Anchor is a new social media platform where the discussion happens completely in audio recordings. Users get 2 minutes to introduce their topic and then anyone listening can respond with a 1 minute recording. It's sort of a mix between blogging, twitter, and podcasting. Here's my first go, I'd love to hear what you think. Let's make some waves!
Showing posts with label Blogging. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Blogging. Show all posts
Sunday, April 3, 2016
Tuesday, June 9, 2015
Ending the Year with Blogging
In PYP 7 the last Unit Of Inquiry for the school year is Communicating Through Technology. What a great unit! (no bias here) Together with the year group teachers we decided to let the communicate openly with only a slight bit of focusing by us. I came into the classes and gave them an introduction to Blogs. We looked at some inspiring blogs created by other kids about the same age as them and then gave them the task of creating a group blog about their interests. Not a class blog with pictures of the work they had done and upcoming parent meeting times, but a class blog that communicates who they are. We gathered ideas about broader interests that they might share so that the kids could group themselves together, however they also all have more than one interest and we allowed them to be in more than one group. Then, we let them go at it.
Within a couple of days each of the class blogs had upwards of thirty posts. The kids were thoroughly engaged (and still are) as it gave them a platform for them to express their authentic voice. We could have gone through and made each student hand in a rough draft, edits, and a final perfected version before publishing, but that wasn't the objective of our unit, and it probably would have killed most if not all motivation. I had one student who went home over the weekend and wrote five posts tracking the FIFA scandal. The posts were so well written that I assumed he had just copied them from another source, but after checking I found it to be his own work. When I talked to his teacher about the writing he had done she told me that he never does his homework, when he is asked to do writing in school he gives little effort even though we all know that he a bright student. He has found his authentic voice.
There were students who, yes, completely copied information they found on another website, put into the blog and called it theirs. I was hoping that these things would come up because it provided the opportunity to teach in a situation that is real. I came into the class and together we looked at how we could rewrite the post so that it was the students own work. There were many students who after seeing the post that I pointed out that had copied, went back into their own posts and changed them to be their own words. They were asking great questions like "what if I write someones birthdate or where they were born that I found on another webpage, is that plagiarism?" "How do I write it if it was exactly what someone said?" They are not being told what plagiarism or intellectual property is, they are inquiring about it and finding out for themselves.
http://pyp7-22ideas.blogspot.com.br/
http://pyp7omega.blogspot.com.br/
http://thebestblogpyp7.blogspot.com.br/
Within a couple of days each of the class blogs had upwards of thirty posts. The kids were thoroughly engaged (and still are) as it gave them a platform for them to express their authentic voice. We could have gone through and made each student hand in a rough draft, edits, and a final perfected version before publishing, but that wasn't the objective of our unit, and it probably would have killed most if not all motivation. I had one student who went home over the weekend and wrote five posts tracking the FIFA scandal. The posts were so well written that I assumed he had just copied them from another source, but after checking I found it to be his own work. When I talked to his teacher about the writing he had done she told me that he never does his homework, when he is asked to do writing in school he gives little effort even though we all know that he a bright student. He has found his authentic voice.
There were students who, yes, completely copied information they found on another website, put into the blog and called it theirs. I was hoping that these things would come up because it provided the opportunity to teach in a situation that is real. I came into the class and together we looked at how we could rewrite the post so that it was the students own work. There were many students who after seeing the post that I pointed out that had copied, went back into their own posts and changed them to be their own words. They were asking great questions like "what if I write someones birthdate or where they were born that I found on another webpage, is that plagiarism?" "How do I write it if it was exactly what someone said?" They are not being told what plagiarism or intellectual property is, they are inquiring about it and finding out for themselves.
http://pyp7-22ideas.blogspot.com.br/
http://pyp7omega.blogspot.com.br/
http://thebestblogpyp7.blogspot.com.br/
Monday, November 24, 2014
Blogging for Learning
Some of our teachers at St. Francis have begun to use Blogs to enrich learning. Their students are creating blogs as if they were a character from the book, The Outsiders, that they have been reading. The first thing I noticed as I was helping out with the set up of the blogs, was how engaged the students were with the technology and even more so with the content of the book. They(most of them) were immediately taken into the mindset of the character that they were writing as, whether that be by beginning to write posts, looking for pictures to accompany their posts, or choosing layout and themes for their site that best create the mood of their character.
