Monthly Archives: June 2010

Using Rubistar

Posted by Jackie in teaching, technology and tagged with ,

One of the teaching tools I tried for the first time this year is Rubistar, a website that is part of the 4 Teachers group of websites, developed by The Advanced Learning Technologies project at the University of Kansas Center for Research on Learning (a mouthful, I know). I had mixed success, but I think there’s more potential there than I have yet uncovered.

So far, I have found it most helpful while creating rubrics for unconventional projects, like digital storytelling and response blogs (document), where the students have no expectations of grading because they’ve never done a project like this before. There’s also a good amount of customizable rubrics for different subjects and skills, but I haven’t used many, and I’m looking forward to digging deeper into their “Inspiration Page”.

One aspect I don’t like: there’s a weird time limit on some pages and functions. So while you’re creating your rubric, you have this ticking clock and have to keep saving to make sure it remains “Active” while you’re editing. I don’t really see this point of this feature, other than making me anxious that I’m about to lose my work! There’s also a way to make them interactive, but it seems to require a site license. If your school uses Blackboard or Moodle, it seems it would synchronize well. I would consider the site license if I end up using the site frequently, because it might help cut down on grading time and make the experience of being graded more consistent for my students. In English classes, I find one pitfall to be that students often feel that the grading experience is a very subjective one, and therefore inevitably unfair. Right now, I usually copy the rubric I’ve created there into a word document, then ink it with my stylus for each of my students. I like to add space for “teacher comments,” so I can add encouraging or positive feedback, and also to add point values in each row box.

My goal is to have the rubrics available as each project is assigned so that students can use them as a guide while completing the work, as part of my overall goal to incorporate more scaffolding in my course. I’d like to have some kind of way for the students to use them as checklists before they submit the work, even, somehow. But this year, I sometimes developed projects and assigned them without taking the time to think about the rubric, which made me dread grading them because while the work was exciting, I was unsure about how to assess it. That was my own fault, so I’m not blaming Rubistar, but I think that did hinder me in experiencing the full potential of the site.

If you’re a teacher, do you use rubrics? How do you create them? I’d love to hear from anyone who has used the site or something similar as a rubric creation tool.

The Meaning of Tinkering

Posted by Jackie in blogging, teaching, technology and tagged with ,

When I first started blogging, lo these many years ago, I used Blogger.com, had the most basic of templates, and composed each blog post on the fly, not giving much thought to revising or crafting. I didn’t know how to post images, had only a basic working knowledge of HTML, and gave little thought to what my blog was for and what impression it gave. Posts went live in an instant, I never planned very far ahead, and they were often riddled with errors and typos. Blogging to me meant a release, an outlet, a connection the writer I wanted to be and the people I didn’t want to lose. My blog was just that, a place for me to blog, and I rarely got a comment from someone I didn’t know, much less had never met.

These days, I debate templates and tags, add and subtract widgets and categories, edit and revise the static pages I’ve carefully written, email with WordPress support people when a featured option isn’t working, and periodically check featured links to make sure all are still vibrant. I stockpile blog drafts in a OneNote notebook so I can polish and rearrange until they’re just right, add drafted posts to my account, give them a final polish, sometimes schedule them ahead of time, and watch as they post to Facebook and the comments pop up like mushrooms, many of which bear familiar friendly names but faces I wouldn’t know. I own my own domain name, post documents and photos, have thought seriously about moving to a self-hosted WordPress site or learning CSS, and do it all under my own name.

I think blogging has definitely made me a better writer, but maintaining this website has also made me a better website producer, which has been invaluable as I build and maintain the Sharepoint website I keep as a teacher and encourage my students to blog. I have a much better sense of what a visitor to a site might want, how to arrange things for readers to easily find them, and what value there is in visual appeal and flow. Above all, after years of tinkering with blogs and websites, I have a certain level of comfort, trust and familiarity with website functions, HTML, and the power of self-publishing.

So not only has blogging given me an extensive course in writing, but also a valuable confidence in my ability to master the rudiments of website creation and maintenance. One of the added side benefits of having my students blog and use discussion boards and wikis is that they get to experience a taste of that confidence too, and maybe even start to build the faith it takes to tinker.

Thinking About Twitter

Posted by Jackie in media mentions, teaching, technology and tagged with

To Twitter, or not to twitter?

The most public use of Twitter these days has been microblogging celebrities: Ashton Kutcher and Britney Spears duking it out for the most followers, B- and C-Listers making every banal thought public, all kinds of celebrities saying goodbye to one of their own. But the White House and the Library of Congress are doing it, and so are an increasing number of Senators and Representatives.

