Author Archives: dogtrax

Thinking about the Challenges of Tech PD

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Over at our iAnthology network, our discussion around the book Because Digital Writing Matters continues. This week, we dove into the topic of “professional development” with technology. Since this is a book written by National Writing Project folks, and since the iAnthology is made up of NWP teachers, it makes sense that we think through the issues of how best to bring technology to the table of professional development.

Here is what I contributed earlier this week, via Cinch.

Peace (in PD),
Kevin

The Environmental Essay Voicethread

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I knew that when we launched into our recent essay project around environmental themes that we would be sharing them out at the Voices on the Gulf website. We’ve been using the site now and then throughout the year for inquiry work around the environment, starting with the Gulf Oil Spill and then shifting outward.

But I was worried that essays would become too text-heavy, particularly when there are close to 80 of them. I finally decided that I wanted our students to podcast their essays, and Voicethread seemed the easiest and most logical way to do that, since all of their podcasts could be collected around some general themes and pulled together in one large project that could be embedded in multiple sites.

Here, then, is the Environmental Essay Voicethread. We’ve left a slide open for viewers to leave their own comments, too, so feel free to share the thread with your own students and ask them to contribute.
Peace (in the threads),
Kevin

WMWP: Tapping into our Mission Statement

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WMWP Mission Brainstorm
Yesterday, members of the Western Massachusetts Writing Project leadership team met to begin a discussion about the future of our organization now that federal support for the National Writing Project has disappeared. It’s an uncertain time for us, and for all NWP sites. And the discussion is sure to stretch into next year.

The activity that started us off was to look deeper at our WMWP Mission Statement, which we developed last year after a year of inquiry work, and which now is something that we see as our guide forward. We spent a lot of time, and a lot of reflective thinking, on the writing of the mission statement. As we struggle with where funds should go, and how to gain more support, our site director, Anne Herrington, reminded us that we need to maintain the values that we hold dear in the WMWP. The mission statement can help us in this regard.

We spent some time reading the mission statement and pulling out words and phrases that seemed most important, or most central, to us. Then, we shared out those phrases and discussed what they meant. The Wordle above are some of the central ideas that came out of that discussion.

This is our full mission statement:

The mission of the Western Massachusetts Writing Project, a local site of the National Writing Project, is to create a professional community where teachers and other educators feel welcomed to come together to deepen individual and collective experiences as writers and our understanding of teaching and learning in order to challenge and transform our practice. Our aim is to improve learning in our schools — urban, rural and suburban.

Professional development provided by the Western Massachusetts Writing Project values reflection and inquiry and is built on teacher knowledge, expertise, and leadership.

Central to our mission is the development of programs and opportunities that are accessible and relevant to teachers, students, and their families from diverse backgrounds, paying attention to issues of race, gender, language, class and culture and how these are linked to teaching and learning.

We then began to talk about what programs represent those ideas. We’re trying to determine which areas of WMWP should remain the central backbone of who we are and what we do. It was decided that the Summer Institute, the English Language Learners network, our Best Practices conference, professional development with schools and continuity programs for teachers must remain a top priority.

The message that came out from the meeting is: we’re down but not out, and we will find  a way not only to survive, but to thrive. I don’t think we are afraid to change, as long as we keep the values of our program alive. Coming at it from that angle gives a clearer sense of possibilities, I think.

Peace (in the writing projects),
Kevin

Environmental Essays: The MultiMedia Poster Collection

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This is the first in a series of posts about the ways in which my students shared out their Environmental Persuasive Essays via technology and media elements. Here, some students worked on Glogster to create a multimedia companion to their essay projects. The goal was to have a media project that complemented the persuasive stance of their essay writing.
The Environmental MultiMedia Poster Collection
You need Flash plugin!

Peace (in the podcast),
Kevin

Some More Thoughts from the NWP Web Retreat

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We’re still working here in Kansas City around creating interactive, social networking spaces for National Writing Project teachers. I’ve been using Cinchcast to add some reflective podcast thoughts. Give a listen if you want to hear what’s been on my mind after a full day of “playing” and “building” in the Drupal site:

Peace (in KC),
Kevin

Some Initial Thoughts on NWP Web Presence

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I am in Kansas City with a whole group of very talented and smart representatives of the National Writing Project where we are exploring ways we can use a new NWP Social Networking site to the advantage of the teachers in our various sites. Last night, we had some initial activities, including discussing the elements of a website that makes us want to come back it time and again. Themes that emerged included:

  • Usefulness to a specific interest
  • Fun, and use of humor
  • Collaborative elements
  • The voice of someone with experience
  • Multiple points of entry to content
  • Easy to navigate
  • and more

We then broke into our site teams (I am here with a wonderful teacher from the Springfield schools) and worked on a paper activity using widgets that might be available as we work today to design our space. My partner, Anne Marie, and I talked about simplicity of design and which elements would allow for the easiest way for our teachers to enter into conversations. It was pretty interesting and will lay the groundwork for some activities today.

