MAC Week 3 Reading - The Art of Possibility, Chapters 5-8

"A child comes to think of himself as the personality he gets recognition for...."

The Art of Possibility - Chapter 6, pg. 82

by Flickr user Michael Sarver

This statement highlights an observation that I've made over the past three years.  Between the freshman and sophomore year, many students mature and come into my English II classes as a slightly different person than who they were in previous years. Each year I go to the freshman and middle school teachers to find out what I should expect from certain students, but I always keep an open mind to allow the students to mature and be different than they were in previous years. Thankfully, many of them do mature, especially the guys.

Last week I was talking with one of these students, I'll call him Alan (not his name, but I can't tell this story with only pronouns). I have Alan in three of my classes this semester -- English II, Intro to Journalism and Public Speaking.  He's a great kid who does well in all three classes, and he's a smart aleck who likes to keep me on my toes for the three hours he's with me each day.  Last week he and some of the other students were talking about his behavior in the past, which included getting suspended for fighting a student and using brass knuckles in middle school. The freshman teacher had warned me that he could be lazy and combative, but she also told me that he had potential. He was shocked when I told him that I knew about his previous behavior pattern. He had no clue that I knew because I gave him the space to change and only acknowledged his current behavior.  He's been a model student this year, and many of his previous teachers are shocked to learn this.

With each chapter I read, I find that it is clearly applicable to teaching or that it highlights something I've observed in my short time as a teacher.  I think I'm going to read the book again at the end of the summer before school starts again because I want to apply these principles in my classes more.  I would also love to give a copy to everyone I know who works with students.

ETC Final Movie

For my final video in my ETC course this month, I created a movie to introduce the big idea of apathy to my students for when we begin out Challenge Based Learning project later this fall. You can view the video below.

Week 3 Reading

So for this week, I was only able to look review one article because I was busy finishing my Resource list, blog posts, and the wiki.  Here's my quick review of:
Yonezawa, S., Jones, M., & Joselowsky, F. (2009). Youth engagement in high schools: Developing a multidimensional, critical approach to improving engagement for all students. Journal of Educational Change, 10(2/3), 191-209. doi:10.1007/s10833-009-9106-1.


I chose this article because I'm focusing my AR on improving my students' engagement.  To do this, I need a firm understanding, or as firm of an understanding as one can get, on the current definition and views on engagement.  What I gleaned from this article was that the definition and research methods associated with egagement up this point do not really help us engage our students.  Up to now, the focus has been on academic engagement, but that is not the only way we have to engage students.  They are hormonal adolescents - they need to be engaged emotionally and socially while at school as well.  It's so interesting to look at students after reading this article.  Students who perform well in school engage more in the academic aspects (teacher's pets, nerds, brainiacs), while those who couldn't care less about their grades are fully engaged in the social and emotional aspects (class clowns, party animals, queen bees).  Our goal needs to be to bring all students to engagement on all three levels.

How do we accomplish this?  Go to the source.  If you want to know what someone wants, the best way to find out is ask them.  The authors encourage educators and researchers alike to embrace the student voice when it comes to finding how to engage students, and they back this up by involving students in their own research studies (3 to the date of this article's publication).  By asking students what they want, we can usually find out what they need.

BP10_Comment on Danielle Miles' Blog

Follow this link to view my comments on Danielle Miles' blog post on Protagonize.

BP9_Comment on Barry Roth's Blog

Follow this link to my comments on Barry Roth's blog post on Wordia.

BP8_Planbook

Okay, first comes the disclaimer: (1) I'm not sure this qualifies as Web 2.0 because it's not web-based, and (2) I'm not usually a fan of tools that require you to purchase them (eh-hem..Ning), but this one just made my life a little bit easier, so I think it's worth it.

The tool I'm featuring today is Planbook, which is simply what it says, a computer based lesson planning and tracking application. While there are many reasons why I like this program, the most important is that I don't have to carry around a physical planbook with me or need to make templates in Word to keep my lessons on my computer.

The first key feature is the planbook setup.  You see this screen everytime you open the program because it allows you to have as many seperate planbook files as you like, such as one for each school year, but you don't need a seperate file for each class.

To set up your planbook, you need to select the start and end date for the school year using the two calendars in the upper left-hand corner.  Don't worry about if the school year is extended due to snow days, smog days, or whatever you face in your area; the program allows you to easily extend the school year later if it's required later.
Next you enter you course names in the text field in the upper right hand corner.  You can enter as many classes as you need, so I entered a class for each period I teach because my four English classes rarely stay right on schedule all year.
In the middle of the window you select the days you teach, and the type of schedule you follow.  This is one of the best features I've found so far because it has three preset schedules for traditional and alternating schedules,  along with a customizable rotating schedule up to 14 days.  (See the help page for screenflows on how to use these features. I promise it's easy, I just don't have time to explain it.)

Once your file is set up, each course can be color coded using colors of your choice and can be toggled on and off from the left sidebar.  In the screencap below I have my drama class toggled off because I won't teach it until the spring semester.  There is also a calendar in the lower left hand corner where you can navigate between a daily, weekly, or monthly view of you plans.  The cap below shows the weekly view.

It allows you to easily input your lessons on the right side bar, giving you six separate text fields that are fully customizable.  The three basic are "Teacher Information," "Homework," and "Public Information," along with 3 Custom fields. 

I didn't like these field titles, so I changed mine to "Bellwork," "Class Work," "Homework," and added a custom field of "Resources."  All you have to do to change the field title is click the name and change the text. It is very user friendly.

