BetsiePieBaker's YouTube channel, "Some Poetry For You," features stop motion illustrated readings of the poetry (and one short story - "The Gift of the Magi"...English I teachers!) listed below. I had the opportunity to see Shakespeare's "Sonnet 73" in action last week, and the students responded really well to the interpretation. They had already read and discussed the sonnet, and they seemed to appreciate the visual representation created by the stop motion illustrations. BetsiePieBaker's current offerings include:
"I am Nobody" by Emily Dickinson
"This Is Just to Say" by William Carlos Williams
"To a Friend who Sent Me some Roses" by John Keats
"who knows if the moon's" by e.e.cummings
"The Road Not Taken" by Robert Frost
"Sonnet 73" by Shakespeare
"Discovery" by Elizabeth Keller
"In Defense of Seasonal Poetry" by Elizabeth Keller
"Shooting Stars" by Sara Henreckson
"Holy Sonnet 10: Death, Be Not Proud" by John Donne
Did I get you singing Taylor Swift's "Shake It Off," which seems to be everywhere right now?
This post actually has nothing to do with that song. (Sorry if it is now in your head...)
TED-Ed recently posted two Shakespeare-based lessons. Each lesson includes lesson ideas to go along with the posted video clips. The lesson segments are: Watch, Think, Dig Deeper, and Discuss. Educators can also take the TED-Ed lesson, customize it, and share it on the lesson site. (The first one currently has 27 versions shared; the second has 47.)
Poetry, Pentameter, & Pirates: Why Shakespeare Loved Iambic Pentameter (~ 6 min) This lesson focuses on the meters and references both Romeo and Juliet and Hamlet.
The Great Conspiracy Against Julius Caesar (~ 6 min) For those opting to do Julius Caesar instead of Macbeth, this clip offers some insight into why the whole event happened.
There are TWO semi-local EdCamp opportunities coming up! The first is in Rapid City (which is only moderately local simply because it is in state) and the second is just a short drive away in Brookings. Both events are free (aside from your travel costs). See the details below, and click here to register. (If you are unsure what an EdCamp is, check out the videos in this previous post.)
Rapid City
Saturday, February 28 8am-3:30pm EDCAMP South Dakota is partnering with SDEA and Rapid City EA Brookings
Saturday, March 28
8am-3:30pm
EDCAMP South Dakota is partnering with SDEA, SDSU, and Brookings School District
TED is fond of posting thematic playlists, and I recently found this one entitled "Before public speaking..." This playlist currently includes the eight TED talks listed below. Perhaps one (or a few) could fit into your speech classroom?
"How to speak so that people want to listen" by Julian Treasure (~10 min)
"Your body language shapes who you are" by Amy Cuddy (~21 min)
"How I beat stage fright" by Joe Kowan (~8 min)
"Talk nerdy to me" by Melissa Marshall (~5 min)
"How great leaders inspire action" by Simon Sinek (~18 min)
"Lies, damn lies, and statistics" by Sebastian Wernicke (~6 min)
"Why I live in mortal dread of public speaking" by Megan Washington (~13 min)
This Sunday, some people will actually watch the Super Bowl for the game. These people will hoot and holler at the screen, perhaps rooting for the lesser of two evils because their team was not fortunate enough to make the game.
I am not one of these.
While I enjoy the Super Bowl, I have always been there more for the food. That's not entirely honest. Most of my Super Bowl Sunday enjoyment stems from the commercials. However, the food is typically what makes it so that I am actually in a room where the game is on the screen. If it weren't for the food, I would miss the commercials as they were strategically revealed throughout the game; without the beckoning of the food, I would most likely end up perusing them later on via YouTube.
Originally, I enjoyed Super Bowl commercials simply because they were often well-done and witty. Since becoming a teacher, however, I have also looked at them with a critical eye for the classroom and considered them a type of digital literacy. Most years, there is at least one commercial that is applicable to the classroom in some way, like the Kia Optima "One Epic Ride" from a few years ago.
I recently came across these two resources that can help educators utilize Super Bowl ads more effectively in the classroom.
The first, Super Bowl Ads archive, is simply an easier way to browse past Super Bowl ads.
The second, Teach Media Literacy with Super Bowl Ads, is a blog post by Frank Baker (creator of the Media Literacy Clearinghouse) where he encourages teachers to look at these expensive commercials as persuasive digital texts. He includes some ideas for application to classrooms across the content areas (including thinking like an advertiser), but you can also view some more lesson ideas for close readings of digital texts at the MLC website here.