I hope that the students continue to demonstrate the benefits of blogging to their learning throughout this unit.
http://langwitches.org/blog/2014/11/23/blogging-for-learning-mulling-it-over/
This is from a blog that I subscribe to called Langwitches, written by Silvia Rosenthal Tolisano. The diagram she has created does a nice job of showing what keys to learning are happening and when within the cycle of blog writing.
I hope that the students continue to demonstrate the benefits of blogging to their learning throughout this unit.
http://langwitches.org/blog/2014/11/23/blogging-for-learning-mulling-it-over/
This is from a blog that I subscribe to called Langwitches, written by Silvia Rosenthal Tolisano. The diagram she has created does a nice job of showing what keys to learning are happening and when within the cycle of blog writing.
Tuesday, November 18, 2014
ONLINE TIMELINE
Poppy's Timeline
If you are looking for an alternative for the static, hand-drawn, poster-board timelines of yesteryear here is an excellent option for your students. TimeGlider
I found that some of the other online timeline creators were not that user-friendly, crashed, or lacked in their capabilities. The free version of TimeGlider is sleek, user-friendly, and has a lot of capabilities. The paid version has even more, but is unnecessary for most purposes.
One of the biggest issues I was having with other web-based timeline software was that they would only allow you to upload photos that were being web-hosted by another program(Flickr, PhotoBucket...) and not from your files on your computer. Since I don't have a web-hosting photo program it made creating a timeline quite difficult. TimeGlider allows you to upload from either a web-host or from your own computer.
The other big benefit is the ease of linking youtube or vimeo videos to your timeline. However it only displays as a link. It would much cooler if you could imbed the video into the timeline.
Another nice feature of TimeGlider is that once you have created the timeline you can share it publicly either in a link, as in the one at the top called Poppy's Timeline, or imbed the timeline into your website or blog as seen at the top. The only real issue I'm having with this is to see the pictures in the embedded timeline the reader has to drag the bottom line, that says "this is the image lane" up
Sunday, November 9, 2014
Article Response "Start a Reading Revolution: Flip Your Class With Blogs"
Start a Reading Revolution: Flip Your Class With Blogs
I was just reading this article and felt a strong connection to the kids comments about having books chosen for us and having to come up with these "feelings" that the text was supposed to draw out of us. I never read the books that were assigned, or at least not in their entirety. I was a slow reader and thought that books were not for me. Then a friend lent me The Celestine Prophecy when I was in high school and it changed my viewpoint about reading. It was my choice and that made all the difference. I had the opportunity to connect to the text.
I think the author hits the nail on the head about the power of blogs to transform learning in these two ways:
"The blogs add a maker mentality, stirring the imagination to create, design, and tinker."
This makes the student the owner of their learning. They are not just responding to someone else's work, they are creating their own and this is something that they can feel a sense of pride from.
"Once students publish a post, their writing passes the four walls of the classroom and exists to the world. This puts their work "out there," and that changes how they approach their writing."
When we know other people are going to see or there is a possibility of a whole lot of people seeing our work, an internal drive turns on and says "I better make this good". Not only does this promote better writing but it helps students find and develop their own voice.
Let's start a conversation in our school about students being able to publish their work.
I was just reading this article and felt a strong connection to the kids comments about having books chosen for us and having to come up with these "feelings" that the text was supposed to draw out of us. I never read the books that were assigned, or at least not in their entirety. I was a slow reader and thought that books were not for me. Then a friend lent me The Celestine Prophecy when I was in high school and it changed my viewpoint about reading. It was my choice and that made all the difference. I had the opportunity to connect to the text.
I think the author hits the nail on the head about the power of blogs to transform learning in these two ways:
"The blogs add a maker mentality, stirring the imagination to create, design, and tinker."
This makes the student the owner of their learning. They are not just responding to someone else's work, they are creating their own and this is something that they can feel a sense of pride from.
"Once students publish a post, their writing passes the four walls of the classroom and exists to the world. This puts their work "out there," and that changes how they approach their writing."
When we know other people are going to see or there is a possibility of a whole lot of people seeing our work, an internal drive turns on and says "I better make this good". Not only does this promote better writing but it helps students find and develop their own voice.
Let's start a conversation in our school about students being able to publish their work.
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