EARCOS 2009.  Second Workshop Session with Maggie Moon – My thoughts in Italics

Kids like to read, kids like to talk – marry the two together.
Make them think talking about reading is cool
Read-Aloud important time of the day

Framework for Balanced Literacy
Interactive Read Aloud with Accountable Talk
Shared Reading,
Reading workshop
writing workshop
interactive writing/shared writing,
word study (phonics)

Reading Aloud to young children helps them to develop in 4 critical areas: oral language, cognitive skills, concepts of print, phonemic awareness

Different kinds of read alouds
Interactive Read Aloud – stop at places to think aloud, let students talk to a neighbor often have whole-class conversations
Content Area Read Aloud – texts that support learning in science social studies, math
Story Time – get lost in stories
Chose what read-aloud suits your grade level

Read Aloud Book Choices:
High Interest – ask kids!
Can be finished within a reasonable time frame.
Match “Units of Study” or theme work when possible
(get their feet a week or so before you start that unit – expose them to that genre)

Purpose of a Reading Workshop is get students reading independently as much as possible – sustained, focus, stamina building reading – book clubs fits in there – could still be reading own book but reading a bookclub book at the same time.

Partnership reading

Read Aloud is a good intro into bookclubs – you are modeling what a bookclub might sound like, look like.

Grow your own ideas, theme, what is the author trying to say …. Lively interesting conversations rather than a “recording” session

There are student book club basics – see slide notes

Can have individual conference with students who are reading a book above their level to help them cope with the bookclub.
Conversations should be as natural as possible – not retelling, want kids talking throwing ideas around, challenging, questioning
Give students a goal to work towards – that’s what bookclubs are for – use that to drive the reading strategies that we’re teaching throughout the year.

Getting students ready for bookclubs  (do this over the year …… I really like this idea)

Say to students: One of the reasons that we are practicing this is when we get into bookclubs this will be really helpful.    Grow your own ideas, having something to say to your partner, group etc.
Ability to change your mind is important.
Having conversations, how many pages are you going to read, negotiate what we’re going to look for.  When are we going to meet again?

Have your bookclubs staggered so that you as the teacher can manage.

Like the idea of bookclub folders, team brand name ……

Tracking their thinking together – what do you really want them to focus on ….. so that conversation doesn’t go pooooof after 5 minutes

Independent readers could have some ownership in scheduling their bookclub – what would work best for them.

Look out for the coming prepared for talk with Post-its slide. It has some great ideas on it.

Post-its help you prepare for conversations, makes you more ready to talk.

Pause and think – at the end – Maggie doesn’t write a book review at the end of her reading of a book.  Don’t need to always write at the end of the book.  Ask them to capture on paper some of their ideas  in their final conversation.
(book review totally deflates the finish of the book)

There are times that you want to assess the ideas – could see a post-it note wall working here.

What’s a character’s motivation what’s getting their way
Interaction with other characters, what does this say about them?
Character change
Model with students what to pay attention to …… (see above)
Teach them to read off the post-it – model it so they don’t sound robotic

After the conversation, model prompts that record their revision of changing of ideas after listening to others

I used to think … now I think

Little scaffolds that help them do this.

Accountable talk – see slide
Give students a vehicle to get them talking to one another, to have a good conversation.

From EARCOS conference in Kota Kinabalu March 2009.  Maggie Moon is a Literacy Consultant from the Phillipines.  She regularly visits ISB Bangkok as a Literacy Coach.  It was really good to be able to sit down and listen to Maggie speak.  As a newbie to Readers and Writers Workshops, I deliberately chose to attend all of Maggie’s workshops at EARCOS.  I’m so glad I did – although in reflection this would have been a great way to be introduced to Readers and Writers Workshop on arrival at ISB.  I finally feel like I have the missing pieces to the whole umbrella puzzle of my learning about these two types of workshops and student learning within them.  Although my lessons are still no where near how I would like to be, I finally feel like I’m making some progress with the way they are running.

