Things are looking bright

Well, this has been quite an interesting couple of days. I have been to a 2 college graduations, witnessed a school wide collaborationeffort, witnessed a perfect game by a Phillie, and have been communicating with people from other countries. Needless to say, it has been very exciting!

However, this blog will not focus on the many different events that I have witnessed this weekend, but rather it will be a reflection on what I believe was the most well planned and coordinated event by an elementary school that I have ever heard for. After what I saw, the future is looking bright.......

The "Eurasian Quest Arts Night" presented by Brigantine Elementary School was this past Thursday, and I was fortunate enough to attend. There each of the hallways in their school were set up as different "countries," and each country had elements of art, music, food, dance, costumes, and more. It was clear that the whole town was involved, and it really showed as you walked through the school. The kids were so excited about all of their hard work finally being displayed for everyone to see, and the parents looked on proudly as their students sung a song in Russian. If you did not get to go this year, I highly suggest you put it on your list for next year.

The one thing that stood out from the entire night was the "Wikipikis" portion of the night. In this portion the students (3rd GRADE STUDENTS) all created their own own "wikipikis" or, in our terms, their own wiki space. Each student was given a username and password, which enabled the teacher to monitor all information put onto the sites, and the kids were given criteria and they completed it. It was amazing! It really got me thinking about next year and the possibility of having my students create websites as an alternative to traditional MLA style writing. If third graders can create wikis with ease, shouldn't my high school students be able to do the same?

ONE LAST NOTE! I am babysitting this whole week for my brother. Check out me and my niece hanging:

Video Killed the Bloggero Star...

This is my update; it is a video blog. Or, as Josh calls it a "vidlog."All thoughts are appreciated!

I hope everyone enjoyed the video. I have to be honest, working with all these colors was cracking me up. This took me three tries to complete!

Go Phils!

Back to the Future

After last week's presentation on the History of Instructional Technology (I was super pumped at our performance; great work Judi, Josh, and Rita!), I have been unable to stop thinking about the future of education! Where is all of this new technology going to take us? Where will we be in 5 years? Where will be next year?

Perhaps the most amazing thing about all of this technology is how fast it has been moving over the past 10-15 years. After doing my research, I realized that the "explosion" of the internet has really been a major contributor to all of these recent developments. The internet, I now realize, is allowing people to get their ideas, theories, and tools out to the masses quicker than ever before. There has never been a time when ideas, good ideas could spread so quickly and I am excited to be apart of it!

One last parting note, recently become re-obsessed with TED Talks. The people who do these talks are the most inspiring and brilliant people from around the world, and if you have not heard any yet, I highly suggest checking out some talks. One small question I have for the people that run TED: why is the education section not a main section on the homepage!?! All of my favorite talks are the ones that have to do with education, and I always find it odd that they are not the most advertised talks of all! This is probably just my prejudice towards education, resulting from the fact that I am an educator. Either way, check it out!

Thatta bout does it. Over-and-Out.

Go Phils!

Blogging is the WHAT

Lately, I have been into having my students "blog" as much as possible. When the students are blogging in my class, they feel as though they are not even working, which is actually the complete opposite of what they are doing. I have learned that blogging is an incredible way to get students to practice their writing skills without it feeling like writing.

My class blog is located here on blogger, and it is set up in a way that each specific class has their own individual blogging page. I attempt to post a new blog entry once a week, and then the students respond to the blog over when I can get us time in the IMC. Here is a link to my English "Blogging" Homepage, once you are here you can view each individual classes' blogs by clicking on the various links.

One element of the blogging that I absolutely LOVE about blogging, is that it allows the classes to interact with each other's works. Many times while blogging, the students venture to different class periods pages, so that they can see the work their friends did or did not do. As the students become more and more familiar with the entire format of this blogging page, they begin to use their peers' work as examples and non-examples. They have discovered that they others will read their work, so they almost always attempt to post well thought out entries.

Although I am definitely in favor of using blogs in English Class, I have a few reservations about the process. One of my major reservations - at this point in time - is, in fact, time! In order for my students to affectively read and respond to a blog post they almost certainly need an entire period. This, to me, is a little bit too long. Especially when one day a week is already dedicated to PCR; another day of blogging leaves me to 3 days to teach! I am hoping that next year I will be able to get my students to blog on their time. My plan is to model blogging as much as possible in September and October, and, hopefully, by November the students will be willing and able to Blog on their time!!

Blog On! and Go Phils!

Let's BUILD Something!

So recently I have been working with my colleagues at school more and more frequently. The value in collaboration is becoming more and more clear to me; not only for the purposes of bouncing ideas off one another, but also because two people can work together to create one final, master project. This mindset, along with the advice of one of my fellow teachers, really got me thinking...

With the ideas/concepts of research, creation, and collaboration in mind, I would like my students to create a website that offers real, meaningful information to anyone with access to the world wide web! The idea is not originally mine, but I absolutely LOVE it. What better way to engage graduating seniors than creating a website that will be forever online?

So, after I got to seriously thinking about this project and possibly implementing it, I began to plan out how it would look from a teaching perspective. I figure that I will have to group the students into 4 - 5 person groups - thus, divvying up the work - in which each group will be responsible for a certain area of the topic. For instance, if we were going to create a website that will provide supplementary information for high school students reading Shakespeare's "Hamlet," one group may be assigned the history of Hamlet, another the plot and characters in Hamlet, another the Art and Literature influenced by Hamlet, and so on. This idea is obviously still in the early stages, but my goal - as a of right now - is to implement this project by the end of next year.

It is important for me to mention that the original creator of this idea had his students create a wiki-space. I am not too familiar with wiki-spaces and their functionality, but I plan to become acquainted with wiki-spaces and possibly choose to do that. We shall see!!

The big idea about this whole thing is that the students will be researching with a purpose and collaborating with their peers. In our district, I have noticed, many students tend to not care so much about the information as long as they pass. This may be an alternative to get around this attitude. And collaboration is always a great way to engage all students in the learning process.

I'll keep you posted. No, No... I will keep posting.

Go Phils!