They Need a Lesson on Flashdrives

by dogtrax

http://www.smashinglists.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/Guitar-usb-flash-drive-2.jpg

Just when you think that a class of kids might have more technology savvy skills than the previous year, something happens that makes you realize that you had best lay those assumptions aside and go back to the basics. We’re in the mist of a digital storytelling unit right now and many of my sixth graders have flash drives. They keep pulling them out of their binders and backpacks –  multi-gig memory devices shaped like pigs, guitars, skateboards, footballs, angry birds, and just about every cute design you can think of that cost about 10 bucks — and asking, “Can I use this?” as if they have been waiting all summer for the opportunity.

I assumed that question meant they knew how to use flash drives. Wrong assumption. Most don’t have a clue. They just have the device, which we do recommend for our students but don’t require. I even have to explain how flash drives get plugged into the USB ports because the first question is often, “What do I do with this?” as they hold it up in the air.

“Plug it in the USB.”

“Which one?” is familiar follow-up question, as the student stares at the three ports on the back of the laptops.

That becomes a quick lesson in “it doesn’t matter” because the computer will figure it out.

“Oh.”

And then just as I am about to go off to help someone else, I hear, “Now what?”

As I went through this process, with some variations, for the umpteenth time on Friday, I realized that a lesson in how to use a flash drive might be in order because I’d rather be using my time working with students on their digital stories, not walking them through how to plug in a flash drive and save to a file.

Sigh.

I also need to somehow remind them about saving to the flash drive AND the hard drive (although if our school had cloud storage and instant back-up ….). One student already lost her work when her flash drive crashed on her. She had only been doing her work on the flash drive, moving the files from home to school, and when her flash drive crapped out on her, her work was gone. I felt bad, although she seemed pretty resilient about it.

“I’ll redo it this weekend,” she said cheerfully.

Peace (in the basics),
Kevin

 

Graphic Novel Review: The Hobbit

by dogtrax

So, apparently today is “Hobbit Day,” celebrating the imaginary shared birthdays of Frodo and Bilbo Baggins. In honor of this day (ahem), I figured I should get around to writing a review that I meant to write over the summer. I read The Hobbit as read-aloud to my (now) 8 year old son (and then we got bogged down in Lord of the Rings trilogy), and he completely and utterly loved the story. After we ended the book, I found a graphic novel version in our local bookstore, and my son has had it in his room every since (which is why I kept forgetting to write a review of it).

I’m pretty sure there are a couple of graphic interpretations of the classic Tolkien novel but this one by illustrator David Wenzel (and adapted by Charles Dixon and Sean Deming) is pretty well-done and faithful to the original story, while moving it all in a very visual direction. The graphic novel covers the entire story and while it is a bit text-heavy (as if everything Tolkien — see my note above about getting bogged down in Lord of the Rings), this graphic interpretation is a wonderful companion piece to the book. I’m glad we read the book first, but my son made a great transition from the power of the read aloud (his own imagination) to the graphic novel version (someone else’s imagination) and we had some long discussions about the way Wenzel envisioned characters, scenes, etc.

What I like best is that the story has remained with my son over the months because the graphic novel is such an easy interface — he connects back to the story with the illustrations. I don’t think he reads all that much of the text in the graphic novel, but that is one of the powers of the graphics — the illustrations tell the story. And now we wait for the movie to start coming out, and he has repeatedly asked if he is old enough to see it. I think it will be one of those movie adventures that the two of us (we may even allow an older brother to join us) can experience over the next few years as the parts of The Hobbit movie come out.

But for now, Happy Hobbit Day. May you go wandering into adventure every day, and still find your way home.

Peace (in all the earths),
Kevin

PS — this is a pretty decent celebration post of The Hobbit at Wired Magazine.

 

The First of the (digital) Dreams is a Writer

by dogtrax


In class, many students are moving into Photostory3 as they begin the recording, editing and producing of their digital storytelling project to start our year: the Dream Scenes. They have the option of sharing the final videos at our sixth grade youtube account (they are surprised that we even have a youtube account but we most certainly do). The other day, the first dream scene was completed, and it’s a dream right for my heart: she wants to become a writer, and not just a writer, but a writer of a series of books.

The Dream Scene project consists of:

  • A writing prompt that becomes the script of the story, in which students say what a goal is for themselves, why it is important and how they are going to achieve it
  • An illustration created in MS Paint (A challenge for many of them) and no clip art allowed
  • A digital story video at the end, with voice, art, music and motion

Today, they’ll have more time to work on their projects and then the plan is to wrap it all up on Monday.

Peace (in the dreams, hopes and aspiration),
Kevin

 

Talking Common Core … with Parents

by dogtrax

Last night, we had our sixth grade curriculum night, and it was a fantastic turnout by parents. We didn’t have a ton of time with each class of parents, as they were moving through their child’s schedule, but along with talking about the books we will be reading and the kinds of writing we will be doing and the technology we will be using, I also focused my presentation on the shifts that are underway in our state’s curriculum (i.e., Common Core).

I want parents to understand how things are changing with the Common Core and what that means for their children in my classroom.