These are my notes from Maggie’s workshop:  Maggie’s handouts here:

Interactive Read Aloud with Accountable Talk Thinking and Talking Deeply About Books

Kids like to read, kids like to talk – marry the two together.
Make them think talking about reading is cool
Read-Aloud important time of the day

Framework for Balanced Literacy
Interactive Read Aloud with Accountable Talk
Shared Reading,
Reading workshop
writing workshop
interactive writing/shared writing,
word study (phonics)

Reading Aloud to young children helps them to develop in 4 critical areas: oral language, cognitive skills, concepts of print, phonemic awareness

Different kinds of read alouds
Interactive Read Aloud – stop at places to think aloud, let students talk to a neightbor often have whole-class conversations
Content Area Read Aloud – texts that support leanring in science social studies, math
Story Time – get lost in stories
Chose what read-aloud suits your grade level

Read Aloud Book Choices:
High Interest – ask kids!
Can be finished within a reasonable time frame.
Match “Units of Study” or theme work when possible
(get their feet a week or so before you start that unit – expose them to that genre)

15-20 minutes everyday
OR
2-3 times a week, 20 mins
2-3 times across a 6 day cycle, 25 minutes
Try to schedule it – the more regular it is the more students come to expect it

Proficient adult reader – good for kids to hear one read.

EARCOS March, 2009 – Session Notes (my thoughts in italics)