Athletes, politicians, writers and more are using Twitter to send 140 characters out into the world, as many times a day as they like. But in my rounds around the teacher-tech world, it also seems like more and more teachers are hopping onto the Twitter train, both for their own use and as a classroom tool. You can find teachers by subject area, look at a twitter for teachers dictionary, follow Teachers 2.0 or join in on EdChat. Dana Huff and Jim Burke of English Companion and Ning fame are twittering, and I’m reading about other great reasons teachers should use Twitter. I’m working on a digital writing workshop project this summer, and so my thinking about Twitter may end up in the mix. I did a texting activity with Catcher in the Rye this spring, so I’m open to using Twitter in a similar way, but also I’m intrigued by the “backchannel” possibilities.

I also have some non-athlete, non-celebrity friends who use Twitter, the kind of friends who also use Foursquare and are usually on the early-adopter edge. Some of my favorite bloggers are also Twittering, and even some of my favorite writers. I like a good smart parody Twitter as much as the next culture geek.

But will I be twittering? I just don’t think so. The form itself doesn’t appeal to me as a writer–I’m still in the shallow end as far as texting goes, for that matter–but as an observer, it’s definitely intriguing for how it breaks down the public/private wall between celebrities and fans, and also how it captures real-time thinking and communicating for posterity.

Your thoughts about Twitter?

Backyard (poem)

Posted by Jackie in authors, poetry and tagged with

Back Yard
by Carl Sandburg

Shine on, O moon of summer.
Shine to the leaves of grass, catalpa and oak,
All silver under your rain to-night.

An Italian boy is sending songs to you to-night from an accordion.
A Polish boy is out with his best girl; they marry next month;
to-night they are throwing you kisses.

An old man next door is dreaming over a sheen that sits in a
cherry tree in his back yard.

The clocks say I must go—I stay here sitting on the back porch drinking
white thoughts you rain down.

Shine on, O moon,
Shake out more and more silver changes.

Summer Reading, Part Two

Posted by Jackie in authors, book reviews, media mentions, teaching and tagged with ,

I just went a little crazy on Amazon, so here’s what I’m adding to my summer reading list:

  • Wolf Hall, by Hillary Mantel. This won the Man Booker Prize, which is one good indicator, but is also historical fiction about Henry VIII, another winning sign in my eyes.
  • Write Beside Them, Penny Kittle. This is an award-winning book about teaching writing with high school students, and it’s been on my wishlist for too long–I’m looking forward to finally digging in.
  • Protecting the Gift, Gavin de Becker. My girls are out of booster seats now and edging toward more independence, and so the wider questions of safety are knocking on our door: how do we prepare them to live in the world, with a practical viewpoint and not too much fear? I’m hoping this book has some answers.
  • The Forgotten Garden, Kate Morton. Another novel, one connected to a favorite childhood book of mine that I have had no success introducing the girls to (so far). I have high hopes for this one.
  • The ArchAndroid, Janelle Monae. This one, of course, is not a book, but music, and I’ve been wanting this album since I heard (and fell in love with) Tightrope and read some of the amazing reviews of this album.

    A Little of Column A, A Little of Column B…

    Posted by Jackie in all about me, cooking, family life

    The Good: I’ll be spending the upcoming week helping to facilitate a week-long professional development workshop I attended last summer. This is a new step for me, and I’m excited to stretch myself this way.

    The Bad: I have a summer cold. The kind of summer cold that gives you head and face aches, the kind with a sore throat and stuffy runny nose. The kind my cold meds don’t seem to touch. The kind that makes you want to sleep in and not be peppy or professional.

    The Good, Part Two: We’re having a dear friend over for dinner and making a light, lovely summer menu: kale and radish chips, arugula-redleaf salad with strawberries, lemon spaghetti with chicken and parmesan, and homemade pink lemonade ice cream. We’re getting to use some of our very first CSA share, and won’t have to turn the oven on (much), which is a plus on a hot and steamy day like today.

    The Bad, Part Two: I’m feeling over-cluttered. Too much kinship with this guy. I’ve been relatively messy my whole life, but lately, when I’ve come home from long days at work to be greeted with such a messy, cluttered landscape, it’s been hard not to let my mental/emotional landscape not feel messy and cluttered too.

    The Good, Part Three: I’ve spent a fair part of the weekend cleaning around the house and doing some things I’d been putting off for weeks, like cutting the front grass, trimming the front hedge, and other generally good things to do. I felt really productive yesterday, and that felt really good.

    The Bad, Part Three: My car’s in the shop this weekend after a little spot of overheating. The cause and price of the solution are as yet unknown.

    The Awesome: That after all, there’s nothing too catastrophic on this list, and overall, things are feeling pretty peachy keen around our way.

    How’s by you these days, as summer splashes down?

    Through a Blog, Darkly

    Posted by Jackie in all about me, blogging, poetry and tagged with ,

    I’ve been blogging for over seven years now, the first four years or so in an anonymous blog before I started and switched to this one. My third blog-birthday in this space is coming in July, after over three hundred posts. Making the decision to blog under my name gave me a much-needed rebirth as a blogger, but entailed making many other decisions in order to write more carefully and thoughtfully now that I would be publicly accountable.