As a parent, I don’t think our state or anyone involved in my children’s school district has done nearly enough to give me information about what the influence of the Common Core is having on the learning environments for my children, which leads me to believe that probably very little is changing and little is taking place. Which worries me on a few levels: first, given some past history, some of the teachers my children have had could use a little shake-up (sorry, I hate to talk bad about colleagues in other school districts but we have had our frustrations with mediocre teachers). Second, the state assessment is about to completely change in the next year or two, and I wonder if my boys’ teachers in even understand that. Given the nearly zero amount of information flowing from the classrooms to our home, I’d say .. I don’t think so. And finally, given the push for higher level thinking expected out of my children in school, I want to know how I, as a parent, can help my kids and their teachers with these changes.

With that in mind, I try to bring forth as much information about our own ELA shifts as possible. I highlighted:

  • the move towards more informational/non-fiction text
  • our use of more complex texts that force students out of their comfort zones
  • teaching of  advanced research skills when using the Internet,
  • the need for more and more writing in the classroom
  • the highlighted domains of argumentative/persuasive and expository writing.

In discussions afterwards, a number of parents expressed an appreciation for the information overview, and we talked as a group about what this means for their children, and how, quite honestly, we are still figuring out the right balances of these new standards. I had an interesting discussion with a dad, who remembers even to this day the high school class he took in which he read “the classics,” and he worries about the loss of prominence of fiction reading and short story writing. I assured him we would be still be working on those areas, just not as much as in the past.

Still, I tried to keep it positive, without coming across as if I drank the Common Core Kool-aid. I noted that many of the shifts are important and critical skills for people to know in the informational age, and we would do our best to bring these 11 and 12 year old students along. But I was also frank in noting that developmentally, some sixth graders are ready for those complex, critical thinking skills, and some are going to struggle mightily. My role, I told parents, is to help my students make progress long multiple lines, and I asked them to make sure they stay involved, too.

Peace (in the core),
Kevin

 

Ben Folds Five and … The Fraggles?

by dogtrax


My kids never really got into The Fraggles, for some reason, but anything Henson is OK by me. Here, Ben Folds Five includes the Fraggle cast in a music video. The bigger idea is how the resurgent Henson Company is tapping the Muppets and their kin back into the pop culture discussion, after years on the outskirts (Thanks a lot, Disney). Plus, it’s Ben Folds. ‘Nuff said.

Peace (in the tune),
Kevin

 

Say What? Helping Confused Readers Cope

by dogtrax

crazy reading passage
Before we start off the year with novels and short stories and such, I spent quite a bit of time with my sixth graders, talking about reading strategies. This is even more important these days, when our new curriculum (Common Core) calls explicitly for more complex text, close reading skills, and pushing young readers to the stretching points. There are going to be times when they will be scratching their heads over something they have read, but not quite understood.

I tell them that when that happens to me, and it is a book I have chosen to read, I often given the text another try, paying closer attention, and if it is still beyond my understanding, I abandon the book. But, I remind them, with a text assigned to them, they don’t have that option, so they need some strategies for making some sense of confusing text.

This activity uses the very short story above (which I believe I found in some materials from a special education conference around dyslexia and reading difficulties, as a way to demonstrate to teachers the struggle that some students go through). First, I have a few students read it out loud to the class (much laughter). Then, I read it, in my best “read aloud” voice.

We then work through a series of questions, such as when did this story take place, who was in the Nerd-Link, what happened there, what did the ditty strezzle do, and what did Pribin chife to Flingledobe. There are typically many looks to me like, what? But I refer them back to the text itself, and remind them that they don’t need to interpret the meaning of the words, just the meaning of the story.

Then, we have our discussions, and it ranges from reading strategies and clues (quotation marks indicate communication, subject/predicate shows who is doing what, parts of speech help identify unknown words and phrases, etc.) They really get into the fact that they could make sense of something that does not make sense (more laughter when I say it like that), by becoming detectives examining the passage closely and by parts, instead of giving up on it. These are skill that we will work on all year long, but this kind of nonsensical prompt helps set the stage for those discussions.

Peace (in the story),
Kevin

 

Book Review: Just My Type

by dogtrax

 

I wasn’t sure what to expect with this book by Simon Garfield. But Just My Type, which looks at the world of font typesetting (yep – you read that right), is a fascinating look at how the way our letters and words look impact what they mean. There’s a history of typesetting and font creation here — from Gutenberg on to the present — and Garfield takes a number of side exits to look specifically at some styles of type and their founders. This book makes clear just how much artistry and work goes into the things most of us take for granted and how the aim of designers to make their work invisible to the average reader.

I’m developing a resource over at the National Writing Project’s Digital is site around font and writing — inspired by reading Garfield’s book — so I won’t get too much into the ways this topic might have us think about writing and design in new ways. Still, for what could be an arcane topic, Garfield’s lively writing and ability to explain font architecture to the layperson (me) made for a thoroughly enjoyable read.

And I know longer look at public signs on display and other kinds of writing the same way, either. Now, I think: what is the writing itself trying to convey? That’s the power of fonts.

Peace (in the font),
Kevin

 

Student Dreams and Aspirations

by dogtrax

Dreams Word Cloud 2012
We’re moving into our first technology project of the year: Dream Scenes Digital Storytelling. The other day, they began writing the prompt that will become the script of their short digital story, and I asked them to share out the dream or aspiration or goal they have for themselves so that I could make this word cloud that we will share.

I love the variety and the reach of ideas.

Peace (in the dream),
Kevin