The program also gives you the option to attach web links and files directly to the lesson using a simple upload feature.  This is handy for when you use the web publishing feature because it will place the attachments on the lesson website for students and parents to access with requiring you to know code or create the links yourself.

The final feature I want to showcase is the web publishing tool.  I haven't set this up yet, but the program has built in features that allow you to upload your plans to your MobileMe account or a custom FTP.

There are other features I know of but haven't had to time to check out.  They include customizable lesson reports you can print to turn into your administrators, the ability to easily move all lessons forward or backward with the push of a button in case of sudden changes in scheduling, the ability to place holidays and snowdays in the plans seamlessly without losing lessons, and the ability to insert standards into lesson plans.

Before you decide to purchase the application, I recommend that you take advantage of the free trial version (it stops after you enter your 20th lesson plan) and watch the screenflows that were created by the program designer, Jeff Hellmen, a science teacher from Oregon.  

At $30.00, it's not a program you want to purchase and not use, but the fact that you can use it year after year and not need to buy a new paper planbook each year means it's an inexpensive investment in the longterm. 

BP7_OMM_Wordle

**Update - August 22, 2010** Okay, so I just realized that I put the wrong web address for Wordle in my commercial.  I'll be updating the video and reposting very soon, but feel free to enjoy this version until then.  Just know that Wordle can be found at http://www.wordle.net, not .com.

When you go to Wordle, you find that it's a very easy tool to use.  Because of this, they have hundreds of word clouds created every minute.  All the images in this commercial were created in the past twenty-four hours, and this is only a fraction of the content in the gallery for that time frame.  The clouds range from one letter up to thousands of words, and the topics are just as varied.  Judging by the number of Justin Bieber references, teenagers have already caught on to Wordle, and there are 3rd, 4th and 5th graders posting clouds about cyber safety and cyberbullying.  While you find the occasional curse word posted most likely for shock value, you also find song lyrics, Bible verses, sports teams, Muslim prayers, and even a wedding proposal.

So, when it's that simple and that diverse, the only question left is, 

What will you Wordle?

All images come from the Wordle Gallery.

BP4_Wordle

Wordle is Web 2.0 tool that creates word clouds based on the text you provide.  I've used Wordle in various ways the past few years, and I love the results.  It has a very easy to use interface and students love using it. The best part is that it's free and there is no need to register to use the site, so you don't have to remember another username and password.

The the video below walks you through creating a Wordle using the latest blog post from Rena Hanaway's Creating Ripples blog as the source text.

The cut and paste function of Wordle can allow the user to create some interesting word clouds.  The biggest way I've used this in class is in creating thematic posters to go along with George Orwell's Animal Farm.  Because the novel is now in the open domain, the text is available fully on various websites.  Using these sites, I take each chapter and past them into the Wordle applet one at a time.  Bumping the word count up to 999 so that the clouds are full of words, the resulting clouds give a great visual overview of the main events and prominent characters as the novel progresses.  My students enjoy predicting the events that will occur in the chapters based on the names that show so prominently in the cloud.  Below is an example of the cloud from chapter one of the book.

When I first started using Wordle, I noticed it looked at each word individually, so you couldn't use phrases. There is, however, a way to do this.   If you have words that you want to be analyzed as a phrase, you join them with a tilda (~).  This symbol is located beside the (1/!) key directly above the TAB key.  I used this feature to create the cloud below, which has my name, the courses I teach, the name our student newspaper, various literary and grammar terms, and the names of several authors.  To achieve this, I put my name in the text box as Mr.~Drummond, and then copied and pasted it 9 times so it would be the largest.  For the author's names, they all had a tilda (~) between them, like Mark~Twain, Jasper~Fforde, Emily~Dickinson, etc.

BP1_Google Reader

I've been using Google reader for a quite a few years now, so I was very excited to get to share some of my resources for this project.  It was also enjoyed looking up some new blogs to add to the ones I was already following.

NCTE Inbox: This blog is a product of the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE).  Functioning as an extension of the work the Council does to further and support the work of English teachers, this blog provides many thought provoking articles on topics relevant to their members. I've followed this blog for the last few years.

Ben Johnson's Blog & Rebecca Alber's Blog: These two blogs are new editions to my list, and I've grouped them together because they focus on the same topic - student engagement.  My AR project is focused on seeing if Challenge Based Learning (CBL) can improve the engagement and motivation levels of my students, so I thought these two blogs, which are hosted by Edutopia.org, would be a good place to see some other topics associated with engagement.

The Art Initiative: Aside from teaching English, I also teach journalism, drama, and public speaking.  The Art Initiative of The Ohio State University uses its blog to provide updates about arts events taking place at and around the university, along with updates about the Shakespeare education program they are developing for teachers in Ohio in conjunction with the Royal Shakespeare Company in London, England. I hope to participate in the program when it is opened to other teachers.  I hope to use the information provided here in my drama class as examples of work, and also for ideas for performances to take my students to see.

Huff English: On her professional blog, Dana Huff, an English teacher in the Atlanta area, shares her lessons, recommendations for reading and technology, and thoughts on various topics associated with English education.  This is another new blog I found, so I haven't had the opportunity to explore it fully, but the lessons I perused are quality lessons.

Teach J: A self proclaimed blog for journalism and media educators, I'm excited to check out the resources on this site.  From the posts I scanned, Robert Courtemanche uses his sense of humor in recommending resources, and he also has his syllabi posted, which is a great resource for me as our school is developing our media course offerings.