It's not every day that the author of a piece flat out proclaims his/her bias regarding the topic at hand. While students are unlikely to come across bias laid out this clearly during research, perhaps author Neil Gaiman's honesty and explanation of what contributes to his own bias on the topics of libraries and literacy may help students understand what to look for when bias is less obvious.
"It's important for people to tell you what side they are on and why, and whether they might be biased. A declaration of members' interests, of a sort. So, I am going to be talking to you about reading. I'm going to tell you that libraries are important. I'm going to suggest that reading fiction, that reading for pleasure, is one of the most important things one can do. I'm going to make an impassioned plea for people to understand what libraries and librarians are, and to preserve both of these things.
"And I am biased, obviously and enormously: I'm an author, often an author of fiction. I write for children and for adults. For about 30 years I have been earning my living though my words, mostly by making things up and writing them down. It is obviously in my interest for people to read, for them to read fiction, for libraries and librarians to exist and help foster a love of reading and places in which reading can occur.
"So I'm biased as a writer. But I am much, much more biased as a reader. And I am even more biased as a British citizen.
"And I'm here giving this talk tonight, under the auspices of the Reading Agency: a charity whose mission is to give everyone an equal chance in life by helping people become confident and enthusiastic readers. Which supports literacy programs, and libraries and individuals and nakedly and wantonly encourages the act of reading. Because, they tell us, everything changes when we read.
"And it's that change, and that act of reading that I'm here to talk about tonight. I want to talk about what reading does. What it's good for."
Source: Gaiman, N. (2013, October 15). Neil Gaiman: Why our future depends on libraries, reading and daydreaming. Retrieved January 23, 2015, from http://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/oct/15/neil-gaiman-future-libraries-reading-daydreaming
I stumbled across this tutorial yesterday on my Google+ stream. Apparently, it is quite easy for students to create interactive digital timelines! Students use this Google spreadsheet template to chart the progression of an event, including event start and end dates/times, event headings, descriptions of each piece of the event, and links to images or videos that go along with the event. Once the template is filled out, the student publishes it to the web (under "File"), and then copies and pastes the published link into a box on this website created by Northwestern University (IL).
Voila! Interactive digital timeline created!
Here is a small example timeline that I made using Act I of Romeo and Juliet. (I took some liberties with the date and times...)
Bonus: Students don't have to go through the publishing step each time they update their spreadsheets. The default settings make it so the timeline is updated any time the spreadsheets is altered.
Turn In?
There are many ways students could turn in their finished products. Here are a few:
*Post an assignment to your Google Classroom, and have students share the timeline link via the assignment. (This option would keep the link sharing private between teacher and student.)
*Create an announcement on your Google Classroom stream, and have students paste the timeline link into a comment box. (This option would allow students to view each other's timelines.)
*Create a Google Form asking for two things: Student Name and Timeline Link. (Perhaps the easiest for grading?)
*Have students post their timelines to a Padlet page.
*Have students email you the timeline link.
Possible Uses?
Have students create a timeline...
*for a short story, novel, or play
*for a famous person's life story
*to brainstorm for or draft a personal narrative
*to outline an event in history
Overall, this combination of tools has the possibility to be quite powerful in not only helping students visually see an event's progression, but also showing their understanding of the event. Why not let them chart it out?!
It looks like I may have been a little eager to share the Goobric updates! Another update was released this weekend that allows users to leave voice comments on a Google Doc via the Goobric app. Yippee! The 10-minute tutorial (posted just today!) walks users through the Goobric steps for leaving feedback. If you are familiar with Goobric, you can skip to 5:43 to view the steps regarding how to leave voice comments.
There has been an upswing in the number of teachers utilizing Google Classroom this semester, and a common concern I've heard is one regarding losing the ability to run various scripts and add-ons with student Google Docs. Thankfully, there are a number of fantastic tools connected to Google Drive that you can still access for assignments created through Google Classroom, specifically Doctopus and Goobric.
Andrew Stillman recently posted on Google+ regarding some improvements to the Doctopus and Goobric partnership and improvements to how they interact with assignments created through Google Classroom, and he should know because he helped designed them. After searching YouTube, I came across the video below regarding how to make use of Doctopus and Goobric through Google Classroom. (Posted just a week ago on January 9, 2015, it is the most up-to-date explanation I could find.) It is about 17 minutes, but it contains great information on how to utilize the two to give students feedback using an online rubric. (Disclaimer: It is more of an explanation and overview than an actual tutorial, but it does cover some of the basics.) If you are crunched for time, the first ~11 minutes covers Doctopus and Goobric. One nice piece about using Goobric is that you can provide your students with digital rubric-based feedback and still easily enter comments on the student's Google Doc as it is all viewed in the same window.
