It's Too Late to Turn Back Now

I've really grown as a tech-savvy teacher this semester! Thanks to Bill, Sara Kajder, Troy Hicks, my fellow teachers, and all the others who have contributed to what I've been able to learn this semester. I can't wait to do even more. This has been a great course!

Will the Real Mrs. Atkinson Please Stand Up?

I have long thought that I have multiple personalities. Teaching five different courses sometimes requires five very different teachers, and sometimes I do things and do not remember that I have done them; other times I just forget to do things. The former was the case with my Voicethread. When I tried to create an account, Voicethread told me that my email account was already in use. I thought, "Wow, that was easy!" But then I got nervous because I couldn't remember when I created a Voicethread account, and that was kind of scary. (I'm thinking I did this the day we met with Sara Kadjer, but I'm not sure.)

So I logged in to my previously created Voicethread account, and you can imagine my surprise when I learned not only had I already created a Voicethread account, but I had also uploaded a picture. Then, I got really scared because I HAVE NO MEMORY OF DOING THIS!!

Once I got over the initial shock that one of my many personalities had taken control of my Voicethread without my knowledge, I watched a quick Voicethread tutorial. It was quick and easy. See below.



After watching this video, I was able to participate in our class conversation on Troy Hicks' book, The Digital Writing Workshop.

I also went to youtube to look for other videos on Voicethread, and there are TONS of great video tutorials for Voicethread. I found one at school today, but I got sidetracked and clicked off of the page. I tried to find it again, but I couldn't get back to it. But here is another good tutorial if you like a longer than one minute tutorial to get you started.



And evidentally, it's really easy to create your own Voicethread posts. I was browsing around in Voicethread this afternoon and discovered that I had also created my own Voicethread with pictures from the snow we had earlier this year.



I'm still not sure which Mrs. Atkinson did all of this, but I'm glad she did. If it was easy enough for her, I'm sure it's easy enough for anyone else. I'm excited about trying it in the classroom. Hope those of you in the blog world have as much success as one of the Mrs. Atkinson's did. Now, will the real Mrs. Atkinson please stand up?

Diigo Dilemma

Friday, we were asked to review an article for class using Diigo. We were given the opportunity to use Diigo's highlighting tools and sticky note features to participate in a critical reading of the article "Connectivism: A Learning Theory for the Digital Age" by George Siemens.

As my English 101 students were also participating in a critical reading activity with their research articles, I was able to gain some feedback from my students about using Diigo in class.

Here is what we learned:
1. My students felt that a shared article provided a level of confusion which made them very uncomfortable. They felt, and I agreed, that reading something that someone else had previously highlighted and annotated made it difficult to read for themselves. We all wanted to read only what had been previously highlighted. I was distracted by the sticky notes as well, especially when you couldn't physically lift the sticky to read the text underneath.
2. The issue above is irrelevant when the article is saved to your individual library. If we were using this process for individual research, the highlighting, comments, and sticky notes of others would not interfere with our reading. This is a plus.
3. On another positive note, I discovered through research of my own this weekend that you can add articles from EBSCOhost to your Diigo library. However, I have not yet tried this with DISCUS or WebFeat. As a result, this is something I could possibly incorporate into my English 101 courses next fall. I could probably begin using Diigo with my English IV courses in a couple of weeks, but I may need to do more evaluation of the product first.
4. The downside to number three is that you cannot highlight or add sticky notes to the pdf text of an article. At least this was the case for the article with which I was experimenting. I have provided a link to the screencast of that article below.

http://www.screencast.com/t/NDZjYzVk

Please note the use of highlighting and sticky notes in the blue header above the article. The highlighting features and sticky notes would not work in the pdf version of the text. I could highlight; however, as soon as I clicked on a new sentence to highlight, the previous highlighting would disappear.

Concluding Thoughts:
I can certainly see the relevance of using Diigo in the classroom. I think it has great features, and I think it conserves paper. However, my 101 students would still have to provide a printed version of their sources when they submit final drafts because our college partner requires that those be submitted. Also, I think not being able to highlight or annotate a pdf version of a text could be a major drawback to using Diigo with my students. I do not want them to have to print some copies of their research in order to annotate and have others stored in Diigo. That would be a disaster waiting to happen when it comes time to create works cited pages and include internal citations, quotes, and paraphrases in the paper.

I would love to hear feedback from others. Has anyone tried using Diigo with their students? What other positive experiences have you had? Have you had any other negative issues that I could side-step?

