Category Archives: technology

MOOCs, Redux

Posted by Jackie in education, personal goals, technology, writing and tagged with , ,

After making a strong start with Modern Poetry (nicknamed ModPo) last fall and feeling really enthusiastic, I ended up crashing and burning midway through the semester. However, since it was completely a falling-down on my part and not at all related to the course, I’m giving Coursera another try this summer, as well as enrolling in ModPo again for the fall. This summer I’m signed up for:

Latin American Culture: hoping this will help prepare me better to add more history and culture to my Latin American fiction course next spring

The Fiction of Relationship: not totally sure I will be able to complete this one, as there are several books on the reading list I’ve never read and don’t own! But I’m very curious about the class, and what they will discuss for the books I am familiar with, like Beloved and Ficciones.

This time around, I’m planning on taking more of a cherry-pick approach; I’m definitely aiming to complete the Latin American class, but if I don’t get to every assignment, I’m okay with that. With the fiction class, I’m planning to start off as more of an interested observer, and if I get hooked, then I will do my best to complete what I can. I think this is probably the most realistic approach for me, and I think it will also help ensure that I do feel I’ve gained something for the hours I end up investing in the class.

The next big Coursera development that intrigues me is their entry into professional development courses for K-12 teachers; I’m especially interested in this course on Brain-Targeted Teaching because I’m familiar with some of the professor’s work, and she is the former principal of the elementary school my daughters attended until this year. I also added this course on museum teaching strategies for the classroom to my “watch list,” so that Coursera will alert me when future sessions are scheduled. I have no idea whether MOOCs are a good venue for effective professional development, but I’m fascinated to see how this unfolds.

Related articles

Tracking Students with E-Textbooks

Posted by Jackie in conversations, education, technology and tagged with , , , , ,
English: Textbook

English: Textbook (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The hot topic in education today is how technology is going to shape, track and modify student behavior, especially in areas that are typically hard to control. The NYT writes about e-textbooks that will track student engagement in real time for professors to view. However, how we interpret this data is not so clear cut.

Adrian Guardia, a Texas A&M instructor in management, took notice the other day of a student who was apparently doing well. His quiz grades were solid, and so was what CourseSmart calls his “engagement index.” But Mr. Guardia also saw something else: that the student had opened his textbook only once.

“It was one of those aha moments,” said Mr. Guardia, who is tracking 70 students in three classes. “Are you really learning if you only open the book the night before the test? I knew I had to reach out to him to discuss his studying habits.”

Here are my questions: who among us hasn’t been that student, where everything you needed to know was discussed in lectures, and the reading so thoroughly reviewed that a sharp student didn’t need to do it in the first place? But more importantly, doesn’t this also point to a greater problem with how the course itself is designed? In other words, if that student can pass that class without opening the book, then hasn’t the teacher gone wrong somewhere in designing the course, the content, the lectures, the assignments and/or the choice of book?

Later in the article, everyone involved acknowledges that students will still continue to be inventive:

students could easily game the highlighting or note-taking functions. Or a student might improve his score by leaving his textbook open and doing something else.

Apparently, students taking paper notes are also penalized because the system can’t track them.

Finally, one of the professors seems to engage in some self-reflection toward the end:

“Maybe the course is too easy and I need to challenge them a bit more,” Mr. Guardia said. “Or maybe the textbooks are not as good as I thought.”

If our students aren’t engaged, aren’t challenged, aren’t paying attention, they certainly own part of that responsibility. But we do too, as it is our job to track and reflect and engage, even without any high-powered software to help us.

Related articles

Digital Social Teaching

Posted by Jackie in teaching, technology, writing and tagged with , , , , ,
Twitter 6x6

Twitter 6×6 (Photo credit: Steve Woolf)

Teaching in the 21st century, wired into social media and working in a 1:1 laptop school, has fundamentally shaped me as a teacher in ways that make me so grateful to have the job I have, when and where I have it. A related milestone I never made time to blog about this year happened fairly recently: I had a piece published on the ReadWriteThink website! I have used this wonderful resource as inspiration for many lesson plans and projects over the years, and am thrilled to contribute my experience with Making Friends with Holden Caulfield. This is just another chapter in how I try to find creative ways to integrate social media and digital tools and activities into my lessons and work with students.

