Edmodo Snapshot

Anyone played around with this new feature? It looks fantastic, but I'm curious to know if anyone has actually used it within their classroom. It seems to have everything figured out - really great practice for PARCC - but I don't know if the reading passages are grade-level appropriate or even content appropriate, so how do you know what the students are going to be tested on before you assign it? Again, it seems like some really advance technology and it could be great practice; I am just wondering if anyone has more experience with it before I start messing around trying to figure it out myself.

Here's to Homework

Because Newsela is fantastic, and takes up much of my time, I thought I'd share  pretty interesting article with you all about Homework: Too little or too much? It depends.

Here's the bottom line: I assign homework when I feel that they need to practice doing something rigorous outside of the classroom. I want them to go home, get work done, and come back with questions. If they utilize their class time, when I am there to help, to the best of their abilities, they rarely end up having homework. Except reading. When reading a class novel, they almost always have reading homework. The reason I was drawn to this article is because I was interested in know whether technology has cut down on either the amount of homework students have or the amount of time they report doing it. If, for example, they have to reply to a post on Edmodo, has that cut down on their "homework time" since they can honestly just open up the app on their phones, reply to the post, and get on with their lives, as opposed to writing it down and turning it in?

Among a mess of statistics (and so that none of you have to read the article in full if you don't want to), here are the interesting points to draw your attention to:

"In a report by the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C., education expert Tom Loveless says those who think there is too little homework are more numerous. But, he adds, those complaining about too much homework get most of the attention." Aw, I see. So, really, are they complaining because the students don't necessarily enjoy the homework? Hmm...

"The National Parent-Teacher Association and the National Education Association are in agreement when it comes to how much homework is the right amount. Both favor the rule of thumb limiting homework in all subjects to 10 minutes times the grade level. With this thinking, a first grader should have no more than 10 minutes of homework a night, a sixth grader up to 60 minutes, and a high school senior up to two hours." I can honestly say I have never heard of this "Rule of Thumb", but I don't know, I kind of like it.

Truthfully, though, it "depends heavily on the quality of the assignment, the extent of quick feedback, whether the student is motivated to do it." It is here that I said to myself, "You know what? That's what technology has done that the written assignment never could." I am able to read, respond, and have that information back to the student in a matter of minutes through the use of Newsela, Edmodo, and Google Docs.

And yet, Loveless reported that "regardless of how the question is posed, NAEP data do not support the view that the homework burden is growing, nor do they support the belief that the proportion of students with a lot of homework has increased in recent years."

So is any sort of discussion regarding homework a moot point? How do you all feel about it? What are your policies, and do they work? What if we did modify the question: not how much homework do you spend time doing, but how much has technology sped up or slowed down that time? 

Vlogging and Camtasia Studio

Here's a video I created using a screen recording program called Camtasia Studio. I think I talked about everything I used it/you could use it for, but if you have any further questions feel free to comment! Also, if you do view this post and cannot get the video to play, let me know. As this is my first ever video blog, I foresee some complications. At the end I start playing another video during my own and it sort of drowns out my voice. Apologies for that; it doesn't last long. 

Additionally, in order to get this video ready to be posted, I had to "produce and share" it. This takes quite a while (I'd say a minute to load per minute of the video) and I wonder if there is a faster/better way. The problem seems to be the fact that originally the file can only be saved as a .camrec and neither Blogger nor Windows Media Player is able to upload that file type. 

Enjoy!

Blogging About Blogs

I had nearly forgotten, but last year on our trip to Washington DC I created a blog in which both students and parents could remain updated with photos and summaries of the fabulous places we visited on our tour with the 8th graders. Feel free to check it out @ http://nmsdc2013.blogspot.com/ 

This was more than fun for both myself and the parents who followed along. I was also able to share photos on iCloud, where parents could find the originals instead of the ones I made myself so that multiple photos could fit on one template.

While this was really cool for me, I am reaching out to you all in order to discover a way in which students can access (with limited editing rights) the blog or access some common realm where they can share their own photos and I can post them in addition to my own. Though I got some good shots, I really wished for the students' sake they could be more interactive with the blog. While they followed along, many lost interest once they couldn't really add their own content. Parents still loved it, but I image they will feel even more proud seeing a picture posted by (or at least accredited to) their own son/daughter.

Thoughts on how blogger can be better utilized in this sense?

Thanks!