Saturday, October 26, 2013

IW: October - Reflections on the start of the year

As the month of October wraps up.  

1) How has the beginning of the year started?  What successes and challenges have you faced integrating technology?

2) What online writing tools have you tried or plan on trying this fall?

3) What are you still wanting/needing to learn?

18 comments:

  1. 1. The year has gone fairly smoothly so far. I haven’t really faced too many problems with technology in the classroom. The connection in my room was slow and the district fixed it. I set up portfolios with my students and we have successfully linked a few things to it. I have discovered that I always need to do can view, not edit when I want students to use one of my documents. I also setup a spreadsheet for them to digitally turn things in, and I like how easy it is to use. The only other challenges I’ve faced with technology is in the area of previous experience using Google docs, etc. My kiddos are all over the place with their skills It’s definitely getting better, though.

    2. We are just beginning to use more technology with our writing. We did the prewriting outside because there were certain things I wanted them to observe. However, the rest of it will be done on-line...drafting, revision, peer editing, etc.

    3. I usually ask or email right away when I am curious about something technology wise. I know there is A LOT more for me to learn, just now sure what all of it is yet!

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  2. 1) How has the beginning of the year started? What successes and challenges have you faced integrating technology?

    The beginning of the year started out pretty smooth for me. I feel that my students coming into 4th grade had more exposure to Google Docs during third grade. This allowed for some of the initial lessons to go quicker.

    2) What online writing tools have you tried or plan on trying this fall?

    The online writing tools that I have been using the most is the Inspired Writing website. My kids refer to the Drafting/Editing page almost daily! I love how many resources are all together. It has also been nice to use as a tool to starting new writing craft. For example, this week we will be discussing how to write compare and contrast paragraphs. The list of transitional phrases will help a great deal with this. It is nice how many of those resources naturally lend themselves to great discussions.

    3) What are you still wanting/needing to learn?

    I am still wanting to learn how to do Cover It Live. I have found that the wireless connection in my room is not great for this. Therefore, I am going to observe how one of my teammates runs the discussion in her room and then have my kids try it in the computer lab. I feel that the online discussion board could be a great way to integrate writing into Science and Social Studies.

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  3. 1. How has the beginning of the year started? What successes and challenges have you faces integrating technology?

    The beginning of the year brings a steep learning curve for third graders. I am satisfied that students are all proficiently logging in and using the website as a home base.

    2. What online writing tools have you tried or plan on trying this fall?
    Students drafted and revised their first pieces in Google docs and I went ahead and used the Read and Write Googledocs extension on netbooks to give students the chance to hear their pieces read aloud. The basic cut and paste keystrokes as well as sharing docs with partners have increased student revision.

    3. What are you still wanting/needing to learn?

    I am still wanting to help students use the Inspired Writing website tools to help my students access useful resources to help them write. I am hoping to balance the use of technology with handwritten work.

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  4. 1.How has the beginning of the year started? What successes and challenges have you faces integrating technology?

    My year has been hectic. How did I forget how much more work you have when you are in a brand new grade level? As a result, I have been a little slow to integrate writing with technology on a daily basis. I think everyone is comfortable now with google docs and students have increased their independence when doing a task using google docs. I tried to use some of the thinking maps with my class and that was a definite struggle. Kids were not all copying first to have their own document. They they moved around the template on their own to where it didn't even resemble the thinking map any more.

    2. What online writing tools have you tried or plan on trying this fall?
    I would like to use the google siting tool that we learned at our last Saturday class. We will be studying important people or events in CO history in incorporate into our informational writing unit and I think the citations would be a great addition.

    3. What are you still wanting/needing to learn?
    I would just like an idea how many people are only using google for their writing block. If other elementary 3rd and 4th are doing some hand writing in drafting notebooks or have they totally switched to technology tools daily. I am trying to find a balance or guidance on if I need a balance.

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  5. 1) How has the beginning of the year started? What successes and challenges have you faced integrating technology?
    So far the year is going well. I am trying to integrate my EEEs more often in my writing instruction. I have shyed away in years past because so much of writing assessment is done paper/pencil. After thinking about the TPACK model and best practice I am definitely shifting my thinking. My challenge still comes in the form of editing, especially on EEEs. They don’t tend to recognize mistakes in their work. I will continue to try new things and make this a huge priority this year moving forward.