If you do have the time to watch the entire 17 minutes, please do! The last segment is focused on a tool called Docappender. I was unfamiliar with Docappender until viewing this video, and I am intrigued. Docappender gives you the ability to add a student self-assessment piece to the feedback process. And, due to some Googly magic, these three tools combine their powers and record all of the feedback on the student's original document. The student's document ends up with the teacher's rubric-based feedback and comments, and the student's self-assessment added to the end.
If you would like a tutorial on how to do the entire process of using Doctopus and Goobric through the Google Classroom platform, the following video is a great place to start. It is ~7 minutes and walks you through each step. It was posted in early December, 2014, so it is fairly recent.
Whew! Anyone else tired from just thinking about all of those feedback opportunities? If you give these pieces a try, I'd love to hear about your experience. And, if you'd like to look at these pieces together, just send me an email and we'll find a time.
Although we have only just begun second semester, there have been many questions regarding the in-building viewings of the semester two tests. Here are the dates, times, and locations per Dr. Raeder's September email. Remember that you are welcome to attend the viewing at a building other than your own or at ATI if your buildng's date doesn't work for you.
You are invited to preview the District 2nd semester tests at the following locations, dates, and times:
·March 3rd–Roosevelt High School – 3:15 - 4:30 p.m. – Library
·March 31st– Washington High School – 3:15 – 4:30 p.m. -- A116/A117
·April 7th – Lincoln High School – 3:15 – 4:30 p.m. – Library
The test preview provides you with an opportunity to see the kinds of questions that are attached to the content standards and how they are worded. . .
If you are unable to attend any of these previews, you may call ATI (367-6112) to set up a time to view the test.
Spring semester often means the start of research paper season around here. If you're looking for a new approach, here are three resources you might want to peruse.
Virginia Tech Library's "How Do I..." Research Resources
Virginia Tech's library website has a "How Do I..." page that offers a variety of research tools and resources regarding topics such as "Conduct Research" and "Find and Use Articles." Some tools are geared specifically for their library, but a number of them can be tweaked to assist our students.
Using "A Google A Day" to Build Research Skills
Google has started offering daily mini-research challenges. Each day, Google posts a research topic through their "A Google A Day" for students to practice their researching skills. Google's challenge topics fall into four categories: culture, geography, history, and science. Each challenge question comes with a few Google slides for the teacher. The slides include the challenge question, hints to get started, the challenge answer, at least one explanation of how to research the answer, and other pages like background information and/or further discussion/follow-up questions.
*Picking the right search term *Understanding research results *Narrowing a search to get the best results *Searching for evidence for research tasks *Evaluating credibility of sources
Each lesson comes in three levels (beginner, intermediate, and advanced) so that you can select what best fits your students' knowledge level.
Google Classroom has released a few updates this week, including both Android and iOS (iPhone/iPod) mobile apps! Keep sending them feedback and suggestions for improvement via the little question mark icon in the lower right hand corner of your Classroom pages!
Mobile Apps
The app was just release today, January 14. You can download it to either your Android phone or iPhone/iPad. The apps are geared to be tools for both teachers and students. As with any new product, there is room for growth. (Click here to read a short article.) Here are the main features at the moment. Teachers can view all of their classes via their on-the-go technology. They can create announcements and communicate with their students, however there is not the option (yet?) to create new assignments. Teachers can view previous assignments and student work via the app. Students are able to view class announcements and access their assignments through the app. They can also upload photos from their phone to their assignments.
Teacher's Assignment Page
Teachers can now view all assignments in one spot. From within a class, click on the three lines in the top left corner of the page. Select "Assignments" from the list. The default page will list assignments from all of your classes. You can sort the list to view assignments specific to one class via the drop down box labeled "All Classes."
Archive Old Classes
If you want to start with a clean slate for each semester, you now have the ability to archive old classes and keep your Classroom dashboard clean. From the teacher dashboard page, click on the three dots in the top right corner of the class you wish to archive. (This is the same place you would click to edit the class name.) Select "Archive," and you are finished.
When was the last time you sat in a ball pit? I know for me, it has been quite a while, and I would be hesitant to do it again with all of the icky stories out there regarding what could potentially be in that ball pit. However, if I came across the ball pit featured in the video clip below, I think I would be much more inclined to jump in!
With an awkward first week due to weather, I hope you are feeling more settled in to the new semester. If you are facing a new mix of students and still looking for some ways to help them get to know each other, this video may provide a little inspiration. It can be easy to assume that differences can keep us apart; perhaps this video can inspire your students to search for the connections hidden beneath those differences.
And if you end up literally creating a ball pit in your classroom, let me know! I'd love to stop by to take a seat and make a friend.
