Raising Readers and Writers

“Technology is not the driver, it only serves as a facilitator.” (Quote on Twitter today)

Tonight I feel a little bit like a kid at the fair…sights and sounds are whirring by, confusion abounds, excitement mounts, and I don’t know where to focus my attention. It’s a little overwhelming, very exciting, and somewhat daunting. Our teacher book club met tonight to discuss The Digital Writing Workshop. We all agreed that there is so much to think about and how do you know where to start? We are almost finished with the book and I’ve had quite a bit of time to digest the information and let it wander through my thoughts. I feel like I have a little better handle on wikis, blogs, and digital storytelling, but I still have so many questions that can’t be answered until I jump in and try some new things.
Some of the things I am thinking about…
How do I want to use 21st century tools in my classroom?
How do I choose what technologies to use first? I know that I can’t do it all, even though I want to.
What will my students need to know in order to be successful?
How will the use of technology enhance my students’ learning? When is it appropriate to use technology and when is it better to use more traditional methods?
How do I help my students understand all the facets of composition?
How can I use portfolios to illustrate student growth over the school year?
In what areas am I comfortable so that I can support my students’ learning?
Where will I need help from the technology teacher?
Will my students have access to needed equipment?
How can parents be actively involved?

I want my students to use 21st century tools authentically and purposefully. I don’t want to use technology to do the same projects I’ve done in the past. I want my students to be active decision makers in this process.

So where to start? I need to think about my goals for my students, look at the curriculum, and decide how to integrate it all together. My work this summer in the multi-modal class gave me lots of ideas for digital storytelling and I think I’d like to explore a class blog. I’ve been blogging for over a year now and I’m curious about how blogging can support my curriculum.

I’d be interested to hear from others about what they are doing with 21st century tools, useful websites, or how they’ve answered some of the questions I posted above. It’s going to be an interesting year as I journey down this path.

We finished our Digital multimodal class on Friday with show and tell. Everyone shared their multimodal digital projects which were a digital response to a poem or song and a personal memoir piece. As what always happens when students are given choice, we had a wide variety of projects. The final projects ranged from humorous, to serious, to sentimental, to political statements. Everyone’s individuality was able to emerge, even though we all had the same assignment. That is one of the reasons I think student choice is so important when we are asking students to complete an assignment. We all learned how to use Photo Story and Audacity, to import pictures, scan images, create transitions, add music and voice overs just to name a few things. Probably more important, was the conversation that we had each morning before we began to work. Creating a metadiscourse, explaining the choices we made and why we made them was very important to the process. This project showed us that we were, in fact, creating another text to show our understanding of the original text. The social context was critical to the success of the project. Not only did we have conversations at the beginning of class about the process, but also conversation abounded during our work time. It was not uncommon to see participants at each other’s work stations trying to help. The tech support was very important too. John, our tech support person, was very patient with all of us and Dr. Newell was there to answer questions as well. I so appreciated Dr. Newell’s approach to this class. It was a true writing workshop atmosphere where we learned together and supported each other along the way.

So here are my projects. First, “I’m Learning to Speak English” by J. Patrick Lewis spoke to me because of my own student population. J. Patrick Lewis is coming to visit at the Young Author’s Writing Camp this week, so I thought I’d look for one of his poems. I was so pleased when I found it here. I chose photos of my kids that I took throughout the year and chose a song with Latino influence.

My second piece, “Summer Gifts” is about a week I spent with my grandma 6 years ago, about 3 months before she died. My grandma was something else! There were many times my grandfather would yell, “Turn that damn radio down” as she cleaned to Meatloaf or Prince blaring from her stereo. All 10 of her grandchildren thought they were her favorite because she made each of us feel that way. I chose “Heaven Can Wait” by Meatloaf as one of the background music pieces. She loved Meatloaf (my cousin took her to their concerts at Blossom Music Center until she was well into her 80s). I decided to show photos of her with only the music playing in the background at the end of my narration because I wanted my audience to focus on her and see the influence she had on my life.

I am already thinking of ways to use this on my classroom next year. I hope you enjoy!!

I’m Learning to Speak English by J. Patrick Lewis

Summer Gifts

Isn’t teaching all about reflecting on and tweaking our original plans? After the first oral history movies came back, we realized that some of the students didn’t quite understand that the interview questions should evoke a story, not a one word answer. So, Melissa and I modeled 2 different kinds of questions…one that requires a one word answer and one that invites the person being interviewed to tell a story.
My first question: “Mrs. Wilson, do you have any other brothers or sisters?”
Melissa: “Yes, I have 2 brothers.” (There’s no story here.)
Me: “Will you tell me a story about a time you had fun with your brothers or a time that they were annoying to you?” (This question allows the person being interviewed to elaborate.)
Melissa: “Let me tell you a story about a time that we lived in North Africa…”

I wanted the students to hear the words, “Will you tell me a story about…” I also tried to tie my question into the list of questions we originally created (think “My Rotten Red Headed Older Brother).

I’m interested to see what the latest videos bring back to us. One of the girls did get a wonderful story from her grandma about living on a farm when she was a small girl in Italy.

I got another wonderful idea from our tech techer (thank you Kathy!).  She began a blog with second graders at another elementary school to work on map skills.  You can see it at www.hollytheelf.blogspot.com.  Since we study different cultures in first grade, I decided to adapt the idea to fit our needs.  We are the Avery Alligators, hence the name of the author of the blog (Avery Explorer).  We are currently studying Mexico…the geography, people, arts, food, housing, customs and traditions.  We will continue our studies focusing on Peru, Italy, Guatemala, Japan, Taiwan, Senegal, and Russia.  We took a poll to see where members of our families were born and all of these countries were mentioned.  I think it will be one more way to engage my students in our studies and make their research and writing more authentic.  Check it out at www.learningaroundtheworld.wordpress.com.