Professional Documents
Culture Documents
We get to know ourselves better as digital readers and writers. We will build empathy
for the digital learner. (experiences and makers)
We will have a clear picture of what we want to do with kids. Why would we want to do
this with kids?
We will learn from each other.
Explain an Example: Put up something thats done, and talk off of it. This is great for
procedural stuff. Not a great method for idea generating or thinking.
Guided Practice/Coaching: The reader and writer does the work while the teachers coaches
the student on the side.
Inquiry: This is wide open. If you want kids to explore or come up with their ideas, this is a
good method. (e.g. go off and write down what you notice)
Brian Cambourn
What are the conditions of learning? This guy started his research in the 1970s and kept
track of how children learn. He would record how kids learned from the early years of
childhood.
1. Immersion: Parents talk to kids and immerse them in language. In order to learn
something well, you have to be immersed in it.
2. Demonstration: Parents show kids how to do something. Parents constantly
demonstrate how to do something.
3. Engagement: This is the most important condition of learning. You have to be engaged
in the task. Without this, a student cant learn. Every kid is born to learn and be
engaged. When a kid is disengaged, something went wrong.
4. Expectation: The expectation you have for your child is extremely important. Someone
must expect that you will learn something.
5. Responsibility: The learner and teacher take responsibility for the learning.
6. Approximation: This is the most misunderstood. When you first try to learn something,
you try and fail. You fake it until you make it!
When you get a crumpled valentine, you should encourage and show respect for
the effort. This is important as a teacher. Don't just praise the brightest and
best.
7.
Practice: You have to keep practicing in order to get better. Kids will not get better at
anything unless they practice.
8. Feedback: You have to give kids feedback. You should wrap it in positive before getting
to anything negative. Give praise for the good.
Digital and Analog Workshop (What are the thoughts about when to use?)
Digital
versus
Analog
Prewriting
Prewriting
Evernote
Blog: YWP
Developing Stage
Developing Stage
Blog
Notebook
Drafting
Drafting
Word
Google Docs.
Etc.
Paper (loose-leaf)
Revision
Revision
Word
Haiku (annotating)
This is like adding a room to a house.
Pen
Publishing
Publishing
Copy it neatly.
Celebration
Celebration
Lots of ideas
Lots of ideas
Digital
Notes
Do the first draft offline. Put everything they know down on paper. Dont let them look at
anything online. They write their felt knowledge. They can mark spots with a placeholder and
fill in the holes later when they go revise.
You can also have the students put in a different form. (diary, newspaper article, etc. This
cannot be copied from the Internet.)
ACRONYM: CHOMP (Cut Out (words, phrases), Highlighting, Oh My God, Making Notes,
Paraphrase (put notes in own words)
Quotes: Use 3 column notes procedure, take down the notes and then reflect on what it
means to me. This is another note-taking idea.) You must add your own thought about what
you are researching.
Revision
Donald Graves
How do real writers know what strategy to use when revising?
Revision is matching whats in your heart with whats on the page.
Teaching revision well is about teaching the meaning. What is the child trying to say?
A teacher can create a bar of revision strategies to help motivate students.
Linoit (an interactive bulletin board and has different colors to create a bulletin board) (things
can be color coded and sticky notes can be added. It can be manipulated to move things
around.)
Explain Everything (app where you can explain the revisions you are making)
Final Pieces of Writing
How much correction of a piece is too much? Only hold kids accountable for what youve
taught them.
The on demand piece you give at the end of the unit should be better than the on demand
piece from the beginning. If its not, we need to take a look at whats being taught and how.
The on demand piece may not be as good as the end of the unit published piece, but it should
definitely be better than the beginning of the unit piece.
Small Group Session: Kate Roberts (Tuesday)
What are the parts of my piece? (step back and think about what else might be needed)
Think about the parts: What are the sections of the piece?
Look for whats missing. Are there any parts you should add?
Time things out. What parts of your text should be bigger or longer or more visually
attractive? Which should be shorter, smaller, less vibrant?
Beginnings and endings matter. Choose impactful ones.
What apps can I use for better teaching?
