Thing 7: Extension...on my part

Thing 7 involved multiple steps...actually this one is quite complex. Good luck!

As a result of Thing 7, though, I created another digital page! Please go here to check out Gillmore Cafe: A Web 2.0 Treasure Chest. This is just my page on the BSD 21 Things Wiki.

Since then I have created another wiki for our BHS Book Study of Strategies That Work...visit us here at BHS Reads ~ Sweet Stakes: Teachers Claiming Ownership.

ADVERTISEMENT: You may still join our book study! Mrs. Moran's husband is cooking chili for us, and I will bring the cheesecake of choice...yes, in honor of the season...Pumpkin Cheesecake!

• Your homework assignment: Read chapters 1-5 and bring your appetite!

Back to my wiki discussion...on the BHS Reads wiki, teachers will be posting lessons created as a result of this book study. Eventually, discussions will be held here...so check in often!

Thing 6 Stretch: Wikipedia in Our Futures

While I will not allow Wikipedia as a source in an assignment requiring research, I quite often (shhhhh!) start here when researching most any topic. Maybe this is because when conducting a search, the wikipedia result excels at the top of the list?


For the sake of this post I researched alzheimer's disease, an afliction that my mother endures. Maybe I should clarify that...my mother's family endures this disease, this very sad disease.


Back to my topic...


I had actually not ever investigated the discussion button until this post. I appreciated the flow of validation of some information that had been submitted.


Do I allow my students to use Wikipedia...yes...and no. Yes, this is a great site to obtain an overview and is a great way to teach validity of sources, for although a source may "sound" oh so good and true, one must always hold the authors to high standards.

Will Wikipedia one day be "reliable" source? For the answer to that question, let's ask Wikipedia: Please be advised that nothing found here has necessarily been reviewed by people with the expertise required to provide you with complete, accurate or reliable information.

In the meantime, though, Wikipedia will continue to be my friend, the source I turn to when needing a quick overview of a topic.

Thing 6: All Things Wiki

I never seize to be amazed by the varied purposes of the wikis I review.

• FHS Wolves Den: This one initially caught my attention because of the grade-level focus and the multi-academic areas (English and history). Wouldn't that be interesting to host a wiki for cross-curricular classes....for example English and history classes collaborating on National History Day projects?
• Flat Classroom Project: This I might be interested in! Imagine communicating, collaborating with other classes across the country, across the continents! This one I will investigate more before the January 2009 deadline.
• Holocaust Wiki Project: Intriguing. It looks like a "real" wikipedia page. This, I think, would interest the students, for one might see this as an opportunity to be read by "real" people. Good idea.

Wikis are a central part of my classes. Mrs. G Info serves as our class filing cabinet. I love this wiki! Metaphorically, this wiki is my pacifier! It comforts me, soothes me. This wiki is housed by pbworks...the wiki of my choice.

Wikispaces (this one is prettier...but not quite as friendly) hosts my individual class wikis:

• Cafe Pre-AP
• Cafe English 11
• Cafe Newspaper
• Cafe Methods (Lyon College Secondary English Methods)

This fall in the methods class I promoted wikis and asked the class participants to create a wiki in which to house their portfolio for this class (and to begin their own online file cabinet). One chose pbworks; the other chose wikispaces. I thought that was interesting; this just reiterates that one should choose what works best for him/her. No one method is THE best, for a method is only as good as the energy behind the person using it. Maybe?

Have to say "thanks" again to Lisa Huff, who introduced me to wikis some time ago. This tool has completely changed how I organize my classes. Very cool!

Thing 6 (Part 1): Using a Wiki

Please check out this post at Treasure Chest of Thoughts to view how my students are using our class wikispace...it just might "quack" you up!

Thanks!

Thing 5: So Proud of Our Own ADE!

Some time ago, I subscribed to the Arkansas Department of Education's blog ADE Briefs and continue to develop an appreciation for their regular updates on happenings at the state level.