• Students learn at different rates – instruction should be differentiated
• Be engaged in authentic work – give them strategies for where writers get their ideas from (key to writers workshop)
• Explicit instruction going on
• Students need a model – do writing in front of them.  You can use mentor text, show them writing (it doesn’t always have to be yours)
• Your goal is to give them strategies to try, and encourage independence and choice
• When you are modeling – don’t give them a perfect model – step by step feel to it, show yourself having a struggle, (students see the action in detail – they see you struggle) try to write things close to what your students are writing. What you are making as a model is as close to what your students are writing.
• Goal of unit-of-study is to have a container that is holding everyone together
• Good writing workshop has a layer of assessment – formal and informal – informs you what you will be doing with your whole class – perhaps the whole class is not getting the concepts that you are introducing. What will you teach more of, less of?
• Possibility of Writers Workshop 3-4 times a week within a balanced literacy programme – in order to fit everything in – not ideal but could still work (perhaps this is how to fit in specific grammar practise – out of 6 day timetable, one day is grammar lesson not writers workshop)
• Workshop Structure:  45 mins: Minilesson (10mins) Worktime (30mins – changes over time, teacher confers while students work, one to one conference, small group work: Mid workshop Teaching point (2-5mins) – take something that you have noticed – manage any little thing back to the whole class. Teaching Share (5-10mins) take time to reflect, work with writing partner, ask questions.  You can stretch the workshop out to an hour if students can stay focused on the writing -the ones that have been writing for a while.
• Mini lessons more than 10mins are maxi-lessons (be clear, concise, planned ahead of time) This is an area that definitely needs to be a focus for me – mini lessons are way tooooo long!!
• Folders and Notebooks – Upper Grades (3-5+) use Writer’s Notebooks and Drafting Folders. Notebooks are for collecting entries.  Writing Folder for the drafting process – write a draft, and revise it.
• Writing Process for Writers Ages 4-7/8:
  • Immersing
  • Rehearsing and Planning
  • Drafting
  • Revising (taking words out, making sentences better)
  • Editing  (fixing mistakes, punctuation, grammar)
  • Publishing (final product – making your final product – want this aspect to go as quickly as possible)
  • Celebrating!! (share the pieces with the class, invite people in, blog? principal, kinderbuddies,writing contest, published authors)
• Writing Process for Writers Ages 8++
  • Immersing
  • Generating (Collecting) Entries (in the writer’s notebook)
  • Choosing a “Seed Entry” (still in the writer’s notebook)
  • Developing and Nurturing
  • Planning and Drafting (see their seed entry differently – don’t copy it – model this) draft on computer – print out Version 1 then make revising changes so that you can track.  Take advantage of spellcheck (that’s what we do).
  • Revising
  • Editing
  • Publishing and Celebrating (ideas: Museum (comment sheet underneath), Group sharing, blogging – authentic audience, Author’s Chair)
• MiniLessons (sense of gathering on the mat area – not at the desks)
  • One, explicit teaching point
  • Student gather at a meeting area
  • Teaching points fit together to create a “Unit of Study”
  • Four parts to the lesson – predictable structure – connection, teaching, active engagement, link – how does this fit in with what we are trying to do, not just another task.
  • Important for kids to see teaching point in action
• Publishing – ok vrs perfect – if it’s taking a long time you need to consider how much of the writing process you are knocking out.  Suggestion from audience – partner/peer editing
  Some units could be teacher-formal editing but not all (Maggie took a post-it and kids had to find the words that she found – don’t write all over their writing – it’s a respect thing.  ELL different ball game for them – they are learning a new language – more time to help them with the editing to help them to learn rather than the focus on the final product – the more you do it for them, the less it becomes their work.  Drawing, then labelling, scaffold works well for ELL students – this is still writer’s workshop (think how can this go for them based on what works for them)
• One to One conferring:  Has a consistent structure (if you have 20 students in your class- across a week you see all of your students at least once – conference times vary but they are not 20 minutes long!!)  Research – talk to student, see what they are doing, watch them; Decide (quick decision – compliment and then Teach) Coach:  Link:
• Writing Centres – tape, pencil sharpener, stapler, scissors, date stamps, paper choice, drafting paper, mentor texts, reference materials – don’t be the gate keeper!
• Writing Partnerships – may or may not be ability based, meeting on a regular basis, to read their work aloud, ask questions/advice of their partners, and to give feedback – this needs to be modelled, taught – watch them, make notes on what they aren’t doing so well in this part and turn it into a minilesson.  The longer you can keep these partnerships together, the better.  At least some span of time – you can change after several unit of studies.
• http://unitsofstudy.com  One way the year of writing could go – it is a RESOURCE – you could follow directly but you don’t have to.  You should make adjustments to fit in for what your students need.
• Units of Study – Grade 4/5  A version of how a year could unfold
  • Launching the Writing Workshop (routines etc)
  • Raising the Quality of Personal Narrative
  • Realistic Fiction
  • Personal Essay
  • Writing Fiction, HF, Fastasy or Mystery Making RW Connections
  • Literary Essays or Fournalism
  • Content Areas Writing, Writing to Convey Ideas and Information
  • Memoir – The Arto f Writing Well
  • Independent Reading Projects / Revision
• Essentials for the success of Writing Workshop:  Don’t wing it – planned ahead of time, waht do you want your students to practise, what do you want your students to create.  Covers the level stands or school benchmarks.  Lasts between 3-6 weeks (typically 4 weeks)  Strikes a blaance between teaching, assessing, teaching assessing
• Maggie did a little small moment mini-lesson – she wrote a story about snorkling with Diane, we then turned and talked about our ideas for our own small moments:
  • Turn and Talk – is the active engagement part (Link – so this is something, where any little story that happened to you and you’re trying to make it sound like it is happening all over again.
  • Dark rain clouds were building up in the sky.  I hope we are not going to be flying through that rain as we walked down the ramp into the waiting airplane.  I put all our luggage in the overhead locker and (I really struggled trying to write like it was happening, I kept wanting to write in the past tense!!)
  • Reverse pyschology – cut off the writing on a high note – don’t fall into the trap of letting writing going if it’s going well.  When something matters to you – when it’s meaningful it’s much more powerful – that’s why you don’t limit the choice.  The big goal is to just let’s all write!  This is not the final product – it’s a collection of entries – one of those will be revised.
  • Have struggling writers “underline” the words they don’t know how to spell.  Writers try their best, sound words out, make sure they are not blocked from writing.
• Maggie will email powerpoint
• Get your own notebook – have to be self-disciplined about it.  Start writing because you will learn what to teach when you go through it.  Make your publication dates public.

Ding Ding …… Round Course Two begins for CoETaIL.Asia

Enduring Understandings:

• Online behaviors and actions impact the access and safety of personal information.

