My 10th-grade Language Arts class created audio-visual commentary on VoiceThread in which they explored their ideas about their most effective learning environments. Not only did the students come to understand their own agency in the learning process, but they went way beyond this to value the challenges of teachers and other students as well as to see connections between their lives and the literary heroine Jane Eyre. How good is that?
Now I would love to have teachers -- and others -- continue the conversation. Let us know what you think about this issue that is so important to all of us.
Wednesday, October 07, 2009
Friday, September 04, 2009
Someone Out There Likes Me
Susan Sontag tells us that as tourists we try to capture our travels in photographs like so much brick-a-brack to take home and reminisce over rather than experience. Yet what does it mean that nowadays we share those possessions not just with our families and friends who have been lured into a boring slide show by the promise of dinner and drinks, but with...who knows who might be out there?
I posted my best photos from my vacation to Prague on flickr. Perhaps most importantly I took the time to tag them something simple like "Prague" or "Prague Summer 2009." And now one of those photographs (of the terrific breakfast buffet at the Hotel Maximilian) was chosen to be included in the Schmap Guides.
I agreed, of course I agreed. Now I know someone out there likes my work enough to publish it, enough to use it to illustrate the funky elegance of a lovely hotel in Prague where my husband and I spent several delightful days last July. Now I have an audience.
If it feels this good for someone like me -- an amateur photographer and at the same time a teacher who has been around the cobblestone lane a few times -- imagine what such recognition feels like to our students who are discovered and read and validated in ways I could not imagine when I was their age.
I think I need to go take some more pictures now...
I posted my best photos from my vacation to Prague on flickr. Perhaps most importantly I took the time to tag them something simple like "Prague" or "Prague Summer 2009." And now one of those photographs (of the terrific breakfast buffet at the Hotel Maximilian) was chosen to be included in the Schmap Guides.
I agreed, of course I agreed. Now I know someone out there likes my work enough to publish it, enough to use it to illustrate the funky elegance of a lovely hotel in Prague where my husband and I spent several delightful days last July. Now I have an audience.
If it feels this good for someone like me -- an amateur photographer and at the same time a teacher who has been around the cobblestone lane a few times -- imagine what such recognition feels like to our students who are discovered and read and validated in ways I could not imagine when I was their age.
I think I need to go take some more pictures now...
Sunday, July 12, 2009
On Themes and Projects
I had some great teacher talk with my old friends Rebecca and Tracy last night. Tracy has just accepted a new job with a small alternative school that delivers its curriculum via themes and projects. She'll be teaching seventh- and eighth-grade English and Language Arts, and so our talk turned to books, as is the way with English teachers.
On the way home, I started thinking about the "themes" she was presented with for the year: England, America after the Revolution and before the Civil War, and "all the world's a stage." We had joked about England...what about it? how is that a theme? But really that could be said for the second one too. A place and a period of time are not themes, they are really just topics. This reminded me that many teachers come up with some way of organizing their work with students and call these organizing elements themes. But a theme is an IDEA; a theme is not the content or information itself. And it's the ideas that we need to be encouraging our students to explore; it's the ideas that give us rich opportunities to lead students toward learning; it's the ideas that give us and our students a framework for our lives.
That said, this is what my friend Tracy was handed. So how can you build "projects" around the "idea" of England? What is the concept of England, and how would you go about building meaningful, learning-rich projects that go beyond baking scones and reciting Wordsworth? Why are we fascinated with England? What does it have to do with who we are as Americans? Anyway, that's where my thinking was going.
Which led me to Harry Potter. I mean, why fight it, when Harry Potter is probably the main source or information our students might have about England by the time they are in the seventh or eighth grade? So what do the Harry Potter books tell us about England? Are Muggles and witches really two different sides to the English character -- exaggerations, yes, but something worth looking at? Is there something about English history that informs Hogwarts? What about elements of class that pervade these stories? What about quiddich -- how does it draw upon several different kinds of English sport? Why was the language of the first book "Americanized" (my step-daughter read both and says it was dumbed down) for American audiences?
Now for the "project"? What about finding an English school to work with (hey, Tracy, I have a few connections) for the year and building a greater understanding of each other's culture with each of the themes? What is the British understanding of America and its birth up to the Civil War? What is the American understanding (or misunderstanding of Britain) via the media and Harry Potter? What can these students build and share with others that will convey this meaningful connection? A series of Youtube videos? An e-book or e-zine about national identity from the eyes of its adolescents who are exploring their own identities? A field guide to American and British culture using various media on the web? A pile of curricular materials for teachers? Perhaps these students could produce something that goes beyond superficial understanding and cultural stereotypes, something that we all could learn from. Now that's a project.
