Speak Blog Update

The snow day has altered everyone's schedule.

I checked in with the English teacher, assuming that the dates we had down would have changed. Fortunately, they have. If not, I would have been double booked between that blog project, and the Reading project I am finishing.

The English teacher finished putting directions up on the site. I'm going to copy and paste them here.

Welcome to 9th grade's on-line discussion board for the Third and Fourth Marking Period of Speak. As it has become evident, this novel is one that teenagers can relate to, even if they have not been in the exact situation that Melinda was in. Speak is a very common novel that discussions center around because many, varying opinions can be brought forth.
As we always say in English class, you are entitled to your opinion, but for it to be valued, it must be supported with examples, experiences, and facts.

1. Click on your period's page.

2. Click on the "Discussion" tab and then on "Question" 1 and post your response. Each response must be at least five complete, detailed sentences written in standard, school-appropriate English. (Do not let the online version fool you! You are not texting, instant messaging, or leaving a message on a My-Space wall. This is an English class assignment.) Your response MUST have examples directly from the novel, i.e. "On page 102, Melinda says....".
3. Proceed through the rest of the questions following the above directions.

4. For questions 1-3, you will respond to your assigned partner. A response can follow different paths, for example:

• I agree/disagree with you because...
• You bring up a good point I never thought about which is.....This makes me think about....

Your response must be at least 2 sentences. You will recieve extra credit if the original person responds to the response.

• TO RESPOND, IN THE SUBJECT LINE, AFTER RE: DELTE "QUESTION 1" AND WRITE THE PERSON'S SCREEN-NAME.

5. For questions 4-6, you can choose any post to respond to; however you may not respond to an original post that already has two responses.

NOTICE: As everyone begins posting, it will be very obvious to me whether you have written an original post or you have picked out ideas to use from other posts.

There are some really good points here.

She begins by explaining the purpose of the project "As it has become evident, this novel is one that teenagers can relate to, even if they have not been in the exact situation that Melinda was in. Speak is a very common novel that discussions center around because many, varying opinions can be brought forth."

The directions are very clear. She is starting by having them respond to an assigned partner. That will get them into the habit of the project. After the first three questions, they will be free to respond to comments that they want to respond to, within limits.

She makes it very clear that students don't have to agree with one another to comment. Also, she clearly puts forth the expectation that students are to be original, but that they have to have information from the book to back them up.

I'm going to be working with the class next week on Friday to help everyone sign up for a username and password, and to get oriented to the site.

New Blog Project--Speak

I'm now working with the English teacher from earlier in the year. We tried to create a wiki project, but it didn't make it off the ground.

We're now doing a composite wiki/blog project. I would loved this to have been a ning project. I would also have liked to have looked into embedding a blog into a wiki. However, the ning project would require students to verify membership through a link in email for homework, and the teacher didn't want to bank on that happening in a timely fashion. And, I didn't want to risk not having this project up and ready to go--or having her think it wouldn't be--by saying "give me a day or two to figure out embedding a blog in a wiki."

So, we are using a wiki discussion board for the book Speak. This is very similar to the Kite Runner project, except with a different book. Also, it is planned out to be an 8 question project from the beginning.

We are using wikispaces instead of pbwiki. I liked pbwiki's format of putting comments directly on the page for this project, but pbwiki refused to acknowledge this teacher existed. So, rather than waste time trying to trouble shoot a problem I couldn't understand, I suggested wiki spaces. She ended up liking the ability to put multiple discussion threads on one page, so it worked out for the best.

I helped the teacher create a wiki. On the first day of the project we are going to have the students sign up for the wiki using mailinator addresses. Because of issues in the Science teacher's class, I suggested, and the English teacher agrees, she should tell the students that every time they forget their username/password, they will loose 10 points (it's a high point class, so that is not as bad as it sounds.)

She is going to have one wiki. The main page will be directions. Each class will have a page linked from the main page. The class's page will direct students to click on the discussion link at the top of the page, and to click on the appropriate discussion. From there, students will have to reply to the teacher's question.

She is working out what requirements she wants for the discussion. She wants to make sure every student gets responded to, and is considering having students assigned a classmate to respond to. However, she is also thinkking of just letting students respond to whoever they want. I suggested that, since she plans on doing 8 questions, she could try it both ways and see how each works. As long as she takes the time to fully explain any new rules for each question, she can try a variety of different methods. She might even find that method A works well with one class and fails in another.

We talked, as I did with the other English teacher, about how students don't really interact with one another in class. Even with open ended questions, those who want to respond or discuss, will only talk directly with the teacher. I'm hoping these projects will help teachers to help their students understand that they can learn from one another and that they can learn through debate, discussion, disagreement, and defending their own points of view.

One thing I seem to see is that some teachers, who are very competent, and very confident in what they teach, feel that they need to take a back seat to my opinion just because we are infusing technology into a lesson plan. In a way it's flattering that they value my opinion. For the most part, I try to redirect and ask leading questions to find out what they teacher's goal is for an assignment. After all, I could easily try to accomplish my own goals, but these aren't my classes. I hope that experience using the tech will show the teachers that they have every reason to be as confident because they are as competent.