My table, table 25, had a wonderful discussion. I was awed by the discussion we had. We talked about how all teachers have to teach students how to think, read, write, research, evaluate, create, produce using technology every step of the way.  We talked about how we–all of us teachers–have to move from seeing ourselves as teachers of a particular content to seeing ourselves as teachers of students, students who need strong content knowledge but who just as importantly need to know how to read and write and think and choose and use efficiently digital tools to suit their purpose.

All day I’ve wanted to stand and shout, “Amen”! Edubloggers have been preaching this message for some time. It appears Common Core may be the impetus to push the movement into the mainstream. What is the movement? Students learn by doing. They learn technology skills by creating, producing, publishing, collaborating. They learn to think by reading and talking and writing about meaningful, compelling ideas. Along the way, if the road is rigorous and meaningful and real, they develop a body of content knowledge.

Who’s going to teach teachers how to use these digital tools? Who’s going to support teachers in shifting to designing inquiry and project-based lessons? One table suggested schools need INSTRUCTIONAL technologists, facilitators who can support teachers in planning rigorous learning experiences that integrate technology.

Really.

How  very, very exciting the direction we’re heading–not just the edublogging community but the whole state, the whole nation.

I say bring it on!

I’m trying to make sure any system I devise adheres to these two principles:

• The words aren’t devoid of context. They are tied to a text.
• Students have time to play with the words–manipulate them, explore them, use them.

I still haven’t quite tweaked a system, but I’m discovering lots of cool ways to let kids play with words. I’ve written before about using mini dry erase boards. Kids love that. Today, I discovered a new tool: Google Sets.  It allows you to type in five words, and Google will magically generate a set of related words. Very cool.

Today in class, I had kids work in small groups to brainstorm a list of words that mean “fat.” I then gave them the word “corpulent,” displaying it on Wordnik. We looked at several synonyms, talked about the denotation and connotations of the words, clustered them into groups based on their connotations,  and wound up adding several ACT (or SAT) words:  obese, portly, rotund  to the vocabulary section of their binders.  We then read “Sidekicks,” a poem which contains the word “corpulence.”

I didn’t know about Google Sets today. I’ll be using it in future word play lessons. I’m thinking it would be a great way to learn tone words. We, for example, might start with the word “angry.” Students could type in four other words that mean “angry,” and generate a set. We could add these words to an “angry” page in our binders (and draw a picture of angry to help them remember), and then add words that mean the same as “angry.” We might then read a text that has an angry tone. I’m thinking “A Dream Deferred” might be a good text. They could choose the “angry” word that best pinpoints the author’s tone.

I’d love to hear other teachers’ ideas or systems for teaching vocabulary.

I spent some time this summer researching applications to install that would make them a better tool–particularly for literacy. I thought I’d share the list.

1. Google Chrome: We used Internet Explorer all last year, but I, personally, have been using Firefox. So, why Chrome? As with all things Google, it’s clean, simple, and fast. With a few extensions added, I think it’s going to be powerful:
   • Bubble Translate:  Students can highlight text on a page, click one button in the toolbar, and produce a dialogue bubble above the highlighted text with translated text in a selected language, and there are many languages available. For our ESL kids, this will be powerful.
   • Google Translate: I added this language translator also because it allows you to translate an entire web page with one click. I’m hoping the combination of the two will work well.
   • WebNotes: This is the tool I spent the most time researching. I was looking for a simple note-taking tool that would basically allow students to harvest snippets from web sites, add their own annotations, and save them in an organized fashion–a replacement for the yesteryears of source cards and note cards. I played with Diigo and Delicious but settled on WebNotes. It’s simple. It allows students to create a free account and create folders where they can organize and share their notes. I’m envisioning mini-inquiry projects where students submit a WebNotes generated report of their notes.
   • Delicious:   I still love Delicious and wanted to make it available to students so that they can bookmark sites online rather than on the mini,  making them available from anywhere with an internet connection.
   • Awesome Screenshot: This handy tools allows students to capture a screenshot, add notes, and copy the image or save it to a site online where they can add the image to blog posts or elsewhere.  All without leaving their browser! I think this would be awesome for students creating portfolios: they could capture artifacts and reflect on their work. They could analyze ads or other texts. I was thinking of using this tool next week with my AP English students, having them annotate some poems, analyzing diction and tone.
   • FeedSquares: My students have been using Google Reader, and FeedSquares simply allows you to read your subscriptions in a more visually appealing format (sort of like a magazine) right from your browser.
   • Timer: This is a simple timer that allows students to set a countdown and track their time. I’ve been using Online Stopwatch, displaying it on the LCD projector in class. But, I sometimes need to flip through several screens, losing site of the timer. This timer is built in the browser, so no matter where they go, they see the countdown. I’m hoping this will be a great time management tool as we work in class.
   • SmoothScroll: This is one they’ll never see but will appreciate. Some kids have a hard time adjusting to the small keyboard and built-in mouse (whatever you call that black pad that replaces the mouse). It seems like scrolling down webpages  feels a bit jerkier on the mini, and some kids have trouble navigating sites. SmoothScroll eliminates the jerky scrolling.
2. PhotoStory3: This is a free, and very simplistic, video-making software from Microsoft. I know there are online video making tools, but sometimes, to make the most of the little time we have in class, I just need a simple software that will work even when our internet connection won’t!

