Conversations about Tech 2: Digital Literacy, Equity and More

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This is the second in a series of three podcasts that captured a conversation I had at a local elementary school around technology. Part one was yesterday and it covered topics of outreach to the community and student engagement.

The second part of the podcast revolved around what we mean by digital literacies for young people, how this school (like mine) is shifting into interactive boards and what that means (or doesn’t yet mean) for the classroom, and then we moved into a really important part of the conversation: the idea that schools has an imperative to provide access to technology for ALL students and how equity has to be part of our conversations in schools.

Tomorrow, the last part of the podcast will be shared, and it covers some views around writing and ideas around how the modern world of media and technology is shaping our young people.

Peace (in the podcast),
Kevin

Student Book Glog: The Skull of Truth by Bruce Coville

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I was never a huge fan of Bruce Coville, so I can’t comment much on this book choice by one of my boys. I suspect he liked it only because he had to have some reading book and because the word “skull” was in the title. This student is one of those tricky ones — given a real choice, he would not read … at all. But his digital poster shows some thinking about what he was reading, anyway. I suspect he wanted something a little better.

Peace (in the skull),
Kevin

 

Conversations About Tech 1: Engagement, Outreach and More

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As I have mentioned in a few posts, I have had the privilege of working with some teachers at another elementary school in the past month through the work of the Western Massachusetts Writing Project, and I spent one whole day there recently, modeling some activities and exploring some ideas with the staff. At the end of the day, I sat down with the principal (Mike), the technology teacher (Liz), the literacy coach (Stephanie) and a lower elementary classroom teacher (Lauren) to talk technology for the school’s podcast feature on its website.

It was one of those great ideas for wrapping up the day, and we had a wonderful conversation that touched on a lot of different areas that relate to technology and learning. The school just posted the podcasts (the hour was wisely divided up into three shorter sections) and I asked the principal if I could grab a copy, and share the conversations out for others. He willingly agreed, and encouraged me to do so.

So I am going to be sharing out the three parts of the podcast over the next few days.

The first part of the podcast revolves around student learning and engagement, and I sought to define digital storytelling a bit (since that was a focus of the day). We also chatted about how to use technology as a school to reach out to parents and the community. The other classroom teacher, Lauren, has her young students now using Twitter to broadcast to family what is going on during the day (no more: “nothing” to the question of “what did you do today?”) We also touched on the idea of moving technology right into the classroom, and not having it seen as a separate unit of instruction.

I hope you enjoy the podcasts – the second part will get published tomorrow, followed by the third piece on Wednesday. Even though I was there, and talking, it was only when I went back and really listened did I realize just how much ground we had covered in our conversation.

Peace (in the podcasts),
Kevin

 

My Experimental Flipped Lesson on TED-Ed

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My Ted-Ed Flipped Lesson
Yesterday, I wrote a bit about how the new TED-Ed site was experimenting with ways to remix, flip and otherwise redo their own lessons and video content, and since I am curious about new tools, I dove in and gave it a try. The tool is set up around a video, but you have quiz questions that are set up (with video helpers if you get stuck), some open-ended discussion questions (or you can make your own, as I did), a space for additional links and resources, and a final thought. I found it incredible easy to use, and it seems simple to adapt for my own needs.

Actually, the lesson I ended up creating is the second variation of a lesson I created around Shakespeare and insults — the first one had a word (ironically) that I wasn’t comfortable with in one of the quizzes, and you can’t edit a flipped lesson once you publish it to the site. So, I redid the whole thing. I still don’t think I will do THIS lesson with my sixth graders (we do a variation of the Shakespearean insult, though). But, I have some seeds of thinking going on now.

I’d like to invite you to give it a try. I’m still not sure if this is something I can use with my students (as I am still not sure of the whole flipped idea), but I am open to exploring it more and figuring that out. Certainly, the remix tool is easy to use, and looks great when you are done. And, I think you can even pull in YouTube videos and more as content to your lesson. It’s a great way to curate information in a TED package, and if viewers are logged in, you can track their stats as they move through your lesson. (The need to log in is what would stop me with my students, since they do not have their own email accounts).

Want to see my lesson, The Power of Words? Any feedback would be helpful.

Peace (with TED),
Kevin

 

Student Book Glog: The Underdogs by Mike Lupica

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This is another in a series of projects done around independent reading. You know, Mike Lupica has done more to get my sporty boys reading than any other authors (except maybe Rick Riordan), and I was happy to see this student immersed in this novel about a sport he loves to play. The book is The Underdogs.

Peace (on the field),
Kevin

The Ted-Ed Experiment

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This is pretty cool, and I am trying to figure out how I can use all of the features of the new TED-ed site with my students. I’m still not certain of the whole “flipped classroom” model, but perhaps this kind of site (that allows you to not only access amazing videos but also curate your own) might be a way to experiment a bit with the idea.

The new TED-ed Site is worth checking out.

Peace (on the TED),
Kevin

Remembering Bird: A Visual Poem

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I’m migrating a bunch of old videos from Google Videos into Youtube, and it has become sort of like a trip into my video composing past, in a neat way. A few years ago, I gave a keynote at the Hudson Valley Writing Project and then sat in on a session around poetry and digital storytelling. I had Charlie Parker on my mind, I guess, and wrote this:

Peace (in the sharing),
Kevin

Student Book Glog: School of Fear by Gitty Daneshvari

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I’ve seen some students walking around with School of Fear (and thought, to myself, with that demented teacher voice, how appropriate … heheheh) and you can’t help but think, here is a book where the cover certainly attracts your eye. All the students who have read it have said they really liked it, so I’ll put it on my future reading list, too. This student worked hard on her digital poster project, and struggled a bit with what to say. In the end, she did fine, though.

Peace (in the school of no-fear),
Kevin

 

 

Free Comic Book Day!

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Tomorrow (Saturday) is Free Comic Book Day. Go down to your nearest comic book store (do you have one?) and grab a few free comics. They’re not always the very best comics, to be honest, and you may need to make sure they are appropriate for whatever age kids you are going to share them with, but … did I mention free comics?

http://images.wikia.com/starwars/images/5/54/FCBD_nodate.jpg

The website for Free Comic Day (now 10 years old, apparently) has more information, including a handy tool to find comic book stores where you live. I usually go with my sons, and we all get handfuls of comics. I bring mine into my classroom for my students. They love it.