Having never been to a professional conference before, I wasn't totally sure what to expect from MACUL. (Honestly, I was just pretty excited to carpool in). I thought maybe there would be a lot about flipped classrooms and other "buzzy" ideas - things that I'm still trying to figure out. Mostly, I figured that the ideas that I'd gather would be filed away in that "Next Year" drawer where I put all the ideas that aren't so practical to enact in my student teaching setting right now.
I was pleasantly surprised by the first session I sat in on, and pretty enthused by the second. Andy Schoenborn's presentation on using Google docs to provide digital feedback to students gave me a realistic look at what using Google Drive can do in the classroom. This is an idea that I've thought about before for digitizing the writing process, so it was neat to see it put into practice. The second session that I sat in on was one that I'm sure several people are already mentioning. David Theune's "Friday Night Lights" presentation on creating authentic audiences was awesome. While Mr. Theune offered some great ideas for using technology to open your students' writing up to new audiences, what I appreciated most about his presentation was how "doable" the idea was. One of this biggest hold-backs that I've had with some tech tools is that, at least for the classroom/subject I'm in now, they aren't always practical. A lot of this has to do with the "middle school factor"; they're still acquiring most of their technology skills, and there is a wiiiiiiiide range of technological abilities. However, many of the concepts that Mr. Theune suggested - like inviting parents to sit in on class readings or linking research projects with local nonprofits - seem like options that I can tailor to my class's interests and abilities. (Though I will say, live streaming my class probably wouldn't fly considering about half of them aren't technically old enough to set up their own Google accounts).
One of the biggest takeaways from this presentation, for me, had less to do with a specific technological idea and more with a practice that I think is very important to the writing process. Having an authentic audience can be created in a number of ways (one being through the internet), but what is even more important is HAVING ONE. One idea from this session was having students write for younger classes in the district. I'm trying to flip that idea a bit, since I teach in one of those "younger" classes, and I've made it my mission for the rest of the year to give my students an out-of-class, in-district peer feedback opportunity. We've been introducing the idea of peer revision groups, and this motivated me to seek out other classes, either at the middle school level or even above, who would be interested in participating in a cross-class writing workshop. I'm still playing around with the idea right now, and have yet to cement anything with my MT. HOWEVER, let me take this final opportunity to shamelessly solicit for partner classes: get at me! ( :
Oh, my heart pains for that car ride. It's interesting reading your blog and Kelsey's; it seems that the two of you traveled around the conference together haha. However, it seems as though you both had different takeaways from the conference which is interesting to me! I think its great that people were able to discover some strategies that they can use in their placement classrooms as well! Unfortunately, the "next year" drawer is already getting stuck for me because there are so many things that I don't feel I have the time for. However, I've found Google docs to be one that I can implement into my classroom quite quickly and seamlessly. Most of the high school students that come into my classroom already have Google accounts set up and are familiar with Google docs; obviously Google's plan for world domination is working. Do you find that your middle school students are also familiar with these technologies? If so, it would further prove the world domination point, but also shed some interesting light on how familiar students are with technology; sometimes technologies that there teachers don't even exist! I wonder how you might see technology aiding a co-teaching class between history and English? They seem like a lovely pairing (like that Founders beer probably was with there delicious appteasers : ( ) because there are already so many classic novels that can be brought into a history classroom without any troubles. Would certain technologies aid this hypothetical class more readily? Just some thoughts; back to my 1D now.
ReplyDeleteMs. Strait and I did, in fact, go to all the same sessions. That may or may not have had something to do with the fact that she is an ace with directions and I was hopelessly lost in the HUGE DeVoss center. Also, ya know, MS English = similar pedagogical interests. In my experience, I have some students right now who are dabbling in coding, and some who don't know how to indent on Word. So... quite a range of abilities. The familiarity with Google docs is maybe 50-60% overall? So, not quite world domination, but I'd really like to have all of my students in the future working on it. I think a tech-aided English/history class would be really interesting. I'm not sure what tech aids would be best for that; it would probably depend on the focus. I do have a historical fiction unit coming up next month, so sounds like a good time to play around with the idea!
