Using Technology Tools With or Without the Computer

This is from my presentation at the UCIRA conference at Salt Lake City, UT.

Using Technology Tools With or Without the Computer

PowerPoint Presentation

• Why/How is technology an effective tool in the classroom?
• What obstacles keep us from using technology in our classroom?
• Technology is a tool--not a new program or gimmick, not the end-all answer to all of our problems, and not a replacement for teachers… technology is only useful as we, the teachers, use it in creative and resourceful ways.
• In our planning and deciding which tool we want to use, and how we want to use it, we need to ask ourselves,
  What is the purpose of this? How will it help me to teach this concept?
• My purposes for the tools listed here:
  
• • Reader Response
  • To monitor understanding
  • To promote creativity and higher-order thinking
  • To practice summarizing and determining importance
  • To enhance understanding of character in a story
  • To communicate with students in their ‘language’

FaceBook Ideas
www.facebook.com
Facebook is a social networking website that is operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc. Since September 2006, anyone over the age of 13 with a valid e-mail address (and not residing in one of the countries where it is banned) can become a Facebook user--Definition from Google Web Definitions.

A place where I can spy on my friends and family and waste a good hour or two without even realizing it—My definition.

FaceBook Personality Quiz--have students create a personality quiz for characters from a book. I would have students work in groups of 2-4 and before having them do the quiz on their own, I would model how to do with a common story/book. Students can create a quiz on their own paper or you can provide a worksheet for them. Click here for the worksheet I created.
To further use this tool, I would challenge students to create their quizzes on Facebook and would offer incentives (points on a test for each person who takes their quiz or a prize for the group who gets the most people to take their quiz). Students can print out a page from their Facebook quiz that shows how many people have taken their quiz and breaks it down to percentages of how people responded.

Twitter Ideas
www.twitter.com

•Twitter is a real-time information network that connects you to the latest information about what you find interesting. Simply find the public streams you find most compelling and follow the conversations.

•At the heart of Twitter are small bursts of information called Tweets. Each Tweet is 140 characters in length, but don’t let the small size fool you—you can share a lot with a little space…You can tell your story within your Tweet, or you can think of a Tweet as the headline...

--From the ‘About page’ on Twitter.com

On NPR, the Morning Edition host, David Greene challenged the Song of the Day editor and music reviewer, Stephen Thompson, to review an entire music album in a tweet, just 140 characters. Thompson compared tweets to haiku. I love that comparison! Lengthier writing is great but a haiku can also have great power and beauty. So can tweets! In our fast-paced world, students need to learn to write succinctly and to the point (something I'm still learning).
Twitter Music Reviews: Criticism as Haiku

Some Tweet Ideas:

•Admit/Exit slips

•Quick reading summary

•Book report, review

•Flash fiction

To take these ideas further, you could easily set up a class Twitter page and encourage students to check out the class tweets by choosing the five best tweets from each class and posting them. If a student sees his/her tweet posted, he/she can tell you and receive a piece of candy (students will do anything for candy). This would also be a great resource if you were to post admit/exit tweets (tweets about what students are learning in class). If a student is absent or needs reminding of what was taught, he/she could find out from the class Twitter page.

Tweet Worksheet

Instant Messaging (IM)/Texting Ideas

Instant Messaging (Iming) or Texting is a real time conversation. You talk through typing text either on a cell phone or through a chat/IM program on the computer (such as chat on FaceBook, Googletalk, or any other chatting service available with most email accounts).

One activity that you could do with this is have students create a text/IM conversation between two characters. Remember, with this you are NOT focusing on grammar but ideas. The idea behind this is to help students really understand the characters and for you, as the teacher, to see if they understand the characters.

An interesting study about technology use in the classroom: http://www.nces.ed.gov/pubs2010/2010040.pdf

Kristen Chandler-Author

This is from a guest author, Kristen Chandler's, presentation at the UCTE/LA conference at Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah.

Her book (that I am excited to read) is: Wolves, Boys, and Other Things that Might Kill Me

--became published when she quit trying to be a writer and went back to being a storyteller.
--literacy grows us and the world we live in.
--need to find something meaningful that you love to write about.
--reading and writing helps kids do big things.
--create space through language.
--find space in our students' media bombarded, cluttered minds.
--find the character and write for the character.
--on revision: you have to trust that it can be better.

Using Technology in Writing and Reading

This is from the UCTE/LA conference at Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah.

A Teacher's Digital Life: How to Use Technology in a Writing and Reading Classroom--Mat Wenzel

Reasons teachers should use technology in the classroom:
It's the language of the natives.