On the way home, I started thinking about the "themes" she was presented with for the year: England, America after the Revolution and before the Civil War, and "all the world's a stage." We had joked about England...what about it? how is that a theme? But really that could be said for the second one too. A place and a period of time are not themes, they are really just topics. This reminded me that many teachers come up with some way of organizing their work with students and call these organizing elements themes. But a theme is an IDEA; a theme is not the content or information itself. And it's the ideas that we need to be encouraging our students to explore; it's the ideas that give us rich opportunities to lead students toward learning; it's the ideas that give us and our students a framework for our lives.
That said, this is what my friend Tracy was handed. So how can you build "projects" around the "idea" of England? What is the concept of England, and how would you go about building meaningful, learning-rich projects that go beyond baking scones and reciting Wordsworth? Why are we fascinated with England? What does it have to do with who we are as Americans? Anyway, that's where my thinking was going.
Which led me to Harry Potter. I mean, why fight it, when Harry Potter is probably the main source or information our students might have about England by the time they are in the seventh or eighth grade? So what do the Harry Potter books tell us about England? Are Muggles and witches really two different sides to the English character -- exaggerations, yes, but something worth looking at? Is there something about English history that informs Hogwarts? What about elements of class that pervade these stories? What about quiddich -- how does it draw upon several different kinds of English sport? Why was the language of the first book "Americanized" (my step-daughter read both and says it was dumbed down) for American audiences?
Now for the "project"? What about finding an English school to work with (hey, Tracy, I have a few connections) for the year and building a greater understanding of each other's culture with each of the themes? What is the British understanding of America and its birth up to the Civil War? What is the American understanding (or misunderstanding of Britain) via the media and Harry Potter? What can these students build and share with others that will convey this meaningful connection? A series of Youtube videos? An e-book or e-zine about national identity from the eyes of its adolescents who are exploring their own identities? A field guide to American and British culture using various media on the web? A pile of curricular materials for teachers? Perhaps these students could produce something that goes beyond superficial understanding and cultural stereotypes, something that we all could learn from. Now that's a project.
Friday, July 10, 2009
Playing with Voki
So you create an avatar, add some audio, and...
My friend Renee uses Voki to introduce concepts to her 3rd and 4th graders. It's another way to deliver basic ideas or instructions -- a way perhaps to enliven and temper the nagging tone of reminders as they appear in print.
My friend Renee uses Voki to introduce concepts to her 3rd and 4th graders. It's another way to deliver basic ideas or instructions -- a way perhaps to enliven and temper the nagging tone of reminders as they appear in print.
Tuesday, April 07, 2009
Photo-blogging
What is the essence of the photo-blog? Is it the photo, or the blog, or something else that is created by putting the two together?
My 10th-graders created photographs to respresent the concept of "Self-Reliance" in response to Emerson's essay and after following the adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Then they honed their own ideas in relation to the pictures at "A Month (Almost) of Self-Reliance." What is this thing that they have created that is part reflection, part commentary, part artistic inspiration? What are the skills they are learning? Writing (short) for the web, connecting images and ideas, collaboration (they worked in pairs), selection and critical thinking, interpreting, communicating. What are they learning about themselves?
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Where Are You?
This is a great use of Voicethread to connect students and teachers around the world. How simple, yet how brilliant!
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
The Community of Readers Project
One of the most successful podcast assignments I've worked with so far has been the Community of Readers Project, which my English II students created for "Teen Read Week" back in the fall. Students first interviewed teachers about a book or other literary work that had an impact on them when they were young. Then the students read that work, or a portion of it if it was longer than a story or poem. Next, students wrote an analysis of that work or portion. Using this deeper understanding of the work, students then composed podcast scripts to present the work to the school. Sometimes the students discovered a work they might not have otherwise encountered; sometimes they connected to their teachers in new ways.
One of the most successful podcast assignments I've worked with so far has been the Community of Readers Project, which my English II students created for "Teen Read Week" back in the fall. Students first interviewed teachers about a book or other literary work that had an impact on them when they were young. Then the students read that work, or a portion of it if it was longer than a story or poem. Next, students wrote an analysis of that work or portion. Using this deeper understanding of the work, students then composed podcast scripts to present the work to the school. Sometimes the students discovered a work they might not have otherwise encountered; sometimes they connected to their teachers in new ways.
Saturday, January 03, 2009
Blogging Everywhere
Okay, so I'm playing with iGoogle and a new tool that allows you to post directly to your blog, which is what I'm doing now.
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