#edchat #educhat #engchat
Okay, confession time. I've had a Twitter account for over a year now, but until recently I never really "got" Twitter. It was clear to me that Twitter had potential for something, but I didn't know exactly what that something was. So, while I waited for a Twitter epiphany I hung around on the outskirts of the virtual community, waiting. I felt like a new kid in the school cafeteria waiting for an invitation to sit down at a lunch table. But that was exactly my problem. Everyone who teaches in a high school would agree with me when I say that if you wait around for an lunch invitation from a high school kid, you'd better get used to eating your lunch standing up. So I told myself the same thing I'd tell the new kid: stop waiting for an invitation and sit down at a table of people who look interesting.
Finding a Table of Interesting -
In my previous post I mentioned that I spent most of last Friday watching the #bitsofbyte feed. I wanted to contribute to the presentations I was watching, but distance stopped me from doing that. I couldn't just pop up my hand and ask the presenters a questions. Consequently I did the next best thing, I tweeted at the presenters. I'm pretty sure my first Tweet sounded something like "I'm watching you on video" which did sort of sound creepy. Perhaps it wasn't my best opening line . . . But my point is that I found a table of interesting, and sat down.
Hashtags are Your Friends -
Sunday evening I was reading my Twitter feed and came upon a post with #titletalk attached to it. I was intrigued and decided to investigate. What I found was fast paced discussion between teachers sharing recommendations for Historical Fiction titles for various grade levels. I waded into the conversation and what resulted was amazing! We debated where (and if) Steampunk fits into the genre of Historical Fiction, and I was introduced to the term/genre Historical Fantasy (who knew?) All of this came out of a hashtag search. If I had just been following one person I would've missed out on all the other voices participating in the conversation. The #titletalk conversation had dozens of people participating, and was extremely fast paced, and even a bit hectic. This leads me to my next Twitter epiphany.
No Matter How Many Times You Re-Read a Tweet Before Posting . . . -
You are bound to Tweet out a few typos. And you just need to get over it. As an English teacher, this is a tough one for me. Despite the fact that I can never remember the whole " i before e" thing, I still feel a huge pressure to be a perfect writer. This is completely unfair! I don't error-check the tax returns of all the Math teachers I know. Nor do I expect them to be able to mentally calculate at my whim. We are people not robots. Errors happen, move on.
Pressure to Perform-
Work smarter, not harder! Use your other social media platforms to your advantage. I often find the 140 character limit difficult to work around. I'm an English teacher, I love words! How do I narrow down all the thoughts I'm having into the 140 characters I'm allowed? I don't! If I feel wordy I post on my blog, and make the first words in my blog entry the appropriate Twitter hashtags. My blog automatically connects to my Twitter account, and I tweet out the link to the longer text on my blog. The hashtags at the beginning of the blog entry allow the text to integrate into the Twitter community to be searchable by those looking. Sometimes it's the opposite end of the spectrum. I'm busy (lazy, tired, procrastinating) I don't have time to ponder and write a post. Instead I snap a pic of what's going on in my classroom and post it on Instagram. I tell my Instagram account to tweet the link to pic. Voila, I participated in the Twitter universe simply by posting a photo!
I guess what I really "got" from this whole Twitter epiphany is that you've got to bring something to the table. Nobody wants to eat lunch with the perpetually silent, new kid. At some point you've got to open your mouth and contribute to the conversation. Keep your ears (and eyes) open for the voices and conversations that you find interesting and "Tweet" in your perspective.
Thursday 28 February 2013
Monday 25 February 2013
iPods and the Reluctant Reader
#edchat #educhat #engchat
I'm the type of person who is always on the look out for money to spend in my classroom. If there is a grant opportunity, I'm the first person to fill out an application. In the last year I 've been fortunate enough beg, borrow and nag for enough money to purchase five iPod touches for my classroom. What I've noticed is that the iPods have been very beneficial to many of the reluctant readers in my classroom, so I thought I would share some specifics
(1) E-books make reading an entire book seem manageable to reluctant readers.
- Reluctant readers are often scared off by the size of a book, but in e-book for you can't really tell if it's a "thick" book.
- Font size and spacing is adjustable in e-books, doing something simple like adding a larger font with more space between lines helps make the text more visually approachable. The is especially helpful for students who are EAL learners, or have visual impairments.
- Due to the size of the iPod screen, readers only really see one or two paragraphs at a time. My students often report less anxiety in their reading experience, as they no longer face endless pages of daunting text. On the iPod touch screen, it's just reading done one paragraph at a time.
(2) Audio books, aka adaptations in disguise.
- High school students are very reluctant to be seen as different from their peers. This means adapting for students can sometimes be a challenge. However, audio books are a seamless adaptation for really reluctant readers. During silent reading times in my classroom, most students are already wearing ear buds to listen to music. Students who are using audio books blend in with the rest of the class.
- Apps like Audibles allow the reader to change the speaking pace of the narrator. This is especially helpful to EAL readers.
- Some kids just can't sit still. I've had students who spend Friday's silent reading class walking laps out in the hallway while reading/listening to their book.