Spring Break Blues

First, I want to say that I was thankful the Monday holiday after a much needed Spring Break week. I feel more rested, revived, and caught up on my personal reading after that wonderful week. However, I do not think many of my students have returned from Spring Break. Sure, they are here physically, but sadly, they are not here mentally. For example, my English 101 students are now involved in the "make or break" section of the course and are working on their argumentative research papers. Tuesday I was excited because most of them came back from Spring Break with the required number of articles for their papers; to my disappointment today, however, most of them have not taken the time to actually read and interact with the texts.

Since we began the process of collecting sources, I have been teaching my students critical reading strategies like checking for understanding and clarifying and summarizing in conjunction with articles which explain the importance and components of argument and how to write successful introductory paragraphs. After using these articles to teach the critical reading strategies, I've given students class time to begin applying the strategy to their own collection of articles. So this morning, you can imagine my surprise when my students could not construct their thesis statements because they had not read the articles they had been collecting. I was so frustrated.

To monitor and adjust, I allowed students to spend another class period interacting with the research articles they have collected, and most are on task, either marking the texts or refining their searches. When we meet again, students will be held accountable for producing evidence that they have read and understand the articles they have collected. Then, we will try again to write thesis statements and introductory paragraphs.

I know that I love Spring Break, or any holiday for that matter, but I have to be prepared to come back to work and am held accountable for my responsibility. It would be nice if the kids did the same. Here's hoping that next week the Spring Break mentality will have worn off...

Wiki What???

My Creative Writing class wanted to write a class story. Here is what ensued...

Last week, I asked about using an etherpad with my Creative Writing students. After our classes on Friday evening and Saturday, I learned that there are some security issues related to etherpad that we may not want to get into with our students, and I was encouraged to try a wiki instead. I thought, "Okay, I can do that." While we were discussing the issues with etherpad, I remembered that our teacher webpages had a feature that would enable us to add a wiki page to our class website. Since this is where my kids blog, I thought this would be feasible and safe for the students. So Friday evening, excited that I had found an alternative to etherpad, I added a wiki page to my Creative Writing website.

Monday, my kids came to Creative Writing excited for workshop. We finished most of the pieces during that particular class period because they were even more excited about having the opportunity to begin writing a class story on Wednesday. Wednesday rolled around, and we finished workshop with plenty of time to spare for using the wiki to begin the class story. Each student logged in to a laptop. They were going to work on workshop revisions and the class story at the same time. (I love my little multi-taskers...)But low and behold, they did not have access to the wiki page. I was the only person who could make changes to the wiki. Will someone please tell me, what good is a wiki page only one person can access? I mean, because I teach six different classes, I am known to be more than one person on any given day, but I'm just saying...

"Monitor and adjust, monitor and adjust," is what I thought next. I knew I quickly had to correct this situation or face the disappointment of thirteen individuals who had been looking forward to this activity all week. Thank goodness they were multitaskers; everyone had something else to work on while I figured out what to do next.

How did I fix it, you ask? I accessed the wiki page as myself, opened the page on my classroom desktop, turned on the projector, and the kids would leave their revisions to add to the class story when someone else added something which inspired them. This IS NOT what I had in mind, but it was the best I could do with what I had available. At the end of the day, I felt like passing around a piece of notebook paper would have been as effective. I was not a happy camper.

I'm still disappointed, but that's why teachers are known for their ability to monitor and adjust and be cool under pressure (hah!), right? I would love suggestions if anyone has any. Does anyone know or understand why we would have a wiki page for our websites if we can't access it? Are there any other free wiki options we could have used?

A Country Girl Accepts Her Fate--"Where I'm From"

Lack of Motivation Makes Me Sad

Since last week, I've been kind of sad about the lack of motivation my English IV students have displayed working with new technology tools, but I haven't given up. I tried again this week to encourage students to participate with multimedia tools, this time doing group presentations to teach each other about the monarchs of the English Renaissance and the impact those individuals may have had on the literature and art of the period. On Monday, I gave students a step by step guide for completing the Web Quest project. I modeled a PhotoStory, again emphasizing how easy the tool was to use. Each group was able to select the monarch of their choice. I allowed students time each day in class to collaborate and work on the assignment. Today was presentation day, and I was excited, albeit a little nervous after last week, to see what my students had created. They had bragged to each other about how great their presentations were going to be, so I thought, "This has got to be better than last week."

Boy, was I wrong. Of the six groups in my class, only one didn't complain that someone didn't do his or her share. Three groups passed, and three groups failed. One group didn't even have anything to present...sigh...

I really don't want to give up on this group. I need to motivate this class. I REALLY NEED to motivate this class. I feel like I've tried almost everything. I need some suggestions. Please help!