And the winner is…

OK, this is really hard… I need to select three winning entries from this blog? It’s so much easier to pick what is great about other blogs! Before the drumroll begins though, I must admit it was fun to re-read the stuff I had written (and forgotten I had written). I see a true evolution from cautious to more deeply reflective, inquisitive, and unafraid to take chances. Cool...

Professional:

To Share or Not to Share was a post that brought forth a real issue for all of us: should digital work be private (and monetarily rewarded) or should be free for all to use? This question has implications that go far beyond the classroom. Because this post was triggered by a blog from “out there” (in the real world) it felt more authentic than a simple “respond to chapter 4” type of assignment. When I read the original article I instantly turned to blogging as a way to process the information while also reaching out to get other’s point of view. I loved the feedback I received through the long string of comments. This exchange of viewpoints helped me make new connections and form new understandings. This post exemplifies all that blogging has to offer. This was truly a full circle post.

Creativity:

Superior View: A Digital Writing Project was the first post where I showed a polished piece of my writing. Beyond the creative process of writing and putting together the Voicethread, it also shows my reflections on the during-writing and post-writing stages. This post shows the learning I experienced through the process of making a Voicethread. It’s the kind of reflection we want to encourage in students as well: reflect not solely on the product but also on the process so the process (and your creativity) improves each time you repeat it.

Design:

I think of design in two ways: the little baby steps I’ve taken in design and the infinite possibilities the digital world offers for design. So I’ll pick two entries.

Smilebox shows my baby steps into design. It started as a fluke: I was exploring Smilebox and thought “I have to create something to show that this is more than an online scrapbooking website: it could really be applied to classroom instruction!” Once I set out to create one, I had to think of content, page topics, the choice of pictures, the order of the pictures, their captions, which personal details to leave in and which ones to take out, etc. It turned out better than I expected on a first try!

I also chose my Digital Literature post because the whole topic made me think about the importance of design. Perusing these resources was like entering a whole new world where the conventional rules had been thrown out the window. There was so much creativity, so many emotions portrayed. I felt that I was barely cracking the door open onto a new world. Design: another thing I have to learn a lot more about!

So, feel free to agree or disagree with me: that's the beauty of blogging!

Glogster as a Teaching Tool

Check out this neat primary-level example of Glogster as a teaching tool! Listen to the songs at the bottom of the Glog then figure out which pictures are part of the -at family. If you're thorough, you'll even find the mouse hiding from the cat. What a great way to practice blending and segmenting onsets! Can you think of other teaching applications for Glogster?

Student Guidelines for Online Collaboration

I was disappointed that Beach didn’t include guidelines for teaching students how to collaborate online. Perhaps it’s not an issue at the secondary level, but if we’re going to use collaborative writing tools K-5, we need to scaffold not only the content but also the behavioral expectations. We can't simply expect that students will know how to do so effectively and respectfully. As Debi’s post reminded me, many of our students don’t even know how to collaborate face-to-face, let alone online! As teachers, how do our expectations change when the collaboration take the form of online writing? How do we communicate these expectations? How do we model and teach students to collaborate online? Our book’s wiki site, usually filled with an overwhelming number of resources, was bare… If Beach buried this topic under a different chapter I wasn’t able to find it. After much searching online, I finally found this resource, a contract for students writing collaboratively through a wiki. It’s a good start but is there anything else out there?

Collaborative Digital Writing

Collaborative digital writing is a no brainer: it possesses all the features that excite kids about writing.
• Working on a preferred platform: the computer.
• Letting the authors’ creativity shine
• Playing an intricate game of tag while bouncing ideas from one student to another
• Adding multimedia content to strengthen the impact of the writing
• Creating a real message for an authentic audience beyond the classroom or the teacher

Beware: without that audience, the whole thing will flop! Sure, kids can write online for the teacher but what kind of an audience is that? What motivates kids to write is what they value in the process. Students value the work they do when they know that someone “out there” is waiting to read their piece. They’ll give you their best effort because someone else cares about what they have to say.