    2) What online writing tools have you tried or plan on trying this fall?
    Research tools/Google Docs (tried)
    Padlet (tried)
    Inspired Writing Pre-Writing Documents (tried)
    A student created writing checklist for editing (tried)
    I still want to try more publishing options
    I still want to try voice recording software
    I am still working on integrating writing across all my content areas

    3) What are you still wanting/needing to learn?
    I am still wanting to be exposed to more tools and more methods my peers are using. I love the collaborative aspect of our cohort because I find inspiration in the amazing things going on across our district. I also want to find more ways of sharing out our work aka broadening our audience.

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  6. 1. The beginning of the year was hectic, but I think it went well. As a sixth grade LA teacher, I use the netbooks almost every day. Coming from a district where I did not have daily access to computers, I am absolutely in HEAVEN with this! I think it's easy to forget what a luxury this can be! My biggest successes are getting all of my students up to speed with Google Docs. There was definitely a HUGE range of ability when it came to using computers in August/September, but they are all much more comfortable now. Using my "techie" kids as in-class experts not only helped me, but it gave them a chance to develop confidence and leadership skills as they were making the transition to middle school. Win-win! My biggest challenge was catching up the (mostly out-of-district) kids who had limited experience with Google Docs. I know it was frustrating for them at times, but I am so proud of how quickly they learned these new skills!

    2. I have recently experimented with Cover It Live (thanks to the help of Randy Stall) and Doctopus. Life-changing! I wish I could go back and do the beginning of the year all over again! Doctopus has absolutely changed the way I do everything with Google Docs. What a time-saver. LOVE IT!!!!!

    3. What do I still want/need to learn? Everything!!! I recently designed my first start-to-finish writing lesson incorporating many of the things we're learning in this cohort, and I can't wait to see how it turns out. I am so eager to learn as much as possible as quickly as possible - just to keep up with my sixth graders! I wish I had more time to explore all of the options that are available to us!

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  7. 1) The beginning of the year started well! I'm lucky enough to have 1 - 1 netbooks and the wherewithal to use them frequently. My biggest challenges have mainly been in the area of logistics and procedures: combating students messing with the net books (changing the default language to Chinese), not storing them correctly, and the students' failure to capitalize and punctuate correctly while typing on a net book.

    2) The on-line writing tools I've tried so far are: blogger, templates, running rubrics, we video, poll everywhere, and google docs.

    3) I'm actually not sure what I still want to learn. I feel like the best way I can answer this question would be to say that I need to continually revisit the Inspired Writing web site to review what we've learned thus far and then continue to implement those tools into what I'm doing in the classroom!

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  8. I have been thrilled with what I have been able to do with Google Docs this semester. While I am still in a learning curve, I have become adept at many of the uses of the various programs. One of my PLC colleagues said her students hated using Google Docs, and didn’t I have that problem too? I said, “No.” In fact, my students have gotten so used to it, and have gotten past seeing it as just an alternative to Word, that they actually prefer it now to using paper and pencil.

    Specific answers to the questions:
    1. My successes have come around collaborative writing (and even collaborative tests responses), and on-line revisions. I will structure my classes somewhat differently next semester to accommodate what I’ve now become able to do with on-line writing. My biggest challenge has been keeping track of e-mails, which come into my district mailbox. I have created folders for courses and assignments, but wish there was some sort of filtering process with G-mail that would allow me to direct incoming mail directly to the right folder. Next semester I will use spreadsheet posting more frequently for routine assignments.

    2. Mostly I have used Google Docs, Google Spreadsheets, and Google Presentations. I tried Easy-Bib for a research project, but found that the tools in Google worked better. I posted student work to Google Sites and am pleased with how the sites turned out.

    3. What I most need now is to spend a little more time figuring out how to use Blogging more effectively. I would like it to be useful, and not just a burdensome activity or busy-work for students. I would like them to interact in a meaningful and useful way, something they would actually look forward to doing.

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    Replies
    1. John,
      Great to hear about your successes. Here is a link to a doc that will talk about how to filter emails.
      https://docs.google.com/a/lps.k12.co.us/document/d/1MBHcrUa3fXzxXQuFfU3GvuRg_9JiJP-IBBUEn6zDpjE/edit

