Monthly Archives: February 2011

An apt metaphor for my classroom yesterday was a busy bee hive, as my students zoomed around to different stations that we had set up to share out their invented words. Along the rim of the classroom, I had set up stations of laptops that were on our Crazy  Collaborative Dictionary (see yesterday’s post). On the blackboard, I had four large pieces of chart paper, where they were writing their words and definitions. And at my desk, I had a podcast station set up for recording their words and definitions.

I was monitoring this all with the eyes on the back of my head, as I did the main recording of the podcasts with Audacity, and then quickly converted the files into MP3, and then uploaded into my Box. net sharing account.

It’s on days like this that I realize why some teachers might worry about moving such technology projects into their classrooms. There is a bit of controlled mayhem that goes on. But the kids were great, and there was lots of laughing and talking about words they were inventing. We had a long conversation in one class about how they might actually get one of their words into the real dictionary (not just our online one).

Why do we do this activity? As part of our study of how words come into our English language, I want them to understand that language is not static; it is always growing, shifting, changing. Words reflect our times. The act of invention here is a fun activity, but in the world, words are invented for things that have a new nuance, or represent a shift in thinking, or are adapted for something new. Words are not shackles that hem in our thinking. Words are part of the vibrancy of our lives.

I also gave a mini-lesson on wikis, since we use Wikispaces as the home of our dictionary work: what wikis are and how to use them and how they can foster collaborative writing. That discussion touched on Wikipedia, of course, but also Wikianswers and now, Wikileaks. My hope is that the word “wiki” now has some context for them when they hear it referenced in the news. And of course, we talked about the word “wiki” itself (Hawaiian, meaning “quick”).

When I get the 2011 Crazy Dictionary up to speed (and also the larger Crazy Dictionary featuring words from 2005-2011), I’ll share it out, but I thought it would be fun to share a folder of some of the podcasting. I really enjoy hearing them saying their words, particularly as the audio files will become a permanent part of our growing dictionary project.

Peace (in the wordy words),
Kevin

Frindle: Words from Mr. Hodgson on Vimeo.

Today, we will be jumping on our class wiki site and students will be adding newly-invented words to an ongoing collaborative project: constructing a dictionary of made-up words. It’s called collaborative because since 2005, my students have each been adding one or two words every year to the Crazy Collaborative Dictionary wiki site (and adding podcasts the last few years). We now have about 500 words on the site, and another 80 or so will be added to the mix this year.

What I find interesting is that many of my current students have older siblings who also took part in the Crazy Collaborative Dictionary, which means they are collaborating across time. This is one of the beauties of an online space – the collaboration can go horizontal (across class) and vertical (across time).

They began their work last week as I read parts of the book Frindle by Andrew Clements to them. A fair number had read the book when they were younger, but there are some wonderful sections in there about the power of words and language. We then talked about William Shakespeare and his impact on our language even today. We spoke about the framework of Romeo and Juliet and Hamlet and other plays, and the foundation they have laid for so many plot devices in movies and books today. And we talked about how Shakespeare introduced hundreds of new words and phrases to our language, finding gaps between what he wanted to say and what words were available to express that meaning.

I have shared some of the newest words in the Oxford English Dictionary from 2010:

And showcased some past words from the Crazy Dictionary:

Today, they will get on the wiki, add their words, create a podcast of their word and definition, create a wall chart of their new words and begin to have fun with this invented language.

Who knows what words will emerge today?

Peace (in the language),
Kevin

We are in our second year of conducting Fountas & Pinnell Benchmark Reading Assessments as part of a Literacy Initiative. While most teachers have a class of about 20 students to assess, I teach 77 students. I’ve been keeping track of the time I have had to spend on average for each assessment because the F/P folks say you should be able to winnow it down to about 20 minutes per student, once you know the system and have a good baseline for beginning (based on the assessment from the prior year).