- Learners with tactile tendencies can listen to the book, and also keep their hands busy doing other things like playing the word games I've downloaded onto the iPod.
(3) Using the Visual Obsession
- Many students already obsess over their device screen, so why not use that visual obsession to an advantage? Most of my student report getting lost in their devices for extended period of time. It's easy for them to fall into a Twitter rabbit hole and get lost reading tweets for the better part on an hour. Why not transition that visual obsession into reading an e-book?
(4) Scaffolding
- I find that students use audio books to scaffold into independent reading. The most difficult part of the reading process is starting a book. It can be an overwhelming amount of places, names and details. I find that students use the audio book to overcome the deluge of information, and step into independent reading by the midpoint of the book. The audio book did all the heavy lifting, and students read their way into the finish line on their own.
I've had some great success using the iPods for e-books and audio books on a individual student basis, and would really like to build on it. Now what? I'm a huge fan of the Lit Circle approach to the novel study and haven't done a whole class novel study in years. I'd like to expand my knowledge of e-books and audio books into that area. At some point in the upcoming months I'd like to pilot an "E Lit Circle" with my grade nine class where all reading for the Lit Circle is done on their devices. I'm still debating some of the logistics of this, including how to go about acquiring the texts sets for project, but I think that's the content for another post!
I'm the type of person who is always on the look out for money to spend in my classroom. If there is a grant opportunity, I'm the first person to fill out an application. In the last year I 've been fortunate enough beg, borrow and nag for enough money to purchase five iPod touches for my classroom. What I've noticed is that the iPods have been very beneficial to many of the reluctant readers in my classroom, so I thought I would share some specifics
(1) E-books make reading an entire book seem manageable to reluctant readers.
- Reluctant readers are often scared off by the size of a book, but in e-book for you can't really tell if it's a "thick" book.
- Font size and spacing is adjustable in e-books, doing something simple like adding a larger font with more space between lines helps make the text more visually approachable. The is especially helpful for students who are EAL learners, or have visual impairments.
- Due to the size of the iPod screen, readers only really see one or two paragraphs at a time. My students often report less anxiety in their reading experience, as they no longer face endless pages of daunting text. On the iPod touch screen, it's just reading done one paragraph at a time.
(2) Audio books, aka adaptations in disguise.
- High school students are very reluctant to be seen as different from their peers. This means adapting for students can sometimes be a challenge. However, audio books are a seamless adaptation for really reluctant readers. During silent reading times in my classroom, most students are already wearing ear buds to listen to music. Students who are using audio books blend in with the rest of the class.
- Apps like Audibles allow the reader to change the speaking pace of the narrator. This is especially helpful to EAL readers.
- Some kids just can't sit still. I've had students who spend Friday's silent reading class walking laps out in the hallway while reading/listening to their book.
- Learners with tactile tendencies can listen to the book, and also keep their hands busy doing other things like playing the word games I've downloaded onto the iPod.
(3) Using the Visual Obsession
- Many students already obsess over their device screen, so why not use that visual obsession to an advantage? Most of my student report getting lost in their devices for extended period of time. It's easy for them to fall into a Twitter rabbit hole and get lost reading tweets for the better part on an hour. Why not transition that visual obsession into reading an e-book?
(4) Scaffolding
- I find that students use audio books to scaffold into independent reading. The most difficult part of the reading process is starting a book. It can be an overwhelming amount of places, names and details. I find that students use the audio book to overcome the deluge of information, and step into independent reading by the midpoint of the book. The audio book did all the heavy lifting, and students read their way into the finish line on their own.
Friday 22 February 2013
#bitsofbyte
This is what learning looked like for me today:
One of the great things about being a high school English teacher is that I can say to my class "for the rest of the semester you have the entire class, every Friday, to read a book of your choice", and be gifted to joy of silence for the most part of a Friday. To be fair, it does takes a bit of work beforehand ensuring that every student has found a book they're interested in, and double checking that they all have post it notes to keep keep track of their questions, comments, predictions and text connections. But the result is a glorious day of silence, where students are entrenched in a good book. I often use the time to read, or catch up on marking student work (most of my students turn in a 350 word Reading Response, very week, 350 words x 90 students = lots of stuff to read and assess) Today, I used some of this golden time to catch a live stream of the BYTE Conference held in Neepawa, Manitoba. I must admit, I felt a little guilty listening to the BYTE sessions as my grade 12 class was happily reading away, but soon the content of the session pulled me in and curiosity overcame the guilt.
The first session I caught was Ryan Miller talking about songwriting with students. Song writing is definitely not within my realm of comfort or skill, but I loved seeing Ryan discuss the songwriting projects he had been working on with his students. One connection I had with Ryan, was the joy of Clustrmaps. He mentioned that his students loved using Clustrmaps to track all the visitors viewing their blogs and videos. My high school students also use Clustrmaps and marvel at the audience their blogs begin to attract. I often see that this international audience motivates my students to produce a higher quality of work.