Tools for Creating
Thinglink
Storyboardthat
iMovie
Soundcloud
Garage Band
Animoto
Tools for
Remembering
OneNote
Tab Cloud
Noteshelf
Evernote
Google Docs
Quizlet
Coggle
Sumopaint
Photoshop Suite
IBook Author
Pages
Fakebook
Draw My Life
Tour Builder
Brushes
Video Scribe
Mindmapping
Teacher Dashboard
Linoit
IXL Language
Tab Cloud
One Note
iBooks
Tools for Researching
Clearly (Evernote)
Noodle Tools
dilgo
Hash Tag:
together)
#tcrwp (its a file folder, a room for places to be stored, it allows people to get
Chats:
You can follow and unfollow and people dont know. Big advantage!
What Are the Skills We Need to Create Videos?
Graphics
Sound/Voice
Format/Design
Problem/Solving
Self-Evaluate
Cohesion: Everything has to be cohesive.
Remix/Translation: Take a big idea you have and translate it to different forms.
What skills are needed to read a digital text? Whats the purpose of the content?
Homework
Have something to share with your group.
Filtering a lot of media, takes it in, and then presents it to an audience. A curator has to sift
through a lot of information. Its an angle or lens and after filtering it, they present it to an
audience. This is a 21st century skill. A teacher can create digital bins on the same subject
and put it in a logical order.
Have the kids start with a question or statement and then find resources that match that
belief?
What makes horses such wonderful pets? (now go find some resources)
Horses make wonderful pets.(now go find some resources)
Personal Devices
Pros
Portable
Less Expensive
Do not separate and student
Apps for everything
Might not need multiple tools
Cons
Can be distracting
Can become over reliant on
Not as easy to leave an artifact behind
Tempting to rely on materials already used, as opposed to matched to students
Personal Devices for Students
Pros
Access (endless library, apps, writing tools, etc.)
Allows many communication options for students who work best visually or through touch
FINAL POINTS
Reading should be a balance of digital and paper!
Babies born today have higher IQs!
Editing
Conventions are changing (e.g. they vs. he or she) (they is replacing he or she)
Conventions are evolving!
Editing is rapidly changing. We need to teach kids how to use the tools responsibly.
Small Group Session: Kate Roberts (Wednesday)
Search Terms
+:
*:
~:
Digital Text
What method can I use?
Read Aloud
Mini-Lesson: Heres one thing that were going to work on.
Small Groups: Conferences
Planning a Unit
First things to consider...
Open or Closed?: Am I giving them a choice as to what digital text to make or am I telling
them which to do. Choice is great, but it breeds less control
Do I want a culminating digital event or a mini-unit or threaded throughout?
Digital Text: We are going to take what we learn to make a final digital text.
Threaded Throughout:
What skills do I want to teach? (R & W, Tech/Media)
What core texts do I want to use? (this can be print/digital)
Large Group Session: Colleen Cruz (Wednesday)
Check the online resources on TC website. (Paris)
Teachers College: They believe in dividing up reading and writing instruction:
Reading
Writing
Writing about reading is not always a good idea if it kills a students love of reading. Reading
and writing are taught separately.
TC has taught Colleen that reading is used in the service of writing and writing is used in the
service of reading.
Writing:
Reading: Quick jots and sticky notes (simply holding a book doesnt tell us what a student is
thinking, sticky notes help teachers give the teacher what he/she is thinking)
Sticky Notes: Idea
Kids can keep one sticky note in the book and return to classroom library.
Post it Hall of Fame: Kids can add post it notes to a bulletin board and each kid is given a
square. They can then explain why the sticky note is their favorite. Anything else they do
goes in a notebook.
Write Arounds: Annotexting (allowing kids to have back channel conversations about the text
theyre reading in class. This is great for content area teachers. A document can be created
Padlet: http://padlet.com/mcolleencruz/2wi8735oo9d1 (excellent example of how padlet can
be used to annotate something) You can give students an article to read and then they can
add an unlimited number of sticky notes to it. Multiple people can annotate something!