If you are unfamiliar with Fountas & Pinnell Benchmark:

• There is a box of levels books
• Each level has both fiction and non-fiction text
• A student reads aloud a portion and then read the rest, silently
• The teacher marks for accuracy during read-aloud
• A discussion follows around comprehension related to information from the book, about the book and beyond the book (inference)
• You find an independent reading level, an instructional reading level and a hard reading level

But I am still finding it takes about 40 minutes per student. And even when I received some help from one our most experienced reading assessment specialists in our school, she was able to assess just four students in three hours time. So I know it is not just me. The silent reading of the upper level texts takes some time for kids, and you can’t rush them. You just have to wait them out.

A little calculation here: 77 students x 40 minutes = 3080 minutes, or a little over 51 hours of reading assessment testing. For me and my students. That means time I am not in the classroom, either, since although F/P folks say you can set up in the back of the classroom while the other students are working independently, that doesn’t work for older students. The readers become very self-conscious and the rest of the students try to listen in, ruining the element of unknown text.

Yesterday, I finally finished my last student (and I can say this, with all the irony you can read into it, given my online connections: I am sick and tired of hearing about the Internet, which is the topic of one of the higher level books in the assessment. I am also a bit weary of tsunamis, and living through the Blitz, and many of the other fictional stories in the set.)

So, is this data collection valuable?

Yes, definitely. Not only am I getting a much deeper glance into the individual reader, I am seeing the bigger picture based on the data collection (which I am collating with other data points, such as our state’s standardized testing results). If you look at the graph above, you can see that most of my students are solidly in the right instructional level. I now have a subset of struggling readers and, just as important, a group of readers that need more challenges.

Yesterday, for example, I had two readers who were like mirror opposites of each other. One of them read fluently, with almost no mistakes or errors, but then could barely answer any of the comprehension questions. The other stumbled as they read, made many errors, but then soared through the comprehension questions, for the most part. Which is the stronger reader? It depends, right? But I now have a much clearer picture of them as readers, thanks to the assessment.

I also have a clearer picture now of which students are struggling in sixth grade. Of course, I already knew much of that, based on work in class and discussions with colleagues, but here, the data fine-tunes those insights and should give me specific areas that I can work on with those students in the lower brackets of reading levels. (We’re still in training on how to interpret all of the errors in the system, however. That work will lead to development of intervention for us in the upper grades; reading intervention programs are now confined to the lower grades)

And, as we move farther into the year, particularly around independent reading, I can have a much better informed say in what level of books they should be choosing, based on the Instructional Levels. I have a basis for saying “you know, that book looks a little too easy for you” or “that book may be a bit hard, but give it a try and see how you do.”

The downsides of all this, however, is that during the assessments, I am not in the classroom during those dozens of hours of testing (although I grab students during non-class times and I have had substitutes and fellow educators fill in, and two colleagues helped with some of the assessments), and so the pace of learning slows during these cycles (We’re supposed to do it again in June) and unfortunately, there is no extension of the F/P reading system in the regional middle school where my students head next year. Last year, they told me they didn’t even want to see the data I had collected (that still irks me).

But yesterday, in the hallway, our principal stopped me and said that may be changing. The Literacy Initiative and its professional development components are now extending up through eighth grade (as opposed to stopping with us here in sixth grade).

So, there is some hope.

Peace (in the data),
Kevin

We’re in the midst of learning all about the origins of words in the English Language and this week, we plunged our way into Eponyms (words that have someone’s name or part of their name in them.) As a writing prompt, I had them invent something (machine, food, animal, whatever) and then name the thing after themselves. They had to do a sketch drawing, with labels, and then write a brief description of their eponymous inventions.

They had great fun with the activity, and they shared out yesterday. The inventions included time travel machines, odd food snacks, writing utensils that work almost like magic, beasts with assorted parts from other animals, and the perennial homework contraption.

As always, I came up with my own, inspired by being tired of having to have headphones or ear buds on to listen to music. I always wondered: what if we could create a music cloud around our heads? Thus, the Hodg-o-Hat Music Cloud (trademarked, so no stealing my ideas, man!)

Peace (in the cloud),
Kevin

A conversation last week with students had me revising some of my lesson planning yesterday in a way that I won’t ever regret. The conversation was about my sixth grade students and their online lives, and how the things they do now, today, might impact the things they want to do tomorrow. I know a lot of high schools are working this idea of online responsibility and reputation into their curriculum (right?) but I need to expose my students, too.