The most popular entries on my blog, year after year, continue to be the two posts I wrote about another similar project: the original Gatsby Facebook Project post and a post I wrote to update and expand some of the ideas and resources I mentioned. That second post mentions an article I co-authored on Digital Scaffolding, which discussed the Gatsby project as well as a project on explicating sonnets using Voicethread. In years past, I tested out a lesson plan from ReadWriteThink using the language of texting to imagine new scenes and moments in The Catcher in the Rye, and used blogging when teaching Catcher as well as Hamlet. When I was still adjuncting, I taught courses on Facebook culture and the implications. Clearly, this is a thread that runs through my teaching, inspiring me as I look ahead.

But beyond what I’ve implemented in my classroom, I’ve also been so inspired by the resources at my fingertips, sites like EDSITEment from the National Endowment for the Humanities, Poets.org, The Poetry Foundation, and ReadWriteThink. Whenever I tackle a new text or plan a new course, like my fast-approaching elective on Latin American literature, I make sites like this my first stop for ideas, plans and seeds for exploration. I follow amazing educators like Traci Gardner, Jim Burke and Carol Jago on Twitter, and get updates and links from NCTE and Web English Teacher there too. I check in on group blogs like ProfHacker and love the conversations at the English Companion Ning. Individual blogs like Treasure Chest of Thoughts, What Now? and Confessions from the Couch not only teach me about activities and tools like foldables, but provide camaraderie and company on days when I need a boost or some validation.

Do I read every post or follow every link? Of course not, but it all provides a fruitful atmosphere to get my own brain churning and stimulated. Sometimes I get overwhelmed thinking of all the things I could be doing, which is too often followed by guilt over what I’m not doing, but that’s life in the digital age, right? When I try to imagine my life as a teacher any other way, I know it’s worth whatever I have to do to keep a better balance between inspiration and overload when I think about digital social teaching and learning.

Related articles

On Parent-Child Cellphone Contracts

Posted by Jackie in all about me, conversations, family life, technology and tagged with , , , ,
Image representing iPhone as depicted in Crunc...

Image via CrunchBase

Lucy and I went out for a mother-daughter lunch recently, and while we were chatting, she said that many of her classmates were going to ask for smartphones for their 5th grade graduation present. Trying to hide my total surprise, I asked her if she thought she might want that too. “No,” she said, “I really don’t see the point of it for kids my age.” I nodded and agreed, but I know that if my kids had older siblings, or were playing on traveling sports teams, they might well be one of those kids needing to stay in closer touch with us. But then the texting, and the screen time, and restrictions; such a can of worms to open!

Even more recently, I saw a popular post written by a blogger as a letter to her 13 year old son, who got his first iPhone for Christmas. It’s a wonderful and thoughtful approach, and there were a few lines that felt especially valuable to me.

4. Hand the phone to one of your parents promptly at 7:30 p.m. every school night and every weekend night at 9:00 p.m. It will be shut off for the night and turned on again at 7:30 a.m.

I hear my students say that they sleep with their cell phones under their pillows so they feel the vibrations when they get new texts, no matter how asleep they are, and other students say they use the phone as their alarms, so they have to keep it in their rooms overnight. Parents say the kids are constantly attached, interfering with family time and communication, and that they struggle with knowing where to draw the line. We know that kids are using their phones as their Internet sources more and more, but they still need that time to disconnect, to get healthy sleep, and to keep the online world in its proper place and perspective. I would definitely adopt a similar policy with my own kids, after what I’ve heard as a teacher.

8. Do not text, email, or say anything through this device you would not say in person.

9. Do not text, email, or say anything to someone that you would not say out loud with their parents in the room. Censor yourself.