• Responsible use of online tools can help protect the personal information of others.

Essential Question:

When and where should we be teaching students about their digital footprint?

This weeks readings were from Kim Komondo’s Your Online Reputation Can Hurt Your Job Search and Protect Your Digital Footprint from kutv.com

I was fortunate enough to have our afternoon presenter, Silvia Tolisano, stay with me after her presentation at ISB.  We discussed in depth one night the need to own your domain name and those of your children. Thankfully my name and those of my children are unusual enough to still be available domain names.  What I have realised I need to do is take charge of my blog name so that I can continue to control what happens with it.  I’d not really given any thought to what might happen if someone decided to “kick me off” my name.  All my thoughts and ideas would disappear over time as someone began to use my name legally.  Whilst I would like to believe that no-one would do that deliberately, I realise that not everyone  is as idealistic in web ethics as I am.

Google Alerts, RSS feeds of Google Search Terms, Technorati and Edublogs’ incoming links  have always kept me informed of how my digital footprint is impacting on others.  I believe it is necessary to keep an eye on how and when our names are being used on the internet for a variety of reasons.

Clarence Fisher also believes that tracking your digital footprint is an essential part of working online and these are essential basic skills for us and for our students as well. His Digital Footprint blog post is an informative read as he shares how he tracks his digital footprint and the reasons why he does it.

It is great to see what people are writing about you. It gives you a chance to respond to posts people write and also it keeps your finger on the pulse of any ongoing conversations.”

I listened to Ewan McIntosh, at an unconference session at Learning2.0 in Shanghai, about how he has already begun to protect and nurture his young daughter’s digital footprint before she is even old enough to walk let alone blog!  I remember thinking how that was just a little bit over-the-top but as my learning journey continues down the path of 21st Century Digital Literacy, it has become more obvious that looking after your digital footprint is the same as looking after any of your tools in your toolbox and it’s the same as looking after your own reputation.  YOU need to do it – no one else is going to.

Online safety and digital citizenship in the classroom when working with blogs, wikis and any other tools that leave a footprint of ourselves online is a message that we, as educators, have a responsibility/need to continually push at ANY level.  It’s no different to teaching encouraging students to respect themselves, or respect one another in any space they are in.

Only this time the space is the internet and this space keeps a record of all behaviour – the good, the bad and the ugly.

And anybody can look at it.  Anytime.  Anywhere.

Image Attribution:  TeachingSagittarian

I’ve been twittering the past several weeks about using VoiceThread as a digital portfolio for our Student-Led Conferences this semester.

In the past, my students have used Photostory3 to show and talk about their learning as a starting point for their Student Led Conference with their parents.  I’m now teaching in a mac school so Photostory3 was not an option.  I felt that iMovie was just a little too intricate for what I wanted, a wiki was a consideration and then the brainwave of VoiceThread appeared in my head late one night!

The more I considered VoiceThread, the more it’s interactive features appealed to me.  Using Photostory3 meant a final product. Nothing more added, no room for comment by parents and unless you sent the exported movie file, or embedded it on a wiki, no way for other family members in different parts of the country or in other parts of world, to see it.

Using VoiceThread was easy!  We’ve already used it several times this year, so the “tool” and how to use it was already established.  Here’s the step by step organisation we used to complete a digital protfolio for each student in Room202.

Step 1:
Sign up students for an individual account each in VoiceThread.
(We used an email that did not technically exist – but not gmail with + because that won’t work – The email address isn’t required to gain the password – which means the email does not have to exist – BUT you must remember it to be able to sign in)

Step 2:
Brainstorm with students what they think needs to go into their portfolios.
Guiding questions:  What will my parents want to see?  What will my parents want to know about?
With very little guidance from me, students listed subject areas (Reading, Math, etc) along with how I’m doing socially, what my work habits are like, what I need to improve, what I can do well, PLUS some things that I’d really like to share with my parents because I’m proud of what I’ve achieved.