Pop Culture
Should we use pop culture in the classroom?
A lot of these ideas are in Colleen Cruzs new book. Colleen is not a big fan of pop culture.
However, theres value in using it in the classroom because students are constantly tapped
into pop culture. Its a huge motivator and its really important to acknowledge what kids
value.
This is some of Colleens research and will be in her new book:
Facts
Whats to Like?
Playing certain complex video games has been shown to improve cognitive
flexibility and strategic thinking. Glass, Maddow & Love
People are more productive when listening to music. (Its not clear!)
Television shows have more complex characters and plot lines than even before,
which requires deeper comprehension and activate more part of our brains.
When children play exer-games (Just Dance, Wii Sports) they burn 4-8 times the
calories than they do when spending the same amount of time on a treadmill.
Archive of Adolescent and Pediatric Medicine
Always connect something to life before teaching the reading skill. (e.g. How do you know
your mom is happy? (actions, words, appearance, etc.)
Teaching kids to read with digital tools next to them! (non-fiction: a teacher can set-up
digital bins to have a better understanding of the time period)
Celebrations
It helps to announce the celebration ahead of time!
o
o
Embrace Failure:
It may not work at the beginning, but perseverance is
important.
Blogspot (app)
Management & Balance
Focus Question: How can I tap into these tools to make efficient use of tools?
Work Groups
1. Tools, Applications, Websites, Programs concrete ideas for recordkeeping and assessment
Showbie - an app to give feedback to students digitally - provide voice notes,
photographs, written comments, links to Drive or Dropbox - a variety of ways to give
feedback to kids.
Confer - ($14.99); collaborative between users with students in common. Can allow
user to jot quick notes about student conferencing
Socrative - app for quick quizzes, feedback; available on iOS, Android (free). Great for
quick, summative feedback
Class Dojo - skills/behavior assessment app; allows for students/parents to be involved
and quick communication with teacher
BiblioNasium is a fun and engaging reading community that will help you
connect to your students outside of the classroom. You can setup your
favorite books and recommended lists on virtual bookshelves that will be
available to your students at all times. Students can email you their reading
logs instead of handing them in on paper; you can set up fun challenges and
rewards that will help encourage your students to keep reading, and you
can set up a reading list that the students wont lose. It brings children
together and gives them a chance to easily recommend books to each other.
Shelfari - Shelfari is a community-powered encyclopedia for book lovers.
Create a virtual bookshelf, discover new books, connect with friends and learn more
about your favorite books all for free.
Another idea for digital reading logs:
1. Make a google doc template of a reading log (example).
2. Use doctopus add on (tutorial).
3. Have a look at one of my G6 classes (example class). If you need help, email me
ane@uwcsea.edu.sg.
Doctopus creates a digital copy of the reading log for each student and files all
the reading logs into one folder that you control. You can quickly see which
students are keeping their log updated (sort based on last modified). You can
transfer ownership of the doc to students at the end of the year and they can
share it with their next teacher.
Reading Rewards
Ive only read a little bit about this website. Youll have to investigate if
further.
http://www.reading-rewards.com/
This is what the website says about what educators can do with it:
What can Reading Rewards do for educators?
Kids move up levels and earn special badges and rewards as they read
Teachers save time (and trees!) by swapping their paper logs for interactive logs
Parents can validate their childrens reading and stay on top of their progress
editing checklist
use symbols for feedback rather than telling them what is wrong so they need to
figure it out
GoogleDoc shared with teacher (could with parents as well)
Student Facing Rubric / Teacher Facing Rubrics (TC documents)
Writing Pathways - get the digital copies
Illustrated versions for students
Reflection ePortfolio
Platforms for this
GoogleSites
Haiku
Interactive rubrics with links to examples as they go - is there something out there to
make this easy?
Do it as you go or as a reflection at the end of a semester?
comparing two pieces
strengths and goals for next time
can be shared with parents
who I am as a ____ and who I want to be as a _____ letter at the end of the semester
Accountability student led conferences - (goal setting and reflection too)
student to student
(app: Sketch)
student to teacher
student to parent (teacher facilitator)