      Delete
  9. 1) This is very, very late. Clearly I had a stressful start to my year. I am more than fortunate that I was able to get (two years in a row) all 8th grade classes. I've been working hard on improving from last year, as well as trying out some new things I lacked confidence in last year as a first-year teacher. I'm also new at my AD job, which has nothing to do with IW, but has certainly taken up a lot of my time. Other than a very recent projector problem, technology has been great. 2) By October students were using (and still are) Edmodo on a weekly basis, in addition to using some of the pre-writing graphic organizers on the IW website to practice brainstorming (I found last year that of all the writing issues I came across, the ability to brainstorm was one that kids just do not get). Per my blog post, Newsela has been a great help to those who lack non-fiction literacy skills, and their Google Site Portfolios are underway, though they have yet to upload a document to it. 3) Per our conversation, Dana, I am still working with the "CoveritLive" website. I logged in and immediately felt overwhelmed by the site, so I honestly will not be doing much with it probably until you and I sit down to look at it together. I think I would also like to try incorporating the IW website more. So far pre-writing has been all we've used, and I've introduced my accelerated student to the SAS Curriculum, but I know there is boatloads more to use as resources, I just don't know how to incorporate the rest of it in an orderly fashion.

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  10. 1) How has the beginning of the year started? What successes and challenges have you faced integrating technology?
    After a 7 year break from third grade, I had forgotten that I can not show third graders more than one step at a time to begin a process. It has been a real learning curve for all of us! The kids are now signing in to Google quickly and easily.

    2) What online writing tools have you tried or plan on trying this fall?
    So far we have been sticking with Google docs. I did have one of my paras try out one of the speech-to-text sites that we tried in class, but the process was more frustrating for the student then typing was, so that didn’t work out too great. I’m glad we tried it, but he felt that typing was faster and more accurate.

    3) What are you still wanting/needing to learn?
    I would like to work more on some blogging with my students. I think this is something that I will slowly introduce in the spring.

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  11. 1) How has the beginning of the year started? What successes and challenges have you faced integrating technology?
    The beginning of the year is always a bit of a challenge between setting up routines and expectations and engaging the students off the bat. I have the special challenges of integrating a highly scripted grammar program the students have used for multiple years and working with teachers of other subjects to integrate the student’s writing with the content. I also think I missed the mark integrating technology to its fullest potential considering the first writing assignment. My students were writing short stories, and many of them struggled with inspiration. I know there are sites out there that can assist the students in brainstorming and organizing their stories, but I limited the technology use to drafting and peer editing with Google Docs.

    2) What online writing tools have you tried or plan on trying this fall?
    I am using Prezi with my 6th graders to create playground proposal presentations. My 7th graders are also using Weebly to create poetry blogs and discuss different poems posted online. My 8th graders are doing extensive research on media bias and writing a report that critiques a specific article for elements of bias. I’m thinking of using Diigo or some other highlighting tool for students to track their research. I’m not sure the Netbooks we have will support it though.

    3) What are you still wanting/needing to learn?
    I am still wanting to learn about valuable sites to assist students in identifying issues in their writing. I’d also like to find more sites that provide writing prompts or suggestions aligned to the Common Core standards and that are applicable to the real world. I also know writing a grant or having technology with less challenges would help in expanding the use of technology in my class.

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  12. 1) How has the beginning of the year started? What successes and challenges have you faced integrating technology?
    As I reflect on the beginning of the year, I am pleased with some of my integration techniques, however, I also am noting areas to change for next year. I keep a running Google Doc on ‘Improvements for Next Year’- so I won’t forget as changes become apparent. I consider it a success to have created a class blog and all students have created individual blogs. Success for me includes movement to all online work submission and grading. -pretty much a paperless class! I do have some hard copies we will use for reference, but even those are uploaded for access. Creating a twitter account for the class was interesting at first. I (the class acct) started following the students in my class and soon discovered I was learning more information than I needed to know about the lives of teens. So I unfollowed them, and had each of them follow the class account.-a little learning curve.

    2) What online writing tools have you tried or plan on trying this fall?
    We used online personality testing, Multiple Intelliegences and Learning Styles assessments. We have used Popplet for brainstorming and a timeline, Timeliner, Google Presentation, Forms, Docs, inserting shapes and arrows to create a timeline on Docs, blog posts, storyboard through powerpoint, popplet or Shutterfly, graphic organizers, collaboration on Docs and Prezi( although not loving the public visibility).

    3) What are you still wanting/needing to learn?
    Based on my experience with the class twitter, I would like to really learn more about how to use it as learning tool for the class and get all students participating.
    I am needing to make improvements on blog expectations and assessing blogs. I need to create a reference doc of expectations and then determine the best way to keep track of blog postings and responses. I find some students actively participate and others have forgotten all about it.
    As far as just integrating new tech, I can generally get the job done, but would love more ideas as to how to make sure my tech integration is meaningful.