Step 3:
Take the required photos. Upload to VoiceThread.  Take picture of self (using photobooth) and change avatar. Add teacher’s email address to contacts and share VoiceThread with teacher.  (This is how I could keep track of who was getting behind in their time management)
The only rule about photos was that ALL images had to be taken by Room202.  No google images allowed, no images from creative commons – but students could use any of the photos from our flickr account that had been taken during class activities during the year.  We talked about parents wanting to see their child (not someone else in the class) and own work captured (not someone elses) and how the image should relate to what you were talking about.  A checklist was introduced so that tracking what images were still required was easier.

Step 4:
Write the scripts.  A prompt booklet with sentence starters in it was handed to each student – to encourage students to talk about their learning rather than what they were doing.  This was by far the area that required the most amount of modeling and took the most amount of time for students and the teacher!  I did set one script on a topic per night as homework to get things moving along.
Most students, in their first draft just talked about things like what they had read, or how a reading workshop session might go, or the celery experiment we did in class, rather than what they were actually learning to do and how well they thought they had done it, or what they might do better next time.
A second column was added to the checklist so that students knew which scripts had been written and checked off by me, ready for recording.

Step 5:
After gaining a check off from me, students were then able to record their script on the appropriate page.  I’m amazed at how considerate the class was – we did most of the recording in class, with a handful going to the teamroom next door if they had many scripts to record at once.  A simple “Quiet please, recording” and a “thank you” when finished – ensured that no-one had background chatter in their voicethread.  Everyone was respectful and quiet during a recording time (the only odd interuption was, of course, the bell!!)

Step 6:
Listen to full VoiceThread, redo any pages where voice level was too quiet or too loud.  Hand in completed Checklist to teacher.  Using publishing options and playback options make changes as follows:

Now that Student-Led Conferences are finished, I can share with you all the resounding success of using VoiceThread as a digital portfolio.  Parental feedback so far has been how impressed they were with the effort from their children and how enjoyable it was to hear their own child speak about their learning in a clear and confident manner.  Being an International School, the majority of parents were thrilled to hear how easy it was going to be to share the VoiceThread with family and friends in different parts of the world.  Most agreed that being able to share with grandparents was a highlight.  Some dads weren’t able to make the actual conference due to work commitments so it was great that those students were able to go home and share this portfolio online with them.  One dad was actually in another country and was going to be watching the portfolio in his hotel room that night.

ESL students were most successful with their portfolios too and were encouraged to communicate with their parents in English and their native tongue.  This was much appreciated by parents and meant that family members around the world could understand what was being said.

I am incredibly proud of ALL my students and the effort that they put into their portfolios.

My Reflection: What would I do differently next time?

1. Swap Step 3 & 4 around.  To help students avoid talking about the image (therefore only talking about the “doing” rather than the “learning”, write the script first then take an image that fits what you’re talking about.  This process of preparing portfolios made me realise that we need to have more conversations as we are learning, about what it is that we are learning, why we are learning it and how we know if we have learned it.  We have our learning intentions and success criteria plastered around the room, plus we write them in our books but I realised after doing these VoiceThreads – it’s not enough.  Some students still aren’t making the connections between the things we do in class and the learning that we want to occur.  I’m really bothered by that and this is something that I really want address over the rest of the semester and the years to come.
2. Keep one or two of these VoiceThreads as a model for next years class.  The need to provide modelling and good models has really made itself powerfully known to me over this past year.  Modelling is the key to great learning and success.
3. Have students create their Digital Portfolio VoiceThread at the beginning of the year.  Add to it from the beginning of 5th Grade.  Perhaps set a target of 5 pages per semester.  This would avoid students talking only about the latest things they have learnt or struggled with.
   

After gaining the permission of parents I am able to share with you, two of our VoiceThread Digital Portfolios.  I am hoping that parents will record or type some feedback back to their children over the next week or so.

March is SMARCH at school – Using your SMARTBoard smarter! Here’s my top share for this week.