Before long I said goodbye to my fifth period grade twelve class, and said hello to my prep. I was just in time for the session "Celebrating Our Blogiversaries" by Kirsten Landen (Miss L @MissLwbt ) and Tyler Letkeman (Tyler Letkeman @Tyler_JL). These two impressive teacher candidates from the University of Brandon were one of the reasons I finally took the the plunge and started this blog (the other reason being Roy Norris @Roy_Norris gave it to me as homework in our Skype conversations-- and I'm a good student who always does her homework!)
The third session I caught was #pegeeks from Blue Jay Bridge @MrBridge204. I've been approached by several members of the Phys. Ed department here at CHSC for help with various tech topics, so the #pegeeks session was really helpful for me. I took a few moments to send my PE colleagues a link to the video of the session, and next thing I knew it was after four! The school was empty and I had fallen into a PD rabbit hole.
This evening I had a Skype conversation with (Roy Norris @Roy_Norris). While he "borrowed" wifi at the St. Vital Centre Mall we chatted for a while about all things ELA and tech related, and shared our thoughts on how things were going in our classrooms.
Looking back, I marvel at how important technology has been in all of my PD today (and most days recently). Today I used streaming videos, Twitter, Instagram, Blogger and Skype to grow my PLN. I was both PD consumer (thanks to Andy McKiel@amckiel for the stream) and PD content (thanks to a shout out from Erin Malkoske@erinbrie during her BYTE presentation) and I never left the comfort of my classroom!
One of the great things about being a high school English teacher is that I can say to my class "for the rest of the semester you have the entire class, every Friday, to read a book of your choice", and be gifted to joy of silence for the most part of a Friday. To be fair, it does takes a bit of work beforehand ensuring that every student has found a book they're interested in, and double checking that they all have post it notes to keep keep track of their questions, comments, predictions and text connections. But the result is a glorious day of silence, where students are entrenched in a good book. I often use the time to read, or catch up on marking student work (most of my students turn in a 350 word Reading Response, very week, 350 words x 90 students = lots of stuff to read and assess) Today, I used some of this golden time to catch a live stream of the BYTE Conference held in Neepawa, Manitoba. I must admit, I felt a little guilty listening to the BYTE sessions as my grade 12 class was happily reading away, but soon the content of the session pulled me in and curiosity overcame the guilt.
The first session I caught was Ryan Miller talking about songwriting with students. Song writing is definitely not within my realm of comfort or skill, but I loved seeing Ryan discuss the songwriting projects he had been working on with his students. One connection I had with Ryan, was the joy of Clustrmaps. He mentioned that his students loved using Clustrmaps to track all the visitors viewing their blogs and videos. My high school students also use Clustrmaps and marvel at the audience their blogs begin to attract. I often see that this international audience motivates my students to produce a higher quality of work.
Before long I said goodbye to my fifth period grade twelve class, and said hello to my prep. I was just in time for the session "Celebrating Our Blogiversaries" by Kirsten Landen (Miss L @MissLwbt ) and Tyler Letkeman (Tyler Letkeman @Tyler_JL). These two impressive teacher candidates from the University of Brandon were one of the reasons I finally took the the plunge and started this blog (the other reason being Roy Norris @Roy_Norris gave it to me as homework in our Skype conversations-- and I'm a good student who always does her homework!)
The third session I caught was #pegeeks from Blue Jay Bridge @MrBridge204. I've been approached by several members of the Phys. Ed department here at CHSC for help with various tech topics, so the #pegeeks session was really helpful for me. I took a few moments to send my PE colleagues a link to the video of the session, and next thing I knew it was after four! The school was empty and I had fallen into a PD rabbit hole.
This evening I had a Skype conversation with (Roy Norris @Roy_Norris). While he "borrowed" wifi at the St. Vital Centre Mall we chatted for a while about all things ELA and tech related, and shared our thoughts on how things were going in our classrooms.
Looking back, I marvel at how important technology has been in all of my PD today (and most days recently). Today I used streaming videos, Twitter, Instagram, Blogger and Skype to grow my PLN. I was both PD consumer (thanks to Andy McKiel@amckiel for the stream) and PD content (thanks to a shout out from Erin Malkoske@erinbrie during her BYTE presentation) and I never left the comfort of my classroom!
Blogging Confession
For over a year now, I've been teaching a high school Creative Writing class. In that class my students create blogs so that they can share their perspective with the blogging work. I've listened, read, and watched as my students gradually overcame their fear of blogging, and blossomed as writers and thinkers.
But here comes the confession . . .
That fear, the one my students have when clicking publish on their first blog post? I still have it. Sure I regularly post assignments on the class blog, but those are just assignments. It's like accidentally leaving an assignment sheet behind in the photocopier. If someone picks it up and reads it, it's no big deal. If a colleague wants to borrow the assignment, they are more than welcome to it. But blogging about my opinions? Now that's different. It's more like leaving my journal in photocopier room and letting my colleagues read it. Or worse yet, copying a page and putting it in their mailbox.
Unlike my students, I've never overcome the fear of sharing my opinions in the blog form. Until now.
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