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  13. 1) How has the beginning of the year started? What successes and challenges have you faced integrating technology?

    The first part of the year has been pretty successful. Students are excited about technology and love using it when we can. We have done many things to enhance our learning through using our netbooks and Google, and students are becoming much more independent. I have many students that step up and help other learn things and problem solve when using our technology.

    The biggest challenge I have faced is having enough time to get everything done. With everything I have to fit in to keep up with our year-long pacing guide, it can get tricky to get the time to introduce new skills and tools with our technology. Now that kids are getting more independent and becoming more familiar with how our netbooks work, this is going faster. Another challenge is some glitches with Google Drive itself. Spellcheck has not been working consistently for all my students, which resulted in me emailing for help to solve this problem, which seems to have gotten better.

    The successes in integrating technology are that all students are excited and many of my students are able to problem solve when something happens either on their netbook, or on their Google Drive account. These students help others problem solve too. We have also used a variety of tools in different subjects to enhance learning.

    2) What online writing tools have you tried or plan on trying this fall?

    We have used Google Docs, including many editing and revising tools such as spell check, research, different formatting options, and inserting images. We have used Padlet for brainstorming and recording our thinking. We have also invited parents to add to our Padlet ideas from home, which was very exciting for my students. Students have collaborated on Google Docs and shared and commented on each others documents. Starting in January we will be doing more blogging and graphic organizers.

    3) What are you still wanting/needing to learn?

    I would like to wanting to learn more about student Google sites and what other teachers have done that was easy for their elementary students to do, and what was most useful. I would also like to learn more about students making videos and if there is video editing tools they can use.

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  14. 1) How has the beginning of the year started? What successes and challenges have you faced integrating technology?
    I would characterize the beginning of this year as inconsistent for me. I have had some great successes with integrating technology using Google Docs. Students have been able to create presentations demonstrating what they have learned in social studies and science. They have had some success with using the tools to insert images and create presentations that are visually appealing. They are still struggling to use the tools for effective revising (particularly of spelling, grammar and conventions). My challenge as a teacher has been to effectively use some of the new things that I have learned in my instruction on a consistent basis.

    2) What online writing tools have you tried or plan on trying this fall?

    My students have done prewriting and drafting, as well as publishing on the EEEs. They have also created presentations.

    3) What are you still wanting/needing to learn?

    I would like to get my students into the habit of using the Inspired Writing website tools to help them in the writing process. I would like to find a way to give my students access to this website through my teacher website.

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  15. 1) The biggest stress at the beginning of the school year was not having a textbook for students to access information relating to the new state standards for 6th grade social studies. When we were given access, it was to a text online. The first few weeks were a free for all because teacher training came in late November. I am still trying to figure out all the parts and pieces. The good news...my students know how to log in without my assistance anymore!! The bad news...the time it takes away from learning for the whole class to take out their computers, log in, and head to the assigned spot. "Please open your books to p. 89," is so much quicker. I would like to keep track as to how many minutes of learning are lost to the taking out and putting away of computers daily.

    2) My students are so proficient in their use of Google docs and Google presentations. Many of them know how to create a Prezi. I don't, so now a few students are teaching me as well as their classmates how to do a Prezi.

    3. I would like to know how and have the time for my students to set up their own Google web pages and store their work there. I also would like to incorporate verbal comments into my feedback on Google docs.

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  16. 1. The beginning of the year was busy. I used my website from the beginning to link resources for my students.

    2. My plan at the beginning was to use class blogs as an online tool. I did this some, but not as much as I thought I would. I did, however, have kids make their own blogs and link them to the website. We're still using these for book presentations.

    3. In the beginning of the year I wanted to try Cover it Live, which I eventually did.

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  17. 1) How has the beginning of the year started? What successes and challenges have you faced integrating technology?

    The beginning of the year started off smoothly. My third graders excitement over using EEEs helps integrate the technology and encourages them to write. A challenge we had to overcome was use of time. I forgot how initially you need to dedicate so much time just for turning on and logging in. Some days this seems to take over a whole class period.

    2) What online writing tools have you tried or plan on trying this fall?

    The biggest writing tool we implemented right away was Google docs of course. I also used padlet as a way for students to demonstarte their use of new vocabulary. With one of my KEY time groups we used many of the tools off of the Inspired Writing website to help with personal narratives. The students especially liked Text to Mind Maps.

    3) What are you still wanting/needing to learn?
    I feel like I’m still using the EEEs in a very conventional way. I want to continue to find interesting ways to integrate the technology even more.

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