    Even in my “All about me” posts, there is so much I don’t write about, for so many reasons. Much of what I don’t write about here are the darker patches, the secrets and hurts I only share with those closest to me, the occasional case of the the mean reds, long-standing family or personal issues that rear ugly heads from time to time . There are many boundaries I’ll never cross in this space. I’ll never blog about my husband or marriage, about my children or other family members, in ways that would make them uncomfortable or be significant surrenders of their privacy.

    But then, am I being honest? Am I portraying a misleading picture of my life, that I have it all and juggle it all with a smile on my face? Is it fair to only discuss the positive aspects of my job, my personality or my family life and never the negative, fair to anyone who might read this blog and then feel inferior or insecure, feel like I’ve got it figured out and they don’t?

    To anyone who may read this blog and feel that way, I’ll leave you with some excerpts from two Walt Whitman poems, words that have comforted me before when I have been in need of it. The first is from “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry,” the second and third from “Song of the Open Road.” All are deeply resonant for me, and I hope they will be for you as well.

    It is not upon you alone the dark patches fall,
    The dark threw its patches down upon me also,

    ———————

    (Still here I carry my old delicious burdens,
    I carry them, men and women, I carry them with me wherever I go,
    I swear it is impossible for me to get rid of them,
    I am fill’d with them, and I will fill them in return.)

    …….

    Be not discouraged, keep on, there are divine things well envelop’d,
    I swear to you there are divine things more beautiful than words

    can tell.

    Summer Reading

    Posted by Jackie in all about me, book reviews, education, teaching

    No, not for my students, but for me!

    So far, I’ve got two teaching books and a literary nonfiction book on my list, and I’m always looking for suggestions (hint, hint).

    • Back when I did my series on great teaching, one of the books I added to my wishlist was Teach Like a Champion. I first read about this taxonomy of 49 teaching techniques in this NYT magazine cover story, and instantly became intrigued. The book comes with a DVD so that throughout the book, there are clips to demonstrate the techniques in the taxonomy, and what I’ve managed to skim seems clear and concrete, exactly up my alley.
    • The second teaching book on my list is Understanding By Design, which I borrowed from a colleague after reading a lot about it over the past few years. I think I first saw it at Dana Huff’s, which makes sense as she has blogged pretty extensively about her experiences with it, and also set up the UbD Educators Wiki. My colleague also raved about it, so I’m looking forward to digging in. If I find it useful, maybe I’ll order a copy to keep, and perhaps also the workbook.

    I’d really love a few good novels to round it out, plus a poolside book or two. Any hot leads, leave them in the comments!

    Public Apologies

    Posted by Jackie in blogging, personal goals, teaching, writing

    I’ve been fascinated lately with a developing genre of the personal/confessional essay: the public apology. The premier examples in my mind are found under Dave Bry’s byline at The Awl, one of my favorite aggregator-type websites. Bry’s apologies are stunning, really, when read all together: full of pathos, empathy, candour, a wicked wit and clear eye for his own failings. I have a few favorites of course, that resonate with me; both of those are tales of the escapades of youth, when we are invulnerable and free floating and entirely of our particular moment.

    I can think of a handful off the top of my head I could write, but would I post them here, where they would be easily Google-able? That’s another thought entirely. But I think I have actually done so, in a way, here. It’s akin to the open letters that are also a staple of blogging like Melissa at Shakesville’s ongoing I Write Letters series, which, interestingly enough, is another form of blogging I’ve never tried.

    In thinking over the spring semester, I gave my students some real hurdles to jump as far as creative writing with a series of transactional writing assignments, and it’s resulted in some amazing and creative pieces: a letter from Holden Caulfield to Mark David Chapman, a stream-of-consciousness piece from Baby Suggs to Sethe inspired by Beloved, and much more. Have I been pushing them much harder than I’m willing to push myself as a writer? Have I been asking them to take on challenges I’m not willing to tackle?

    I guess my first public apology then is to myself and my students; I’ve been hypocritical in asking my students to leap over hurdles I’ve shied away from, and I have not challenged myself enough as a writer. One of my summer goals is to challenge myself more as a writer, in this space and out of it.

    Overload

    Posted by Jackie in all about me

    Remember back in April, when I was all twitchy about having 122 emails in my inbox?

    318.

    And final grades are due tomorrow at noon, even though we have a three-hour faculty meeting from 9 AM until noon. So really, they’re due at 9 AM tomorrow morning.

    I just backed out of a Brownie camp-out this weekend. We agreed to it weeks ago, before I had realized what a mini-storm of events was brewing this week. I hate backing out of things, but there was just no way I was up for a tent-style camp-out this weekend.

    So why am I blogging, one might wonder? Since I started blogging, lo these many years ago, it’s always been a way for me to collect my thoughts and gain some perspective, to voice thoughts swirling in my head so I can pin them down and then shift into action.

    And when I look at my stack of ungraded exams, I need that burst of action for sure.