Again, so important! Adolescents are learning so much about themselves and the kind of people and friends they want to be, and they will inevitably make mistakes and not be as kind or empathetic as we would like to think they are. But the shock on a friend’s face when you stumble and say something you shouldn’t can be a powerful corrective that just isn’t possible when you dash off a quick text and send it flying.

18. You will mess up. I will take away your phone. We will sit down and talk about it. We will start over again. You and I, we are always learning. I am on your team. We are in this together.

I think the lesson this mother is trying to teach her son here is one that is important to teach our children in so many arenas, from schoolwork and grades to mastering digital balance and etiquette. It’s all a process, and we are there to guide them, not punish them.

Do your kids have cellphones? How old were they when they got their first one? What rules have you established?

Related articles

Biblical Allusions Playlist

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

You all know how much I love Spotify, right? In the year since I wrote that post, my love has only grown, especially now that I have a Premium account and can listen to as much music as I want, ad-free.

One of the many aspects that make the service so enjoyable is the ability to create your own playlists, as well as listen and subscribe to playlists made by thousands of other users. I’ve benefited greatly from the lists others have made, and have tried putting together a few of my own (beyond simply compiling one album). My first triumph was my playlist for the novel High Fidelity, and recently I made a list of songs containing Biblical references, to go along with my Bible as Literature unit:

Some users online agree with me about the teaching possibilities, but the Spotify site is a little unclear about the venues in which it is allowed to be used. Classroom use seems “non-commercial” to me, but it’s a little unclear. Even if I keep the playlist for my own use, it’s a fun mix–enjoy!

Note: I deliberately did not include sacred/gospel music, to allow for more of a range. If you have suggestions for additions, let me know!

Related articles

Tabletop, Geeks, Games and Me

Posted by Jackie in all about me, family life, media mentions, technology and tagged with , , , ,
Tsuro

Tsuro (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I realized recently that I may have been wrong about myself, and where I fall on the geek spectrum.

See, I don’t feel like I have many of the biggest markers of true geekdom. I have never been a comic book fan, and I’ve never been to a convention. I’ve never played a RPG or LARP, but I know what the initials mean (I think) and I certainly have gamer friends. I’ve never managed to finish the entire LOTR series of books, and even the movies leave me a little cold. I’ve never dismantled a computer (but I know people who have), and my coding knowledge stops at basic HTML. I find video games fairly boring.

But–I did read the entire Shannara series, by Terry Brooks, in fifth and sixth grades, not to mention the Harry Potter series as an adult. I did play on my high school quiz team, my high school sweetheart was a Mathlete, and I did score a perfect score on my (verbal) SAT. I did teach myself HTML back in 1998 to put up my first webpage, and I remember the sheer thrill of figuring out how to make images become links. I’ve been blogging for about nine years, and I remember playing video games that were all text (“You go into a room. In the room, you find an Orc”). I’m obsessed with Game of Thrones and have read the first four books of the Song of Fire and Ice series.

My husband is a little easier to peg, I think. He played Dungeons and Dragons in his youth, treasures his battered copies of the Dragonlance novels, and can tell you more than you want to know about X-Men and the Avengers (before the movies came out, of course). He can also tell you lots about techno music and the impending zombie apocalypse, introduced me to Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and enjoys Chemistry Cat a little too much. As a result, my girls already have opinions about their favorite superheroes and are waiting to be old enough to love Buffy.

So Are we geeks, or are we nerds? Does even posing the question also provide the answer?

I don’t remember the first time I read Wil Wheaton’s blog, but it’s been a regular read for me for at least the past year, and slowly but surely, I’ve become intrigued with gaming. Wil’s new webseries Tabletop got me hooked; I’ve seen every episode, but the real kicker came when my girls caught me watching an episode and wanted to see what was making me laugh. It was the Ticket to Ride episode, and they were instantly hooked! They have seen every episode now, and their favorite is the episode featuring casual games. So for their birthday, I bought Tsuro, and we have really enjoyed playing it! Lucy even likes to say, “Stop getting up in my dragon grill,” because one of the Tabletop guys said while they were playing. I think sometime this summer, we will end up owning both Zombie Dice and Get Bit, and then we’ll decide on a bigger game to purchase that we’ve seen on Tabletop, probably Settlers of Catan or Ticket to Ride, once we feel ready.