They are also diligent to remind of us important events at the national level. For example, this week is Teen Read Week, hosted by the "Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA), the fastest-growing division of the American Library Association."

What can we do to celebrate this national event? One thing I am going to do is add this event to my Holiday Hits on my Mrs. G Info Page so that, maybe, next year this one will not slip up...or nearly slip by...me as this one nearly has!

As you will discover when you visit my info page, the Young Adult Library Services Association has its own recommended list of reads, of which I only have four in my classroom library. I will start with book talks of those four, though, and hand out the already created (and did I mention free?!) bookmarks to my students.

Thanks, ADE, for the gentle reminder! You, too, oh, reader-of-mine, may follow this blog by subscribing to ADE Briefs in your Google Reader...for being informed, in the words of Martha Stewart (who also blogs!), really is "a good thing."

Thing 4 ~ Stretch: It's in the News!

My news feed, which is picking up stories about instructional technology and educational technology and instructional design, thus far has simply served as a reminder of the goal of the secondary world: to better prepare our students for the real world.

Most of the stories' topics contain the latest news from institutions of higher learning and from the workforce. Few, if any, dealt with these topics on my level...the minds of the future.

Uhmm...now what can I do about that in my building?

What are you thoughts on this topic?

Thing 4: My Plump Google Reader

Last week, I deleted 1000+ feeds in my Google Reader. That is thanks to my 285...yes, 285...subscriptions. Too many you ask? Probably.

For the past 1 1/2 year, I have read blogs, explored blog rolls, and fed my Google Reader. She is definitely not going hungry! A few weeks ago, I blogged here about my RSS feeds; then I did the deed and deleted that 1000+ and began anew! This actually felt good, and I did not hurt one blogger's feelings, for...shhhh...they do not know I deleted their very awesome thoughts and many links that help me grow professionally.

Just checked...I have 61 posts to read. Uh, oh...none are from my BSD 21 PLN. Please check here for a song I adapted to this situation. Please post! I really like reading your thoughts, exploring your minds!

My subscriptions are divided into folders. For example, here is a partial list of some of my folders: authors, BSD PLN, educational topics, hobbies, literacy, podcasts, technology, tech tools, writing.

Listed below are a few of my favorites, a list I recently shared with my Secondary English Methods (Lyon College) students:

Authors

• Diana Gabaldon - author of The Outlander series
• Margo Lanagan
• William P. Young - author of The Shack
• David Macinnis Gill
• Jay Asher - author of Thirteen Reason Why...powerful novel
• Lisa Schroeder
• Lois Lowry
• Hals Anderson
• Marsha Altman

Book Reviews/Reading

• Bookgirl's Nightstand
• Free Book Friday Teens
• Reading Group Guides
• The Big Read

Education

• Edumacation
• So You Want to Teach?
• ADE Briefs
• ASCD

English 11 Lesson Plans

• Siegmund's English Weblog
  

Hobbies

• The Martha Blog
• Creative with Julia (scrapbooking)

Literacy

• Enhanced English Teacher - this lady is from Arkansas!
• Huff English
• Jane Austen's World
• NCTE Secondary Blog
• The English Teacher's Companion Poetry
  

Poetry

• Poem of the Day

Portfolios

• Dr. Helen Barrett's Blog
  

Technology

• 2 Cents
• Dangerously Irrelevant
• Sue Waters Blog
• The Edublogger
• Weblogg-ed

Podcasts

• CBC Radio

This list and the other 200 subscriptions are thanks to our leader Lisa Huff at 21 Things and Just Read and various other places, who inspired and mentored me back in the winter of 2008-09. Please check out my blogs here!

Now, to create a Custom News Feed...

Thing 3: Native...or Not?

Today, in a meeting of one of my PLN's, my 21 CLC team at my school, we spent some time reviewing several blog posts on our "21 Things" site. One in particular, a post by Chris Betcher "The Myth of the Digital Native," especially caught my attention.


