To_Use_PowerPoint
Just in case I am stuck: http://sharpjacqui.blogspot.com/2009/09/print-out-in-powerpoint.html
1. The students concentrate on writing down everything on the slide. That means they are not exercising note-taking skills, nor are they listening to what I am saying.
2. Because they are not listening, they also avoid making connections and inferences about the topic. That means I have already failed them in two ways.
3. They assume that whatever is on the powerpoint provides the sum of what they need to know for assessment. WRONG!
4. They make lousy powerpoints for presentations, which was what first clued me into its weaknesses. If they could watch my well-constructed and designed powerpoints, and come up with the ones I was seeing, then something was not happening during the learning experience.
I teach juniors and seniors in high school. Practice using college skills is a major focus of each day, and since I started by teaching college, I know what students are missing when they arrive on campus. The lack of critical thinking inherent in the high school experience is terrifying for me, and I try to minimize the problem in my classes. I initially liked powerpoint, since I could cover a lot of material quickly, especially at the beginning of a unit (like "The Elizabethan Era"), but the reason to sit 30 16-year-olds in a dark room to learn escapes me. Perhaps the only accomplishment will be the large number of cellphones I acquire, since they do not realize that I can see the phones better in the dark. I am certain they are not texting about the Virgin Queen!
So thank you, Langwitches, for the following link. I feel vindicated. Now I will have to work on some of these suggestions:
http://www.nsdc.org/learningBlog/post.cfm/will-death-by-powerpoint-soon-be-a-thing-of-the-past
http://www.presentationzen.com/
UPDATE 4/28/09: My solution arrives! We will all learn to make an iMovie over the next two weeks. My Phase 5 class will be disrupted for the next two weeks, as many of the students will be waltzing in and out for AP tests. Apparently, this happens every year and somehow we just assume that they can absorb the chaos (and that I can too). So the iMovie is perfect--we will spend time on them this week all together and then they will punt next week....since this is assessing their magic realism "bottom line," I am going to let them work in pairs so that the tech part of this goes more smoothly.
UPDATE: To feed or to lead......
http://deangroom.wordpress.com/2009/08/05/to-feed-or-lead-class/
8/18/09
Even the British know!!!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/8207849.stm
This is very funny: http://teachertube.com/viewVideo.php?video_id=6102&title=How_NOT_To_Use_PowerPoint
Just in case I am stuck: http://sharpjacqui.blogspot.com/2009/09/print-out-in-powerpoint.html
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)