This all began as we were beginning our work with Glogster, and setting up accounts for students.  I had already done most of the legwork but I wanted to show them how to change their passwords and how to edit their profile in our closed system of our classrooms. I told them that I wanted to see only first names and last initials.

“Why not our last names?” asked one student.

Here, I went into my routine of explaining how, even in a closed online system like our Glogster site and even our Bitstrips Webcomic site, I want them to use only first name, last initial so that they get “used to never identifying who you are online.”

“What about Facebook?” this student quickly countered. A few heads nodded in the room. I thought back to a day earlier, when I was at our school’s Facebook site and noticed one of my students who had “liked” the site and read with dismay his full name (he is only 12 years old).

I launched into an impromptu discussion then about the rules of Facebook (no one under 13 is allowed to have an account), about privacy issues around personal information, about safety issues, and then ended the conversation with a suggestion that any student on Facebook should consider getting off it until they are 13 and they have their parents’ permission to get back on. (I didn’t ask how many were on Facebook without their parents’ knowledge, which I am sure is a few.)

But it bugged me that I wasn’t better prepared for that discussion. And it bugged me that clearly, some parents were not having these discussions at home with their children.

When it comes to online identity, it’s clear that our kids are not even thinking about it. They jump in, explore, post and comment, create and publish — all the things that I as a teacher want to nurture — but they do it without a single thought to what they are doing, and what tiny digital scraps of themselves they are leaving behind. While some students “construct” online versions of themselves (with avatars, with profile information, etc.), I don’t believe many of them are doing it with forethought. It’s just something cool they can do, so they do do it. What we want is a reflective stance, so that they choices they make have meaning and value, and come from the concept of “this is who I am online.” For my students, this rarely happens, as far as I can tell.

So, yesterday, we spent some a large chunk of time talking about why we protect our identity when in online spaces and strategies that we can use to cover our digital tracks. We began with the safety issue — of the “creeps” who use online sites to do creepy things — and I talked about how those events will get big headlines in the news, but are in reality very rare. Which is not to say things never happen, but they are rare. My message: don’t be afraid – be cautious. Be alert. Be thoughtful.

Then, we talked about the bigger topic of Protecting Online Reputations. I could see this was something very few of my students had ever even considered — that the things they are posting today might have an impact on their lives tomorrow, or a few years down the road. I showed them the CommonCraft video Protecting Online Reputations in Plain English, which does such a nice job of addressing this issue in a balanced way. One thing I like is that the video talks about the responsibility of protecting reputations falls not only you but also on us — the circle of friends who might post a picture or video or something inappropriate without our knowledge.

A paraprofessional in one of my classes who has a son who is an athlete at our district high school explained, too, that coaches, the vice principal and others scour Facebook for the student athlete accounts, and any inappropriate pictures or videos or writing that does not conform to schools standards has been grounds for dismissal from sports teams. That drew shocked sounds from the class.

And, I noted, what seems funny today might not seem so funny in a few years, and maybe won’t be any laughing matter when they are sitting in a job interview and that joke gets pulled up on a potential employer’s screen. (I know getting a job seems far away for them at this age, but still …)

We then brainstormed some ideas for how we can protect ourselves and our reputations when we go online:

Come up with good passwords (I think this will be a topic for another day)

Share concerns with a trusted adult (parent, teacher, etc.)

Don’t post inappropriate content (pictures, videos, etc.)

Remember your responsibility to your friends when you post information about them

Remember that nothing is temporary (search web crawlers make archives of everything)

Use the “privacy” option in networking sites so that only invited friends can view your content

Don’t use technology (instant messaging, email, networking) to “flame” or bully others

Don’t use an actual image for your avatar

Keep your last name private

And this is important: I balanced all of this alarming talk with the positive elements of the online world. There are so many potential great things, and more on the horizon, that one should not be fearful of doing anything. But we users need to make sure that the image of ourselves, and our reputation, is something we create, and is not created by others.

I suggested a bit of homework to them: Google yourselves and see what you find. And then, do it again in six months. And then again, in another six months. Keep track of your digital footprints.

Peace (in the reputation),
Kevin