I appreciate this insight for two reasons:

1. Thematically, my juniors are continuing a unit entitled A Pioneer Never Quits, in which we will spend a couple of days reading several Native American myths and reviewing a piece of Native American art (via Voice Thread), and, yes, native is one of our vocabulary terms. This is an excellent time, in my 1:1 classroom, to further discuss their roles as digital natives. I suspect, at this point, my students are quickly learning that the more they know about Web 2.0, the more they need to learn! That is where I am! The question is, then, will any of us ever be natives since the digital world is ever-changing. Can we keep up with this change?


2. I agree that our digital natives are NOT nearly as adept as we assume they might be. I have noticed that several are very stressed when asked to work with more than one tab/site. Many of them are, again, like myself. I learn the tools as I need them...you know, on a need-to-know basis. They are adept at Facebook, text-messaging, Googling topics on which they want to learn more. They are comfortable with those, yet when faced with a new tool, many become frustrated, for they have left their comfort zones.

This week's assignment actually asked me, upon reviewing above mentioned linked blog posts, to ponder on the following questions:

• What do you notice about the genre of blog writing in general?
  Insightful, in a journalist style, blogs allow me to "lurk" or to be an active participant...all the while learning...and then learning some more.


• How is blog reading different from other types of reading? How is it similar?
  This genre is all written in the first-person point of view, providing an open window into the minds of those interested in the same topics about which I want to learn more.


• How is blog writing different from other types of writing? How is it similar?
  A blogger is essentially an editorialist; the majority give opinions hyperlinked with the best of the best resources to validate their thoughts and opinions. Should we be careful of hyperlinks? That's right a hyperlink does not necessarily validate an entry!


• How does commenting contribute to the writing and meaning-making?
  Commenting allows ownership, a concept so important to many of us. Commenting also encourages social responsibility and increases one's digital outreach. All of a sudden, our world is not nearly so large!


• How can blogging facilitate learning?
  Blogging validates learning through the reflection this tool encourages. Blogging has been one of my best personal professional development "classes." Through this process, I am learning, even more, what I value, what I respect, and what I expect from myself and from others, as well.

This completes Thing 3...on to the next challenge!

Thing 2: My Web 2.0 Outlook

Lisa Huff's introducing me to more of Web 2.0 has revolutionized my teaching. With her assistance, I created my first blog in April 2008, and I now maintain over ten blogs, several wikis, and over three pages of logins/passwords to many Web 2.0 tools (had to put them on paper...little ironic, maybe?...to be able to remember them!)

From those three pages of accounts, I have learned one important lesson: one cannot "master" all of them. Last year, I chose to utilize blogs and wikis; this year, I am adding three, maybe five, more. Yes, therein lies my advice to you: select those tools that work for you and dedicate yourself to really using your selected honorees.

Daily, these tools go with me into the classroom, often becoming the teacher, at the very least, resulting in a motivating factor for many of my students. As we concluded in Pre-AP English 10 this week, life would be very difficult if one were to loose one's mini-laptop privilege, for we are so dependent upon them for every facet of class. Great to able to play (Habit 7 1/2 was my favorite!) in class every day.

If a downfall exists to this situation, time is it, for I have to be more prepared for class than ever. At this point, "winging" it is a near impossibility, for I must complete my work outside of class or too much time is wasted (and having now spent this day in a workshop for the End-of-Level 11th Grade Reading Stat Review, I am even more convinced that we have no time to waste to prepare our students to achieve that still attainable goal of "proficiency.")

Why do I want to use digital tools to engage our digital learners? The answer is simple: to prepare them for their futures, whether that future is scoring proficient on the EOL Literacy Exam, making money by scoring high on the ACT, or preparing them for life after BHS (college or work...or should I say outsourcing?). To not do all that we can do to prepare these momma and daddy's babies for their futures is to set them up for failure. Thus, if I cannot make that commitment, then, I need to get out of education. Yesterday.

Just glad I have tomorrow. Better get busy planning, for tomorrow our information data base will have grown, and my babies need to know how to access that new data.

What Are Your Thoughts?

Where are all the blog posts from my team?

