my classroom

I’ve written about how one of my personal goals this year is to jump in with my Promethean Interactive Board and try to use it to its fullest this year (as opposed to last year, when it was a nice expensive projector). Since the start of the year, we’ve used the ActiveVotes to study for quizzes and spark discussions before starting new units; I’ve used the “containers” system for some interactive activities at the board; I’ve handed the pen over to kids any number of times and let them come up and annotate text and answer questions; and more.

This past week, I grabbed the one set of devices in our school known as ActivExpressions for use in a vocabulary activity. These handheld devices are different than the ActiVotes, in that the user (student) can do a variety of things, including provide numerical answers and type in their own words as responses. You can even fashion an activity with a variety of kinds of responses (which is a nice bit of flexibility) and even quickly put a question on the board that comes up unexpectedly in discussions, and have kids answer it within in minutes. (Of course, they would have to have the ActivExpression at their desk). It’s a bit like bringing texting into the classroom. The devices work just like a cell phone, as you punch through the letters to spell a word.

It was simple to set up and pretty interesting to watch.

On tough questions that required some deep thinking and responses, you could hear a pin drop in the room as they were writing out answers. Looking at the spelling of the words (which gets displayed on the board in a chart, which you can save and which allows you to also isolate data from individual users), you could see all of the mannerisms of texting (the dropped vowels and shorted word parts), even though I told them to spell the words correctly. In one class, one student urged his classmates to “use a capital letter at the start and a smiley face at the end” so that all of those would get grouped together on the chart. In each class, there was usually an informal race to be the first to finish (the marathon texters came to light).

They loved the devices because it reminded them of using cell phones outside of school, but was it a solid learning tool?

I don’t know.

Honestly, I need to learn more about the possibilities and maybe see more models in action. From a “time” perspective, it wasn’t a very efficient use of the class period. Some kids take forever to text. And you have to wait for everyone to be done before showing the graph. I could have done the same activity on paper, in about half the time, and gotten pretty much the same data set on my own.

I still have an open mind about it, but I’ll have to have a better justification for using this technology other than it’s just cool for my students and reminds them of their cell phone. I need more than that, as a teacher (even one who believes in technology). I need to do more work on my end before I have them doing the learning on their end.

Peace (in the expressions),
Kevin

PS — And I kept thinking, what would my webcomic character Boolean do with this device? He’d hack into it for some sort of mischief, I am sure.

We’re only a few weeks into the year, but a few of my students are already on the radar. You are probably in the same situation — noticing and making notes of students who will be needing a little more support and attention as writers and readers. We’re still finishing up our digital story project, but as in other years, I am noticing how this kind of technology project can engage the reluctant writers I am already seeing. This one student really struggled with sentence flow, and syntax, and getting ideas down on paper, but they have flourished with the Dream Scene digital story project, so much so that every single day they are asking if I can share their project with all of my classes.

They would never, not in a million years, do that with a written piece of writing.

I was thinking of this the other day — of what is it about the technology aspect that can provide an inroad for some of our reluctant writers to be successful, and feel successful, even though they don’t see themselves as writers. In this case, this student gets so frustrated with other assignments, they often just give up, hang their head and shut down.

So why this project?

First of all, the “writing” is hidden. Their writing is a script, a piece of narration, and so all spelling, grammar and other mechanics that often gum up their writing is behind the veil. This gives the student some power and some authority over the “content” of the piece as opposed to the “mechanics” of the piece. We’ll work on mechanics this year, for sure, but here, that isn’t the main thing that readers/viewers will see.

Second, there was a set structure to their pieces (what is your dream, why is it important, how will you achieve it) that kept the writing from getting too open-ended and unfocused. We’ll be moving on to more open writing later in the year, and I know I will need work on hard with storyboarding, and graphic organizers, and more. But for now, this structure was a comfort zone for my reluctant writers.

Third, the art element of illustrating your own digital story empowered the strengths of this particular student. They spent a lot of time on the art, erasing and restarting a handful of times to get it just right. There was a real pride in what they were doing, and that pride-fulness carried over into the digital story component of the piece. I want to note that in the illustration, the self-portrait shows my student smiling and in full focus. I love that self-perception, which we don’t always see in them in the classroom, unfortunately.

Fourth, if you listen, you can hear this student perceiving an audience. They know we will be watching it together in the classroom (and we may be sharing these over at Youth Voices, too). The sense that more than me, the teacher, would be the viewer gave a little push to try a little harder, and to not be afraid to get the picture right, and get the narration right, even if it meant slowing down and starting over (something they would almost never do with a piece of written work. They write; it’s done.)

Finally, they were creating an original video, for the first time ever. Too many young people are cast into the role of consumer, or viewer, and not enough into the role of producer. Even with this short digital story, the expertise was in their hands, and they were creating something original. The power of that act is very motivating for young people.

I’m as proud of what this student has accomplished as they are of themselves, and my task now is to keep nurturing that motivation and using that interest to work on writing skills. I will keep referring back to this early success as an example of what they can do, instead of pounding it into their head the thing they lack. The deficit model won’t work so well in this situation.

This young writer is being built, one digital story at a time.

Peace (in the mulling over),
Kevin