Are we raising geeky/nerdy children? I can only hope so, as one of the great accomplishments of my adulthood has been embracing the idea of being a geek or a nerd: a highly intelligent and passionate person who dives deep in each enthusiasm and is inherently curious and engaged in the world, someone who wants to share those passions with anyone who might be interested, and someone who always has a new fact or opinion to bring to every conversation. What’s not to like about that?

Related articles

Writing on Values

Posted by Jackie in blogging, education, teaching, technology and tagged with , ,
Обкладинка книги "Над прірвою у житі"

Image via Wikipedia

As any teacher knows, the best professional development either introduces us to a new idea/text or gives us an easily implementable classroom idea or assignment. I’ve had great luck over the years using teacher-bloggers as my own personal learning network, and a recent interaction with That Writing Lady is a great example.

TWL stopped by my blog recently and left a comment, and as usual, I returned the visit to find her blog. The entry that caught my attention was one titled A 1-Hour Assignment that Stops Kids from Failing–great title, right? Upon reading further, I found the prompt really inspiring for use with my current unit on The Catcher in the Rye. Holden is obsessed with honesty throughout the book, one of the values listed in TWL’s example, and I thought it might be interesting for my students to reflect on their own values while also getting some practice with personal essay writing.

Here’s the prompt I came up with, adapted from TWL, and gave to my students:

Part of Holden’s struggle in The Catcher in the Rye is that he sees examples of cruelty and insincerity all around him, and cannot understand why people treat each other this way. While he himself is also flawed, Holden’s obsession with morals and values is part of what makes him distinctive as a character, and his inability to reconcile how people should behave and how they actually do contributes to his growing instability in the book.

What is an important value that you have? (Examples of values: honesty, compassion, kindness, teamwork, self-respect, faith, perseverance, loyalty, forgiveness, leadership, patience, creativity, service). Why do you think that this value is important? Be specific and detailed; give examples of how and when you think people should demonstrate this value, or use stories from your own life to illustrate the importance of this value or how it has affected you. You may use “I” when writing to describe your own beliefs.

This writing will be graded, both for your use of detail and for sentence construction, organization and grammar, so leave yourself some time to review your work before submission. Brainstorming for a few minutes and making a rough outline would also be good uses of your time. You will have 50 minutes to write.

I’ve gotten the first batch back so far and I’m so pleased I tried this out! Once again, my teacher-blogger PLN really delivered, and I’m hoping someone may benefit from this entry as well, fueling the fire of virtual collaboration. Thanks again, TWL!

Related articles

Reducing Screen Time: Strategies

Posted by Jackie in all about me, media mentions, personal goals, technology and tagged with , ,
English: A child watching TV.

Image via Wikipedia

One of the resolutions I’ve made for 2012 that is most daunting for me is to reduce screen time. This has been an ongoing desire of mine, but I’ve not yet found the strategies that work for me. Here’s a list of some I’m considering:

  • keeping a screen time log for myself for a week (I expect this to be horrifying, which is probably exactly why I should do it)
  • setting some get-active goals and tracking my progress
  • eating dinner in front of the TV less (I know, it’s a horrible habit and bringing the end of Western civilization closer and closer)
  • being active during screen time, including doing stretches or lifting weights while watching TV. I think using screen time for active Wii games would be a good switch here too.
  • cutting down on the most purposeless/time-suck ways I am on the Internet.  Blogging is okay, stupid gossip websites are less so.  And specifically, maybe check those embarrassing sites once a day, but no more.
  • I think it would also be helpful to make a list of “good” uses of screen time: blogging, Family Movie Night, shows like “Top Chef” I enjoy watching with my girls, and let myself off the hook for those.
  • accepting that I don’t need constant access to my inboxes and that sometimes, emails can wait until later to be answered. I don’t think I could fall asleep without checking my work email in the late evening at least once, but I certainly don’t need to check as often as I do.

