Category Archives: WMWP

Blogging Across the School District

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Next year, my students leave the comfy confines of our elementary school to attend the big regional middle/high school. For some, this transition causes much worry and concern. They wonder about lockers, about bullies, about the food, about getting lost in the building, and more. (Funny — it’s the same worries I had when I was going into middle school).

Last year, a teacher at the high school and I talked about finding some ways to use technology to allow my students to ask his older students questions about the transition to the bigger school and connect them together some way.  We are both teachers in the Western Massachusetts Writing Project network, which made our collaboration all the more easier to get moving along.

This week, we got the project off the ground. We’re using a WordPress blog and his tenth graders began some introductions, and then my sixth graders did some responding and questioning (such as, in which class do you dissect the rat?).

We’re hopeful this blog will help ease the transition, but also open up doors for more collaboration among them as writers. I know my pal, George Mayo, is about to launch the SPACE online magazine again this year (see last year’s version), focusing in on poetry and multimedia verse, and I can see using our shared blog space for some collaboration and review before publication.

It’s exciting to be using technology not just for global projects, but also for local projects. And I had a great time remembering many of my former students who are now in that tenth grade classroom, remembering their sixth grade year.

Peace (in connections),
Kevin

Teaching the New Writing (book project)

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It’s been a long, long road but the book collection on writing with technology, and assessment, is about to be put out by Teachers College Press. I am a co-editor with two esteemed colleagues — both well-respected college professors (one now retired) in the field of literacy — and also I am a writer of one of the chapters (on digital picture books).

The book collection, due out in May but now advertised in TCP materials, is called Teaching the New Writing: Technology, Change and Assessment in the 21st Century Classroom.

It was about 2 1/2 years ago that they approached me about the idea of the book collection and that began an interesting adventure of seeking contributors, weeding through submissions, editing and proofreading, and writing, of course. Our hope is that the book provides some focus for how to not only institute technology into a writing curriculum, but also, how one can balance the creativity of student work with state assessments (not easily, we conclude).

Cynthia Selfe provided us with this nice quote:

“One of the beauties of this collection is that it explores multimodal composition and assessment across levels of schooling, demonstrating that elementary, secondary, and collegiate teachers work best when they share understandings. Perhaps most importantly, this book reasserts a value on innovation and creativity within composition classrooms.”
—Cynthia L. Selfe, Humanities Distinguished Professor, Ohio State University

I’ll write more when the publishing date is upon us.

Peace (in publication),
Kevin

Reflections on Digital Storytelling with Teachers

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(Note: a wordle of comments from teachers on what they enjoyed from the workshop)

Saturday morning, in my school library, there were about 25 of us wrapping our minds around digital storytelling at an event called Digging into Digital Storytelling and we were doing it in a very concrete way: by playing with the technology and discussing the implications for the classroom. This is the second annual conference that our Western Massachusetts Writing Project Technology Team has hosted (last year, we presented a Technology Across the Curriculum event) and we kept true to our values in the National Writing Project:

  • Teachers were teaching teachers
  • Writing was the heart of what we were doing
  • Sharing and reflection were built into the day
  • Activities were designed for participation

The day began with an overview of digital storytelling, allowing us to conceptualize the role of student as composer of multimedia stories. This was an audience of folks completely new to the field but who were interested in learning more about how to engage their students with media production and digital stories. (One teacher admitted she had never even heard the term “digital storytelling” prior to the event).

I shared out information about the Collaborative ABC Movie Project from a few years back, shared some student movies from our Memory Object project, and then two of my technology team members — Mary and Tina — shared movies, too. Tina showed a wonderful story about a local place that holds a place in her heart and Mary showed a story in which her students talked about a water table experiment they had done.

Then, with a quick step-by-step tutorial of Photostory, they dug in.

I had asked them to consider bringing their own flash drives with images to tell their own story, and most did. Within minutes, they were composing. Some were stories of places; others were stories of people. One created a movie based on a poem of love that she had written for her partner and selected images. A few worked on ideas that their students might work on.

It was wonderful to watch and they were very engaged in what they were doing. Just like students, when you give them the time and scaffolding to succeed.