Sure, there will be students who won’t want to work in groups because they think they work better by themselves. That’s where the whole-class modeling recommended by Bledsoe as his step 1 of collaborative digital writing comes in. It can prove to those students that their writing will be enriched by others’ suggestions. It’s the leap-frogging of ideas that leads Bledsoe to reflect that: “Students working independently would unlikely have reached a plot rich with so many twists and turns (p. 55).”

My word of caution? Think carefully about your assessment of the students’ work before you even begin. Who will evaluate the work? Bledsoe would recommend having the audience evaluate (at least partially) the students, because “The best evaluation will come from an outsider (p. 64).” Will students earn an individual grade? A group grade? Both? If you are going to assess a group grade, what will be its basis? Participation? Content & quality of the final draft? Self-assessments? My rule of thumb is: For every element you assess, ask yourself: if my own child received a poor grade there, what would I want the teacher to tell me? Be ready to justify your thinking around assessment. As a parent I’ve seen too many collaborative projects where my son’s grade suffered because of issues with the group. For example, someone didn’t do their part of the work and the teacher held the group responsible by lowering their individual grades. Children should not be expected to police each other: that’s the teacher’s job.

As for classroom applications at the elementary level, I certainly agree with Bledsoe that storytelling lends itself perfectly to collaborative digital writing. The same could be said for all genres of writing because they allow for total student creativity. But the process would also work for social studies or science writing, such the state brochures or regions projects we do or explaining the findings of a group’s scientific experiment. To increase the collaborative element of such projects, I would ask other groups to give feedback during the revising stage, asking probing questions that might help deepen the group’s thinking.

Finally, my favorite type of collaborative digital writing is the one done across grade levels, where older students work collaboratively to provide answers to younger students’ questions. For example, an intermediate or middle school class could respond to primary students’ questions about the motivation of literature characters: “Mr. Wolf, how did you blow a house down by puffing? And why did you eat two pigs? Wasn’t one enough?” or “Goldilocks, why did you leave such a mess in the Bears’ house,” etc. Likewise, older students could serve as the experts that younger students turn to explain scientific processes, historical events, etc. Think of it as your own in-house “ask an expert!”

There are so many other ideas! Please share yours!

Smilebox

Smilebox is an online tool that helps you create postcards, slideshows, and scrapbook-like albums. You upload your pictures or videos but there are no voice-over capabilities. Depending on the design, you can add between one line to several paragraphs of text. The slideshows come with a selection of background music that you can choose from.

What I like about Smilebox isthat you end up with a great professional looking product but kids won’t spend hours choosing their background, clipart animations and transitions as they often do with PowerPoints: that’s already embedded in the design they choose. As a teacher, I would pre-select 2-4 background options and let the students choose one. Then classroom time can be devoted to the actual writing and uploading of pictures or scanned drawings.

Some classroom applications could include:
Postcards: A thank you note to a volunteer or speaker; a “who I am” type of project (some postcard designs let you include over 30 pictures); invitations to an authors’ tea or other special event; recipes; etc.
Slideshows: Any project where you would want one line of text with each slide, all with a cool background and music.
Scrapbook: Any project where you want to display several pictures with each text, such as a class book to summarize a field trip, a science experiment, a state or region project, etc.

Oh, and did I mention it’s free? With the free version you upload your finished product to the Smilebox site and you can embed it into a blog or sent it in an email. You have to have the Club Smilebox subscription ($6/month or $40/year) to print it or burn it to a DVD. In between these two options is a sort of “Pay as you go” where you can pay for one premium design at a time: once you own that design you can also print it or save it as a jpg. There is also a Teacher Toolbox Program which gives many of the premium features for free but they are not currently accepting any new applications…

So here is my Smilebox picture album about our vacation to the North Shore.

Make a Smilebox postcard