The big piece will be focusing on myself; I think I do fairly well in monitoring my children’s consumption and screen hours, as well as keeping screens out of the bedrooms, but my own habits have gotten untenable. I don’t have a smartphone, which I think is good for me, but my laptop is on far too often, and too often I’ve got the TV on in the background as well.

Blech. I know this isn’t a new insight, but I really think one of the road blocks to keeping resolutions is that trying to be a better person also means acknowledging all the ways in which you fall short, and who wants to think about that for too long?

Newsflash: resolutions also often involve stopping doing things that are easy, and replacing with things that are hard.  Sigh.

Related articles

Vocabulary Videos

Posted by Jackie in education, teaching, technology and tagged with , , ,
Ideas are ...

Image by martymadrid via Flickr

As part of our midterm review, I’m revamping what I’ve done before; I’ve had students do review presentations before, but this year, I stepped up the requirements to make it more creative and interactive and truly substantial. I gave them a few examples and two class periods to work and then set them loose!

So far, I’ve got one group working on “Edge of Glory: Vocab Remix,” one group pounding oranges with a mallet, another group taking a camera out to the field, and another covering my whiteboard with a millefleur pattern. As fun as this all looks, there’s also sound pedagogical reasoning behind it, aligned with the idea of scaffolding and the gradual release model of shifting from teacher to student responsibility for learning. I also feel like this is appropriate 21st century, Teach Paperless learning, as they use their laptops, cell phones and flip cameras to produce their work, and I’m planning to make the materials from all three sections available on my website, which will provide the bulk of their grammar/vocab review for the midterm exam.

I often feel impatient when I read a good teaching article, and want to implement that idea right now! This gets overwhelming quickly and can be really discouraging as well, thinking of all the amazing things other (better) teachers are doing while you’re struggling through lessons that seem unimaginative at best. Too many ideas end up lingering in my files, never to be implemented. However, I’m finding that more often, I have to let an idea incubate over a period of time, until I can integrate it into my classes in the most effective way.

Related articles

Twitter, One Year Later

Posted by Jackie in blogging, conversations, media mentions, technology, writing and tagged with , , , ,
Image representing Twitter as depicted in Crun...

Image via CrunchBase

A year ago, I succumbed to my curiosity and joined Twitter, despite deciding six months previously that it wasn’t for me. Since then, I’ve tweeted over 800 times and follow more than 110 people, and have over 50 followers myself, which are tiny numbers in the grand scheme of things, but also show, I think, that I must have gotten some value out of it in that year.

I thought I would end up sending a bunch of links and things there, but ultimately, I still send most of that to FB, where I get more responses and communal dialogue. I publicize my blog entries there, but I think FB is a bigger referrer still.

As part of making my overall screen time more purposeful, as well as eliminating my biggest online time-sucks, I am looking closely at areas where I can cut down.

My questions about Twitter:

What do I like about it?

keeping in touch with friends who use it a lot, informal one-to-one conversations, live-tweeting events like the Republican debates, useful links, keeping up with West Wing characters!

What is not enjoyable about it?

It’s fairly addictive in the same way that Facebook is for me, because it’s almost a guarantee that every time I check it, there will be something new to look at, making it a very easy distraction. Luckily, like FB, it’s blocked while I am at school, but unluckily, that means it’s one of my biggest time-sucks while here at home, which I’m trying to eliminate.

Am I ready to make it public? How would that benefit me?

Not being public means I’m not part of bigger conversations, which sometimes I think I’d like to be, and also not being public means it’s the only corner of the Internet where I don’t have that accountability that I prize everywhere else. Before I made it public, I’d have to go through and carefully edit my previous Tweets, which would be tedious, as there are over 800 of them (also, are Tweets ever really deleted? Is anything?).

I think it’s useful enough to stay invested, but I think making myself more accountable for how I use it would be healthier too.

Related articles