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!

All Hail Newsela!

Dana gave us a link several weeks back to Newsela.com, an online website designed for news articles and current events. If you have not yet checked out this website, please do so immediately! Since receiving the link and exploring the site further, I have integrated the use of the site into my non-fiction intervention class for those students who struggle with pulling main ideas and details from non-fiction literature. As a "unit", students have read several articles, filled in graphic organizers, and taken online quizzes all using the tools provided within this extraordinary site.

Here's what I have done and what you could do with Newsela:

If you are familiar with Edmodo, it works in a similar way. You can create a group, give your students a group code, and every article you assign will go straight to their account. Unlike Edmodo, you have access to all of their usernames and passwords, and the articles that you assign are sorted by content. "Kids" has been what I've used, but other articles on politics, war, business, etc are easily appropriate for a high school level. Once you find a fitting article, you can "assign" it to the group you've created and students will promptly find it stored in their "Binders".

One of the best parts: Once a student has clicked on the article to read it, they get to choose the level at which they are comfortable reading. Same content and ideas, but either more challenging or more simplified word choice and organization - and all they have to do is click! (Awesome, right?)

Some articles have quizzes attached. With PARCC coming up next year, these quizzes closely mirror the test as it is a mix of multiple choice and interacting with the text electronically. Also, as students are reading, they can highlight main ideas and the site remembers those moments, automatically saving it and indicating the highlight.

I have then used the pre-writing GO graphic organizer from the IW website, asking students to take the article, fill in the main idea, supporting ideas, and quotes from the text to help for proof, lastly followed by completing the quiz attached to the article.

It takes some getting used to, but not long. Check it out and let me know what you think and/or what questions you may have!

The Case Against Cursive

Received this from my mom, a successful IT consultant who (back in "the day") taught computer science:

Just curious. Doses your school teach both cursive and keyboard or did keyboard skills replace cursive? What is the impact as kids get older?

http://mobile.bloomberg.com/news/2013-09-17/the-case-against-cursive.html

After that, there was a conversation in our ELA department where I learned that, apparently, some elementary schools have discontinued teaching cursive. I was shocked. The natural response to writing lettings is curved and connected. The act of writing straight lines and spacing is something that is "taught," so I always thought cursive was a valuable skill to hang onto. In retrospect, I know that I neither require nor prevent my own students from writing in cursive, because so much of the final product is typed anyways.

Is cursive obsolete?
Is the act of writing, handwriting, and any other form of the written word on it's way out?
What did happen to keyboarding? When do kids learn that?
Furthermore, the new PARCC tests are ALL online, even the "writing" - not that we teach to the test, but if we are preparing students for it, how do we continue to make writing (cursive or otherwise) relevant?