My twitter friend Tom Barrett has this fabulous site called Ideas to Inspire.  It’s jam-packed with googledoc presentations he’s become quite famous for organising.  Using a tweet he calls for ideas from educators all around the world to suggest ideas, tips and tricks for any number of topics.  Together, everyone collaborates on a googledoc presentation with title changing with each additional idea.  See if you can guess my contribution for the Pocket Video Cameras.

For SMARCH check out #38 Interesting Ways to Use Your Interactive Whiteboard *and tips. I say #38 because when you look at it, that number quite possibly will have increased!  These documents grow ……. literally!

But of course, don’t stop there!

Check out all the other amazing topics!

It’s incredible that Course 1 of our Certificate in Educational Technology and Information Literacy is complete (well as of midnight tonight it will be!)

Our final face to face session yesterday was a doozie!  Kim and Jeff organised for the authors of Reinventing Project-Based Learning – Your Field Guide to Real-World Projects in the Digital Age (from which our project assignment stems from) to skype in.  It was very powerful to receive words of encouragement and advice from Suzie Boss (Portland, Oregon) and Jane Krauss (Eugene, Oregon)  Also impressive was the fact that they were giving up some of their Friday night to talk with us.

Take-aways from the conversation:

• If the technology (tools) is leading your project then go back and look at it again, make the learning lead the project
• 8 Essential Functions (Recommend that we read that section in the appendix – the tools will change and/or advance but the set of functions are enduring
• Visible Thinking – Do something that has students showing their thinking. When you do this you can get some dialogue going – ie: what are they doing and why?  By the time you get to the final product it’s too late to get into a dialogue
• Must check out The American Crawl – amazing English teacher with a great reflection blog.
• You don’t have a network for no reason.

One of the great things about Course 1 has been the chance to collaborate with members of my own Grade 5 team as we put together a Project especially after hearing the authors of Reinventing Project-Based Learning!!  We set ourselves a goal of establishing our Enduring Understandings and Essential Questions by 11.00am (Lunchtime for the Course).  It’s such a pleasure working with people who are willing and enthusiastic about learning in the 21st Century.

Julie Lindsay joined us via skype today too.  Sheis an IT Director, currently working at Qatar Academy, soon to be at Beijing International School.  Along with Vicki Davis (CoolCatTeacher),  Julie developed an amazing project-based learning opportunity for students around the globe based on the Horizon Project, The World is Flat and Grown Up Digital. Julie and Vicki have recently completed the first ever Flat Classroom Conference and have received multiple awards for their ground-breaking work. Her blog, E-Learning Journeys, is a wonderful resource for all things related to globally collaborative projects.  When I was teaching Year 7 in New Zealand (Grade 6) my class and I were lucky enough to be a sounding board for the Horizon Project in 2006 and 2007.  It was an amazing opportunity to be involved at a lower level.  My students got real insight into the kind of students that they themselves, in the not so distance future, would be.  It was interesting for us look at the ways other students communicated and collaborated and produced a final product during the Horizon Project as well as provoking a lot of discussion about critiquing people’s work / thinking.

The last part of the day saw us back together in our teams finalising our Project.  The GRASP was excellent as it kept us focused on exactly what learning we wanted to expose our students to.  We struggled somewhat with the “Six Facets of Understanding” because none of us really had any experience with this.  Having the template on our CoETaIL wiki helped a little, but we were unsure of what exactly to write.  This provoked some discussion about our own understanding and together we were able to nut it out.  Fabulous cooperation, contributing and collaboration!  You can read our Project Page here – although please note it’s still a work in progress.  We are going to share it with the rest of our team and have them add their input too, as we believe this has the potential to be a wicked Social Issues Unit for Literacy!  We welcome any feedback or suggestions you might have – just scroll down to the bottom and start a thread!

It really is hard to believe that Course 1 is complete.  The weeks went fast, the readings were thought-provoking, reaffirming and sometimes prickly. But that’s ok – we’re life long learners and this is what life long learners do – extend themselves, challenge themselves and learn new things.  There’s more photos in my flickr photostream of Course 1 if you’re interested.

Is my journey of learning continuing?
Crossing the bridge as I hit “publish“.

Bring on Course 2!