So what the heck have I been writing about?

Looking back on my blog posts was a good idea. I hadn't realized it, but I've gotten a lot more specific in my reflections on using these digital tools in writing instruction.

Early on, I focused most of my thoughts on how and when I might implement these different tools. Over the past few weeks, I noticed that I focused a lot more on some of the possible pitfalls of using these technologies, which then made it possible for me to anticipate instructional problems as I pushed my students forward.

I'm sure that a large part of this change in focus was due to my incorporation of the blog, wiki, and a bit of a chat session in class. A year ago, I would've been too scared to attempt these things, but in the past few months, the class has forced me to learn more about things like blogs, wikis, comic life, voice thread, etc. Granted, there have been a few disasters as my students and I stumbled though some technical difficulties, embarrassing mislinks, and a few hilarious misuses of our new tools, we have begun to reach a point where the technology is now working for us rather than being beaten into submission by a bunch of Neanderthals. It's really been an exciting professional development experience.

As far as feedback goes, I’ve been doing the tired old written comments and small conference setup that has worked well for so long. But I’m not happy with it. Ultimately, I would prefer to do all audio feedback, but at the present time, my students’ lack of technology expertise and access has made that rather difficult. I’ve done word comments before, but I find that even getting my students to email a copy of their paper I can actually read can be a rather daunting task. Some of them don’t even know how to compose an email unless I show them.

In their defense, they’re making progress. A science teacher and I have ganged up on our common students and are both using the same technologies in class in an effort to increase the students’ level of exposure. Our collective goal is to get our students to a point where we use very little paper, if any. We have a long way to go, but we’re going to try our best…and probably fail miserably. Oh well.

Interactive Power Points: Is that an oxymoron?

I learned pretty quickly in my teaching career that if you actually want students to engage in your power points, they have to be engaging. What I mean is, they have to be set up in a way that makes the students DO SOMETHING! Taking notes doesn't count.

In the embedded presentation below, I include links to websites, a few questions to ponder, and a short clip of a stand up comic routine about the pagans and christians. I used this in class back in my days of high school teaching and it was a big success. We used it as a precursor to Beowulf so that the students would understand the presence of so many contradictions in philosophies.

As of late, I've had to compromise a bit with the power points because my students have limited access to computers when not at school. When they are at school, so many of the teachers are using web 2.0 technologies that it can be quite difficult to get the necessary resources to make a really interactive presentation...at least by my own personal standards.

Therefore, I've also embedded an example of a power point I use in vocab instruction. The interaction comes from me. I act like a game show host and draw names out of a hat to address each of the slides because each one has them doing something with the word. In fact, the only thing they are supposed to write down from the slides is the word and definition at the end of the process. They will ultimately write and discuss much more than that, which is the goal and compromise I've made to try and make this technology work for me.

Beowulf PPT

Beowulf Prereading

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own.

Vocabulary PPT

Chapter 4 In Context

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own.

I hope you enjoy!

Making Videos

Below, you'll find an embedded video I put together with clips I took while driving from my house to Perkins in Minnetonka. It was a lot of fun doing that.

The process of putting the video together was extremely fun for me! The details involved in sequencing, editing, and adding the right effects really appeal to me. I feel like I could spend an entire day messing around with iMovie and not feel it was a waste of time.

As I worked to edit my movie effectively, I realized a few things:
1. The clips I made weren't always long enough. While I was shooting, I felt that I had a good length of tape, but it was far less than I thought when I began to edit
2. It's easy to spend way too long trying to figure out how to get the timing just perfect

Therefore, when I put this program into action in my classroom, I will have to make sure I tell them to take clips that run for at least 5 seconds a piece. In fact, 10 may be better so as to allow more room for editing and cutting. This was my biggest problem. I'll also have to spend...days, I'm sure, teaching them how to use the program with some premade video clips. This way, when they start working with their own content, they can have a better idea of what it is they want and how to do it.

I will also require storyboarding, which I've just recently introduced to my students. So far, we've storyboarded existing stories, but down the line, they will have to storyboard their own ideas ahead of time.

Without further ado, "Night Driving"...

The Making of a Podcast of Epic Proportions

If you haven't noticed yet, I like a bit of hyperbole in my post titles. I find it adds a bit of dramatic anticipation that fades quickly upon reading the post. What can I say? That's how I roll!



I just finished making my first legitimate podcast and overall, things went pretty well! I figured I would have to plan ahead a bit so in talking with my parents about their upcoming retirement and move, I not only wrote questions ahead of time, I told my parents what I would ask as well. I wanted this to appear spontaneous, which worked well because my parents are pretty good at doing the acting thing. Thinking about the use of voice, this could have been a pitfall had I interviewed someone else. I know that in doing a lot of drama in the classroom, students can sound overly rehearsed in a lot of ways. Interviewing is always more interesting when it sounds spontaneous, which will require some instruction from me. This part of the podcasting was awesome. I had problems, however, with the Audio Hijack limits.

Since I had a limited amount of time to get my information, I felt that I came off as dismissive in the interview. That came to me after I got over hating the sound of my own voice. Down the line, I suppose if I did something like this with my students, I would have to make sure that our software was all legitimate because trial versions can make things really annoying. In fact, I had to cut the best thing my mom said because the program started putting noise all over the recording!

My topic for this might seem a bit off, but I thought it would be a practical way to try out the technology since I'm looking to do some type of inquiry project with my kids. This topic is something I'm actually quite interested and now have a more personal stake in this topic since it will directly involve my immediate family.

I like the idea of doing a podcast type interview instead of the standard written type because it gives kids the opportunity to roll with the punches as it were. In a written interview, I see kids write answers to their questions and then just move on. Doing it over Skype and podcasting adds the "off topic" factor to things, which can often take the interview into much cooler territory than anyone anticipated at the outset. As mentioned above, it would also be a great way to teach kids about the use of their voice. We can look at how they sound in different social situations by listening to recordings of themselves and then work to emulate those sounds depending on the topic and questions they ask in their interviews. I think that they would really enjoy this because a lot of them, I'm sure, would start to see some rather "unsavory" applications to voice manipulation. I suppose they'll start to see how I can always tell when they're lying to me!

I really enjoyed doing this assignment! I can't wait to build up the courage to now teach the technology to my students! Pray for me.

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