Our plan was to transition halfway through the day to explore Voicethread, but everyone was so immersed in Photostory that it didn’t seem like the right thing to do. So, we suggested that they keep working on Photostory and then, for the last 30 minutes, I would walk them through Voicethread. They all agreed, and appreciated the flexibility of the workshop to accommodate what they were doing. I can’t stand it when a workshop presenter has no clue what the audience is up to, so I try to stay tuned in with where people are and what they need to keep learning.

The final reflections — we called it a Ticket to Leave — were overwhelmingly positive, with folks noting that the time to play and explore was crucial for them as they think about how they can bring the concept back to the classroom.

Here are some of the ways they hope to move the concept into the classroom:

* Using Photostory for fluency project
*I see a lot of promise for September, especially with public speaking class
* I will use this in World Civilization and Integrated Vocational Skills classes
* You sparked collaboration with other teachers and learners — an idea I might develop through either blogs with students/or possibly voicethread
* Using this with my fourth graders who are trying to remember parts of essay writing
* Remediation project of an argumentative essay
* I hope to use digital storytelling for a long-term science experiment in mummification
* Introduce the idea to my juniors and seniors as a possible tool for use on their research presentations on topics ranging from Buddhism to Heien Japan to Medeival art in Europe

One thing I wish we had done with them: create a gallery walk of all of the movies they were working on so that participants could see what each had been doing during the time together. I realized later that they were most likely interested in each other’s work and we had not provided them an official glimpse into their efforts.

One more note: Almost everyone agreed that Photostory was easy to use and most admitted their struggle now was not with the technology but with their technology coordinators. Since Photostory is a downloaded program (free from Microsoft), they would have to go through hurdles to get it on desktops or into their system, and I could sense most would at least pursue the request but for how far? When we grapple with access to technology, it is often as much about the equipment as it is the help from the so-called experts who really see themselves as gatekeepers. If you are a technology coordinator, give the teachers the keys to the closet, please. Most don’t want to rock the boat and will give up on an idea if it means coming into conflict with the technology coordinator. That’s my opinion, anyway.

Peace (in reflection),
Kevin

Slice of Life: Digital Storytelling with Teachers

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(This is part of the Slice of Life project)

This week, we at the Western Massachusetts Writing Project finally received enough registrations for our Digging into Digital Storytelling workshop planned for Saturday, April 4. Earlier this week, we only had five people signed up and it was looking as if the event might not even happen. But then five came trickling in yesterday and last night, at a meeting of the WMWP Executive Board, I heard of others that are also on the way. Phew. We have a limit of 30 participants but would not do it with less than 10.

This is an event put on by the WMWP Technology Team (including some of the readers here – hey guys!) and we intend to have two components — one session for those interested in online tools (such as Voicethread) and one for those interested in desktop tools (such as Photostory3) with plenty of time built into both sessions for discussions and implications for the classroom. This is being designed for beginners, so I hope that the hands-on exploration and discussions will fuel some excitement for folks to try it out with their students.

For now, though, I am just happy to know we are a “go” and now the team needs to get down to some planning for the sessions.

Peace (with teachers),
Kevin

A NWP/San Antonio Reflection

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I made it back from San Antonio on time, and with no fuss, and still brimming with the experiences of connecting and re-connecting with so many wonderful teachers in our National Writing Project network who openly share ideas. (I will be posting some podcasts from the main session later and share out the workshop that I co-presented on The Writing Processes of Digital Stories).

When we return home to our Western Massachusetts Writing Project, we are asked to write a one page reflection on our experiences, so here is is mine (as a Scribd file):

A Report From NWP San Antonio

Get your own at Scribd or explore others: Education wmwp NWP

Peace (in sharing),
Kevin

Off to a Writing Conference

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Today, I am attending and presenting at a conference called “Re-Envisioning Writing Assessment” that centers on how we assess writing in this era of standards and curriculum alignment. It should be interesting and I am presenting with two friends from the National Writing Project (Mary and Christina) on how to address the integration of technology into writing for students of all needs, and still find ways to suitably assess that work.

My part of the workshop centers around the digital picture books that my students do each year.

We’ve been working on our presentation via Google Docs, first as a document to plan and then in the slide show element to develop the actual workshop. I am going to embed a version of the presentation here, although the movie links and audio files won’t come through in this version. But I haven’t embedded a Google slideshow, yet.