It's easier to share/adapt files.
It's what kids know/ are familiar with.
It can be a reluctant learner magnet.
It is part of the work place and global economy.

Why teachers don't use technology in the classroom:
Intimidated/afraid.
Lack of resources/access to computers.
Too complicated.
Requires extra time/too time consuming.
"It's just bells and whistles."

Social networking (for book nerds):
www.librarything.com
www.goodreads.com
www.shelfari.com
You can export your libraries as an Excel spreadsheet from one site to another.
You can have students do this, starting with adding the books you are reading in class, to create a classroom community.

Google-many resources besides just searching!

data storage site: www.dropbox.com

http://cogdogroo.wikispaces.com/StoryTools
--Bubbler: http://www.pimpampum.net/bubblr/ (Image drop easy create your own comic strip).
http://www.bitstrips.com/ (you can create yourself as a cartoon character or create other characters and create a comic strip).
http://www.makebeliefscomix.com (Simpler format/more limited to create comic strips).
He had students use bitstrips to create a comic strip of themselves and tell about themselves and what they will contribute to the class at the beginning of the year.

Mat Wenzel's website/blog:
http://www.misterdoubleyou.com
http://weber.k12.ut.us/mawenzel

Literacy with an Attitude-Patrick J. Finn (A recommended book).

The Reading/Writing Connection

This is from the keynote speaker at the UCTE/LA conference at Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah.

The Reading/Writing Connection: A Cognitive Strategies Approach to Teaching Interpretive Reading and Analytical Writing in Secondary School--Carol Booth Olson, cbolson@uci.edu

Writing analytically--many students are struggling with this because they don't get enough practice.
'Create movies of the mind'
How do we help all of our students to be there? To be strong, strategic, independent readers and writers?
Acts of mind in reading and writing (common characteristics of experienced writers and readers):

• engagement, become one/get inside the process
• visualize
• aware of process
• slow down, speed up as the task requires
• are actively engaged in constructing meaning;
  
• go back to go forward in a recursive process (being a good reader isn't a really fast, one shot deal);
• interact and negotiate with each other (reader and writer keep each other in mind);
• are motivated and self-confident;
• use skills automatically;
• access a common tool kit of cognitve strategies, including planning & setting goals, tapping prior knowledge, etc.

Need to teach students three types of knowledge:

• Declarative Knowledge
• Procedural Knowledge
• Conditional Knowledge

Reading/Writing Tool Kit (Cognitive Strategies):

• Planning and setting goals
• Tapping into Prior Knowledge
• Making predictions
• Adopting an Alignment
• Making Connections
• Evaluating
• Analyzing Author's Craft
• Summarizing
• Clarifying
• Forming Interpretations
• Monitoring
• Visualizing
• Asking questions
• Revising Meaning

Examples of a Strategic activities:

1. Bring/describe four items in your house.
2. Peers write what these items might say about you.
3. Student writes what they think these things might say to others.

Highlight reading or writing analyses:

1. yellow: plot summary/just the facts
2. green: supporting detail
3. blue: commentary/opinions

Resources:

The Reading/Writing Connection-Carol Booth Olson
You Gotta be the Book-Jeff Wilhelm
It's Never Too Late-Janet Allen

Reading Changes Everything: Ideas & Book Talks Galore

This is from the UCTE/LA conference at Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah.

Reading Changes Everything: Ideas & Book Talks Galore--Cassie Cox
ccox@weber.k12.ut.us

"Reading saved my life"--Cassie dropped out of high school in 10th grade but later went on to get her GED and on to a Master's.
"The average American reads one book per year after they graduate from college"--Washington Post.
How do we get kids to read?
CHOICE!! Choice makes a difference.
Main goal: Hook kids on books!
We've got to be readers ourselves.
What her classroom looks like:

• Time everyday for self-selected reading.
• Book talks
• Book trailers
• Time for talking and sharing.
• Author visits--find local authors and get them into your classroom! Get authors on board!
  
• Make books readily accessible.
• Spotlight books of all kinds.
• Take it outside the classroom--county library. Keep your ears open for public author talks and presentations.
• Classroom full of books.
• Themed book shelf at front of the room.
• Make books more visible.
  

How do you find time to read?

• Commit to reading with your students.
• Squeeze professional development into your daily planning time (5-10 minutes goes a long way).
• Always carry a book with you.
• Listen to audio books on the way to work or when you're exercising or walking.
• Treat yourself with at least 15 minutes of reading before you go to bed each night.
• Squeeze the time in any way that you can!
• Faculty meeting? Take a book! =)
• On-line book clubs, nings, etc.
  