Where, oh, where are you tonight?
Why did you leave me here all alone?
I searched the Internet over, and I thought I'd find a post from you.
But you got distracted, and PTHHP! you left me alone!

You just got to love Hee Haw!

Congratulations to Mrs. Barnett upon her growing family! Babies are so much fun!

One More Workshop, Please!

Just read Will Richardson's latest blog post "The Larger Lessons," which continues the discussion about tech tools being simply that...a tool that teachers should use to educate the minds of those who entered our doors. A tool. Not the curriculum. Not the reason I teach grammar, writing, vocabulary, reading. Just one of the many tools that I have at my disposal.

It’s one of the reasons that I get continually frustrated with NECC sessions and Tweets and blogs that celebrate tools without giving weight to the considerations that goes into choosing a tool in a pedagogical sense. We need more sessions on “why?’ not “how?”...

While many if not most of these lessons can be learned without technology, I think transferring those lessons into the contexts of online networks and global, cross-cultural, sometimes anonymous interactions is not necessarily fait accompli with our kids.

As a Year 2 Web 2.0 learner, I really appreciated this post. Last year I was truly overwhelmed just learning the reality of the existence of Web 2.0...I was fairly content in Web 1.0; actually, until peer Lisa Huff, no one had taken the time (or was it that no one else knew about Web 2.0 either? Maybe?) to show me, to teach me, so that I could then learn.

This year, I am still overwhelmed. I have spent several days this summer learning more tech tools. Now, as I sit here and as I talk to my fellow comrades who are also now entering the land of Web 2.0, my head and theirs now are spinning with the "why." Which tool do I use with what Framework? Which ones (besides blogs and wikis) am I the most comfortable with in showing my students? What lessons would best be enhanced with Penzu, Protopage, WikiSpaces, Webspiration?

School starts in about four weeks. Am I crazy, or do I need another workshop? A shop where we actually "work" on these very decisions. While my being crazy might be debated, the answer to this question is yes. We need another workshop. Oh, my.

Previously posted at Treasure Chest of Thoughts.

21 clc: Day 2

Today our three 21 clc professional learning teams met and spent time further developing and utilizing our Web. 20 tools. I created headers for several of my class blogs...have two to go! If you have time, please visit them:

Check out these new headers!

• English 11: Pioneers Write
• Pre-AP English 10: Writing Right
• Yearbook: A New Creation

I have a blog per class. Some teachers have one blog for all their classes. While my method is a little more work on me, keeping separate class blogs is more friendly for my students. They are quick to learn that I expect them to check the blogs fairly often, for I do spend time writing reminders and updates.

During our afternoon session, our leader Lisa Huff challenged us to complete 21 tasks throughout this academic year. I, for one, love a good challenge. So...ready, set, go!

Today's session came to a conclusion with a Skype visit with author Dan Pink, whose book (A Whole New Mind) our 21 clc teams read this summer...very cool! So nice of him to agree to meet with us and spend quality time answering our questions. Thanks, Mr. Pink! Look forward to your soon-to-be released book.

21 CLC: Day 1

The journey has begun!

Well, actually this adventure began back in the spring as we applied to have a 21 CLC team. Congrats to my team...Team 2.

• Ann Ballard


• Betty Barnett


• Carla James


• Kathy Walter


• Jay Williams

So glad to be working with these professionals as we grow throughout this year!

The next leg of this journey was to read...or in my case...still reading...Daniel Pink's A Whole New Mind. Tomorrow, we are to "meet" this author via Skype! (Of course, more about that later!)

Today, all of the new teams are meeting and being introduced to several Web 2.0 tools.

Comments on today: Honestly? If I were new to this, I might be ready to throw up! Overload. Today, my teammates have been introduced to gmail, Delicious, (I prefer Diigo), Reader, blogs. Fortunately, I began begging, borrowing, reading, watching, learning, re-learning these Web 2.0 tools over a year ago.

All-in-all, though? Everyone seemed excited to be learning about technology.