So:

Peace (in writing),
Kevin

Using Google Sites

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I discovered Google Sites this week. You know, it was one of those applications that I read about when it launched, scrolled through some posts about the merits of it, and then never checked it out. Instead, I kept using Google Page Creator for some school website projects, which has been fine and dandy and all that.

But this week, I finally explored Google Sites, which allows you to create an entire website that feels a bit like a modified Moodle (with not nearly all the bells and whistles) and just like so many other Google applications, it is relatively easy to use.

The downsides?

  • I love Google but they are giving this away to increase their own content on the web under the banner of Google
  • The URL of your site defaults to a Google Site extension
  • There are limited themes and options

The upsides?

  • It’s incredibly easy to use
  • You can set up a website in minutes
  • You can replace the Google Banner with your own
  • I have not seen any advertising anywhere on my Google Site (always a concern with freebies)
  • You can control what features are active on the site (such as comments, etc)
  • You can share administrative control and collaborate with others (similar to sharing in Google Docs)
  • Easy integration with Google Video, Google Docs, etc.
  • You can layer pages in different ways, such as under a parent page or not

All in all, if you are searching for an easy way to make a classroom website, Google Sites might be one option to consider. (Here is an example of a teacher website that used Google Sites). I worked with Weebly to show students how to begin to make a website last year, but I think Google Sites might be easier and have more flexibility for kids.

So what am I creating? It’s an eZine for the three youth programs that the Western Massachusetts Writing Project has been running this summer. We’ve never done an eZine before, but we wanted to showcase the writing and movies that were created by kids at three different sites this year.
This file has been created and published by FireShot

You can take a sneak peek at our site, if you want, and any feedback on it would be most appreciated as we continue to build it in the next week or two (one camp is still running).

Peace (in development),
Kevin

Another Insider Look at Clay Camp

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Today marks the end of the four day Claymation Camp and I have to say, this has been a great group of kids to work with. Most of them have been very engaged in their movies. Yesterday, they made great progress, although only one of the movies has actually been completed. This morning, we put the pedal to the metal, so to speak, and finish up the rest before parents arrive at 11:45 am for a premiere showing of the work these past four days.

Many of you know I am loving Animoto as a way to showcase still images.

So, check this out:

More to come as the movies get completed. And you can always venture over to our Claymation Camp Weblog site, too.

Peace (in funny little creatures),
Kevin

A Tour of Clay

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Yesterday, at our claymation camp, we started to get down to work on coming up with ideas for the movies (built around the concept of fractured fairy tales) and the students started to make their clay characters. Today will be a jam-packed day of writings scripts and filming scenes. Tomorrow is the last day (already!) and we have invited family to come in and see what we have created.

At the end of class yesterday, I filmed this:

Peace (in clay),
Kevin

Slice of Life, Weekly Challenge, Chapter 12

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(This is part of a weekly feature called Slice of Life Project)

I was sitting at the table, in a meeting at the end of the school year and thinking: although I am no meeting lover, this group of people is really special. There were such smart, dedicated people in here and it made me glad (once again) to be part of an organization like the Western Massachusetts Writing Project. Our work as part of the National Writing Project is to connect with teachers and think of ways that best practices in the classroom around writing and learning can bubble up through the system to create positive change in schools.

At this particularly WMWP Executive Board meeting (where I sit as the technology liaison for our writing project), we were reaching a vote on a new mission statement. We have been on a year-long endeavor to craft a mission statement that reflects not only our core values but also our vision for the future of our organization. For the past two years, we have been working to view our writing project through the lens of social justice and equity, and now we are re-aligning much of our work in that direction. We’ve had to ask tough questions about what we are doing and why we are doing it, and we’ve had some interesting discussions on topics ranging from race to diversity to the role of our organization as a face of social change.

The vote for the new mission statement was unanimous. Here is our statement, which is a wonderful endorsement for the purpose and power of education in the fabric of life.

“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.”

Isn’t that a great missions statement? We worked to make it inviting to all teachers and educators and also for students and their families. Now, as one board member noted in our meeting, we have an obligation to follow through with this vision and work hard to become the force for change that we envision. We hope this mission statement is a guide for the future, and not some emblem of the past.

And I can’t resist another Wordle, using our mission statement as text:

Peace (in change),
Kevin