Ideas:

• Olive Garden event-Cassie had five authors (Sarah Zarr, Sydney Salter, Wendy Toliver, Marion Jenson (Matthew Buckley), and J. Scott Savage) and twenty of her students (those who read the most of the authors' books) at Olive Garden. The restaurant paid for it, and it was an amazing experience. Don't be afraid to get out there and ask!

• Make reading a social activity. Books and friends, FUN! Paired reading, small group reading, reader's theater, chorale reading, etc.
  
• Book Talks: picture books, books of poetry, short stories, novels, children lit., young adult lit.
• Read for your students.
• Talk about books you've read...and about books you haven't read.
• Encourage the entire school community to get on board (other teachers, parents, business members, local professors, lunch ladies...get others to do book talks).
  
• Have students make book trailers (www.animoto.com).
• Send home book wish lists that parents can purchase for the classroom (they don't have to be new!).
  
• Encourage book clubs to donate their books to your class.
• Ideas for assessment/accountability: silent exchange, save the last word for me, paragraph plug in, alpha boxes, etc.
• Article of the week
  

Book List:
Reading Reminders-Jim Burke
Writing Reminders-Jim Burke
Readacide-Kelly Gallagher
Phineas Gage--John Fleishman
The Story Behind Toilets
Troy Thompson's Excellent Poetry Book--Gary Crew, Craig Smith
Stiff-Mary Roach
Guts-Gary Paulsen

Websites:
Professional Development and Networking:
http://englishcompanion.ning.com
http://www.ncte.org
http://www.reading.org
Discounted Books:
http://www.bookdepot.com
http://www.bookcloseouts.com/
Video book talks and book trailers:
http://www.scholastic.com/librarians/ab/booktalks.htm
http://www.book-trailers.net/
http://digitalbooktalk.com

The Scholastic Reading Bill of Rights

The Reading Bill of Rights (from http://www.scholastic.com/readeveryday/read.htm).
A Child’s Right to Read
Today we live in a world full of digital information. Yet reading has never been more important, for we know that for young people the ability to read is the door opener to the 21st century: to hold a job, to understand their world, and to know themselves. That is why we are asking you to join our Global Literacy Call to Action. We call this campaign: “Read Every Day. Lead a Better Life.” We are asking parents, teachers, school and business leaders, and the general public to
support their children’s right to read for a better life in the digital world of the 21st century.
Here is what we believe about reading in the second decade of the 21st century. We call this The Reading Bill of Rights:

WE BELIEVE that literacy—the ability to read, write and understand—is the birthright of every child in the world as well as the pathway to succeed in school and to realize a complete life. Young people need to read nonfiction for information to understand their world, and literature for imagination to understand themselves.

WE BELIEVE that the massive amounts of digital information and images now transmitted daily make it even more important for a young person to know how to analyze, interpret and understand information, to separate fact from opinion, and to have deep respect for logical thinking.

WE BELIEVE that literature and drama, whether on printed pages, screens, on stage or film, help young people experience the great stories of emotion and action, leading to a deeper understanding of what it means to be truly human. Without this literacy heritage, life lacks meaning, coherence and soul.

WE BELIEVE every child has a right to a “textual lineage”—a reading and writing autobiography which shows that who you are is in part developed through the stories and information you’ve experienced. This textual lineage will enable all
young people to have a reading and writing identity which helps them understand who they are and how they can make their lives better. In short, “You Are What You Read.”

WE BELIEVE every child should have access to books, magazines, newspapers, computers, e-readers, and text on phones. Whatever way you read, you will need to figure out what the facts are or what the story tells you. No matter how and where you get access to ideas, you will need the skills of reading to understand yourself and your world.

WE BELIEVE that reading widely and reading fluently will give children the reading stamina to deal with more challenging texts they will meet in college, at work and in everyday life. And every child should be able to choose and own the books they want to read, for that choice builds literacy confidence—the ability to read, write and speak about what they know, what they feel, and who they are.

WE BELIEVE that every child has the right to a great teacher who will help them learn to read and love to read. Children need teachers who provide intentional, focused instruction to give young people the skills to read and interpret information or understand great stories they will encounter throughout life.

WE BELIEVE that in the 21st century, the ability to read is necessary not only to succeed but to survive—for the ability to understand information and the power of stories is the key to a life of purpose and meaning.

Why Students Don't Read What is Assigned in Class