Reflection on Day 2

Day 2:

I'm feeling a little like toast at the end of the second day. Maybe I spent all my screen energy looking up garden images on Pinterest earlier this morning.

Curation Tools:

Twitter: I'm not sure I can conceptualize Twitter as a curation tool yet. It feels more like large scale talk. Processing its uses with Alice and Holly and in this morning's session was helpful and helped me to see how it can be a gathering tool. Claire brought up some good points in the discussions in the morning. In my experience, when the internet was first being used in classroom and I was introduced to tools available on the web, I felt skeptical because it all felt so commercial. And it is, but when you start using the tools and using them thoughtfully  to support learning, it doesn't feel so commercialized. After I clicked "folllow" to Alice's Twitter feed, the Kanye West and Britney Spears images disappeared on my home page. The tools are adaptive. So, if you use them well, I believe they will get better.

Diigo: Being honest here...How is Diigo different from Delicious? As the tools become more advanced, they have more layers and more to figure out that don't feel instantly better or more useful. It seems like this is true for me so far with Feedly too. But maybe it's part of my fatigue? I bet many participants have written about feeling overwhelmed. When I learn a new tool on the web, I need to start using it to understand what it can do and how it can help me. So, I'll just keep the door open on that one.

And although it's not a curation tool, I worked on setting up Googlesites for my students to keep their writing work, which is a collector/publisher process and tool. I imagine using this tool throughout the year will increase the opportunities to collaborate and and talk about writing. Writing in the classroom has felt largely one dimensional in terms of publishing and sharing. I think up assignments...students write them...I help them...a little peer reviewing...I grade it...put it in a folder and on to the next assignment. One item I found and book marked on Diigo was a teacher website about more effective peer reviewing. This is a specific item that I can search for and incorporate into my ideas about  publishing and collecting student writing electronically. As Alice said, you find the best tools when you're not looking for them and it feels like, duh...why didn't I think about revamping peer reviewing in the first place?

Confession: nothing I did with Pinterest today was related to school work, but I find it to be a really inspiring resource. Someone has already started following the garden design board I set up. In addition to being passionate about teaching, it's important to have other inspirations and passions and use technology to fuel and express them.

Thanks!

Project Idea

Idea: Mandy Lewis and I want to transfer the portfolio process--currently paper--to a digital format that students can access and add to more frequently throughout the year. We want to create a central site and establish the process that students will use to set up their own sites, access each other's writing, and provide valuable commentary--both on line and in person. 

Additionally, I want to look at Persuasive Writing, one of the main genres in the junior year. In order to expand writing assignments--to make them more engaging, relevant--I'm going to work with Jackie Richardson and overlap with the Public Policy project. We share many students in the CP Junior English & CP US History classes. We're planning on using the same language to talk about persuasive writing. By increasing conversation, exposure to issues that affect students, and giving them practice of writing persuasively in English, they will be better prepared to present a meaningful Public Policy project. 

Tools: GoogleSites, NY Times Opinion Pages including "Room for Debate", Toulmin for Persuasive Writing, Everything's an Argument, They Say I Say, Many diigo-ed websites. 

Ed Cafe Takeaway

I feel like as a society we are failing students. Of course, fail is a loaded word in a school context, but maybe that is part of the problem. We are too rigid, too narrow, too tied to institutional requirements, too wedded to a universal definition of pass or fail, too unwilling to be messy and varied, too unwilling to let go and try something new.

Video Reflection 1

Rita Pearson: 
Make connections, be an actor. And be real and inspire students to believe they can learn well and that their opinions matter.

I like her second rant about how teachers will come to school when they don't want to, nod their heads at policy that doesn't make sense and teach anyway. Can we keep the personal real and protected within what is institutional?

Teens Talk: 
It certainly seems like our students do what this young woman does: skim the surface so she can pass the exam.

In her talk it seems like what motivates and inspires her is her teachers' passions and willingness to share their interests and conversation with students...a willingness to make teaching and learning personal and creative. Our students are scared to think on their own because they only want to get the right answer. Taking a risk in front of their peers to raise their hand and make a comment takes so much energy and thinking to build in a class...especially in larger ones. I'd like to help students embrace intellectual risk and see it as part of the learning process.

Professional Learning in the Digital Age: 
Curation
Reflection
Contribution