DeleteI'd be interested to hear more about what strategies you learned for an ELA classroom. I skipped the Google docs presentation, I was thinking that it would be more of a how-to on Google Drive. Now I'm sorry I missed it. What other ideas did you hear in regards to creating an authentic audience? I'd be interested to hear since we discuss this so frequently in WRIT 430.
ReplyDeleteOur discussions in 430 are part of what motivated me to attend the authentic audience presentation! One of the things that was mentioned was creating student blogs, which I know you're already doing. The presenter also showed us clips from a multi-media project where students wrote and animated/added visuals to personal narratives, and posted them on Youtube. As a teacher, you could have a class Youtube channel or collect student Youtube channels (since that comes as part of Google now). You'd have to have a talk about digital citizenship, and probably suggest that disable commenting, but I can see this working really well in a high school classroom. Inviting parents and community members, and working with local business for research/promotion were other ideas. Let me know if I elaborate more!
ReplyDeleteEmily,
ReplyDeleteThanks for the response. As your fellow carpoolee, I too was excited for not just the conference but the personal/professional company on the way to Grand Rapids.
On a more focused note, I love your idea of creating peer feedback groups within the district. I think that students have a lot to gain by engaging in meaningful writing activities that not only force them to write, but also to edit and revise their work and their own. As a teacher, I can tell you from personal experience that I've learned a lot about my own writing by reading, revising, and editing my students' writing. Therefore, I think this idea to create authentic partnerships within the district is awesome. Another reason I like it so much is because it creates the opportunities for relationships to develop along with students' writing process. This is an important feature because the more middle schoolers know about the upcoming years in high school, the more they'll be prepared once they arrive.
Emily,
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing. I really liked your point about peer editing with other groups in the district. At one of the sessions I went too, we talked about how we should collaborate with other world language classrooms within the district (speaking via video, writing letters, etc.). As educators we definitely are aware of the amazing opportunities that collaboration can bring, so I think it is worthwhile thinking about how a "foreign" audience would be beneficial to our students learning and the effort they put into it.
Emily,
ReplyDeleteI LOVED Mr. Theune's presentation as well for many of the reasons you mentioned, especially the fact that it was "do-able" right here and right now. I have been encountering some difficulties because my mentor teacher is extremely busy outside of school and doesn't want to assign projects that take a lot of time to grade. In reality, this makes it hard to assign any projects because we'd have to grade 130 of whatever it is we assign. What hooked me about David's curriculum is that everything was credit/no credit which makes grading a heck of a lot easier! Yes, you must decide what deems "credit" vs. not for a specific student but its better than counting how many verb conjugations they got wrong! As you pointed out, the most important part to making this all work is the authentic audience. Glad he affected so many of us positively. :) If you ever want French peers, we're all in!
Emily, I really enjoyed reading your blog. In particular, I found the Andy Schoenborn session you discussed on using Google docs to be captivating. I love the idea of proving students with digital feedback within the classroom. Unfortunately, technology at my placement is really limited. Additionally, a large portion of my students do not have much access to tech at home, so it makes using Google docs pretty unlikely. I would love to help students become better writers of history and feel that this would be a great way to communicate to students both in and outside of the class. I could see myself using Google docs in the future to help revise and provide feedback for my students and their writing.
ReplyDeleteThanks for your posting, Emily...it was obviously both engaging and thought-provoking for your colleagues, so congratulations on that. It was great that the first presentation offered some concrete examples of how to use google docs to facilitate offering students feedback on their writing. I'm surely adding my own interpretation, (based on my attending David Theune's lightning session presentation about building a culture of empathy in our classrooms) but it seemed that the core of the presentation you describe transcends technology, in a sense, and frames the important challenge of giving students opportunities to write for a variety of audiences, and to think about what that means. How can we create and support assignments that reach (in some way and at least some of the time) beyond the classroom? That's a great thing to be thinking about as your MAC year concludes and you start to think about your own classroom...
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