Peace (in the NWP),
Kevin

Connecting with NWP (Connect)

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Three-Words for Online-You on Prezi

I am off to Kansas City today to join so many other colleagues in the National Writing Project to learn about and go deeper into the fairly-new social networking platform of the NWP, which is called NWP Connect. With federal support now gone for NWP, a lot of sites like my own Western Massachusetts Writing Project is gearing up to use an online presence to keep a firm foothold in the world of teaching and professional development, and keeping our NWP folks connected.

This week’s NWP Web Retreat should allow us time to conceptualize how that might look and how we might use this new space for both connecting to the larger NWP network, and also, constructing smaller “communities” for our sites right in that larger space. For us at WMWP, this dovetails nicely with an ongoing effort to revamp and relaunch our website this summer. We’ve had lots of ideas in the past around lesson plan sharing, writing spaces, professional development, and more that could find a home inside the NWP Connect space.

The retreat also comes right before an important meeting we are having at WMWP on Monday in which we really brainstorm what our network will look like as funding comes to a close, and how we can best survive. I am hoping some of the ideas from this weekend will help me share out some possibilities with online spaces during those difficult conversations.

A few weeks ago, when we started the planning, I sent out an email to all the folks going to the retreat. I shared out a Prezi Meeting space and asked them to consider using it to write three words that describe their online selves — sort of an identity idea. A handful of my friends took me up on the offer, and the Prezi up above is the result of that sharing via Prezi Meeting (which I hadn’t used before, so I was curious to see how it would go).

Peace (with a little bbq sauce on the side),
Kevin

Gaw — I didn’t let them play

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(Note: I am scattering some of our essay podcasts throughout this post)


I had such grand plans that I completely forgot my own mantra of “let them play” when it comes to trying out new technology. The result? I was scrambling, feeling frustrated, watching the clock roll down and building a larger headache as the day went on — literally.

Let me back up.

Yesterday, I showed my students how to use Garageband to create podcasts. The idea is for them to create a podcast version of the Persuasive Environmental Essay Project they had just completed. The essay was to be their script. Once the podcast was done, they were to go to a Voicethread that I have set up, and upload the audio file.


I also knew that we only had the Mac cart for the day, so I decided that we just did not have the time or luxury to “play” with Garageband. I am a big advocate of when you put a new tool into the hands of students, you need to give them ample time to experiment, play and get used to the tool. I didn’t do that, to my regret. Some students played anyway, wasting precious time making loops of little yells and sound effects. Others didn’t quite understand how to remove tracks that you didn’t like, and start over at the beginning of the track (why doesn’t Gband do that automatically? I mean, come on). So, their audio has stretches of silence at the start. And so on.

Which isn’t to say that a lot didn’t get done. Many of my students in the four classes did the tasks I gave them: create a podcast and upload it into our Voicethread. But I need to catch up with a few students in the next week and see if I can help them finish up what they started.


Even with my growing headache, though, I could tell the podcasting idea was successful on other levels. Many of them were making revisions on their essays after reading it for the podcast. This connection between reading, listening and revision is something I am very interested in. (note to self: don’t forget it). The essays are pretty powerful, and meaningful, and hearing students read their own essays gives the topics a further punch.

Today, the media projects are due, and I am already seeing some fantastic work in multimedia expression, and I wonder what else will be coming into the classroom. This partnership of essay writing, multimedia composition, and podcasting/publishing really ties together so many strands that I find important.


I need to be patient, though. I need to remember that time to play is not time wasted. It’s a time of learning that pays off with the quality of work at the end of the line. I need to remember that.

Peace (in the play),
Kevin

We have an Essay … Now let’s build a Legacy

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I’ve never quite been a big fan of the five paragraph essay, although I am required to teach its beginnings to my sixth graders and I do see the merit of developing an idea over a longer stretch of time. Today, my students will come to class with their essay projects built around a persuasive stance on an environmental topic. They have worked hard on the writing, and the last thing I want to do is be the sole audience for their work.

I keep coming back to a term that a keynote speaker used in a recent conference (it may have been Alan November) about technology giving young people the means to leave behind a “legacy” of ideas for other students following in their footsteps. I really love that concept, and that remark reminded me of one of the things that technology can do: provide an authentic writing space that doesn’t disappear when the school year ends.

So, today, my students will be learning how to use Garageband for podcasting (some, for the first time). They will record their essays with their own voice. Then, we will head back to Voicethread to upload those podcasts on a thread that I built around their environmental topics. And we won’t be done yet. Along with publishing the Voicethread at our classroom blog site, we intend to publish the work at the Voices on the Gulf site (which we have been using sporadically this year as our inquiry focus touched on environmental issues) and possibly, over at the revamped Youth Voices site, which now has a space for elementary students.

We’ll also be finishing up and publishing the various “media” and technology projects that are associated with the essays, giving more depth to the traditional five paragraph essay venture. Students are working on glogs, videos, powerpoints, and more.

These various components around composing — technology, publishing, voice, audience — are really motivating many of my students during a time of the year when their motivation often sags a bit. I’m very proud of their work, and best of all — so are they. And their voice is part of the Legacy they will be leaving behind at the end of the sixth grade.

Peace (in the legacy),
Kevin