That’s it. There are thousands more extensions, but I wanted to keep it simple and add only a few that I thought would be most productive for my students. I’m sure I’ll discover more I want to add later. I’d love to hear any suggestions you might have for extensions or any other downloads you’d suggest.

I’d like to indulge in a bit of personal reflection:

• I’ve been experimenting with PBL for several years now, and have tinkered with some collaboration outside my classroom. This year, my goal is to work collaboratively to join or create a project that links my students with peers and/or experts from around the globe.
• I want to focus on the authenticity aspect, working to make the learning REALLY relevant to my students.

If you haven’t read this book, I highly recommend it. I’d love for more voices to join me on my journey.

I have installed an interesting application – BlogJet. It’s a cool Windows client for my blog tool (as well as for other tools). Get your copy here: http://blogjet.com

“Computers are incredibly fast, accurate and stupid; humans are incredibly slow, inaccurate and brilliant; together they are powerful beyond imagination.” — Albert Einstein

I’d love us to do this with our English department next year. We could form an English Dept. inquiry team, focusing specifically on improving student writing (especially content and style—our lowest scores on our essay EOL Literacy exam). I can imagine us grading a set of student essays (or small writing sample), targeting a specific area. Perhaps one week we focus on students using specific details. The idea would be to set goals, teach the concepts, then meet together to grade student work. We then reflect on their understanding to refine, reteach, improve our instruction.

Perhaps a good starting place is the end—to start by taking a close look at content and style, making a list of specific skills this entails, and then developing lessons that target those skills.

Language Arts Inquiry Team.  Great idea.

Google Maps allows anyone to create a customized map with placemarkers that, when clicked, launch a pop-up box complete with text, links, images, even videos.  Think of all the novels or short stories where setting is prominent, especially novels that have multiple settings. Students could map the events in a novel. Last year my students researched texting: wouldn’t it have been awesome for them share their research by plotting texting incidences reported. What a way to share their research! Basically, Google Maps allows students to create Lit Trips, like many have created using Google Earth, in a quick and easy fashion, without having to download any software as you have to with Google Earth.

The other tool, UMapper, allows you to upload any image and add placemarkers just like you do in Google Maps. This is even better than annotating a Flickr image, because you can embed the interactive image on web pages, like students’ blogs and class wikis. This week, I’ll be having my students reflect on what they’ve learned the first nine weeks of school. They’ll first create an image–either by arranging items and snapping a photo or hand-drawing an illustration and snapping a photo. They’ll then upload the image and annotate it. The objects in the image will symbolize their learning. The placemarkers will allow them to add text to explain what they’ve learned and even include images and links to content they’ve created and published online. I’m thinking this strategy would make an awesome first page of a portfolio–a completely visual navigation throughout their portfolios. Very cool. I’m also considering having students share summaries or reviews of the books they’ve read independently. They could snap a photo of the images or create an image by gathering book jacket images from Amazon.  They can then annotate the book covers, sharing a summary or book review and embed the image in a blog post. I created the annotated image below just for fun. Click on the white placemarkers to see my annotations. If you can’t see it, you can see it here.

Both these tools are free and simple to use. To learn more, check out this blog post I’ve published on our Classrooms 21 District blog.

I’m trying to see what this looks like when I use the “blog this” feature of Flickr to publish a photo that I’ve annotated. I’m wondering if my annotations will be visible. We’ll see!

Today, we tackled diction and tone.

I began the lesson by having three  students “act out” a sentence, each using a different tone.

I just saw someone smash into Mrs. Huff’s car in the parking lot.

One student assumed an angry tone, another an amused tone, and the last an apathetic one. The class had to guess their tone.

We then transitioned from voice to text. I quickly explained that since we can’t hear the author’s voice, our only clue to how he feels–his attitude or tone–about what he’s writing about is hidden in the text itself. If we look at the words (diction) he uses, we can often figure out his tone.

After showing a few sentences, modeling how diction points to tone, I put students into teams and had each team read Langston Hughes A Dream Deferred. Before class I created an Etherpad for each team, then put the link to the pad on our class wiki. I included directions and a copy of the poem on the pad. Students then read and discussed the poem within their teams, identified diction with strong connotations, and brainstormed tones. They then wrote a paragraph explaining the tone of the poem and giving at least three details to support their explanation.

I had to prod a few groups by asking them if they knew what deferred meant and for a few groups asking them how they might find out what it means–mind each student has his own laptop, and a few students looked dumbfounded as to how they might define the word!

I was able to assess their understanding by reading all the team’s responses at the end of the day.

Not every lesson is successful, but it’s exciting when the stars align–and the tools and strategies and students’ hormones–and magic and learning happens!

Yesterday marked a milestone in that redesign journey.

I traveled with five colleagues from my district to Fort Smith to train with the Fort Smith School District with whom we’re partnering.  These five colleagues applied and were selected to be Classroom Redesign Pioneers . These Pioneer educators, all veteran teachers, are embracing change. They recognize what we’ve all been doing isn’t reaching today’s kids, isn’t preparing them for the world they’ll enter. These are good teachers. They’ve been successful. Yet, they know we can do better. Their eagerness excites me and fuels me for the journey ahead.

In addition to getting a classroom set of Asus EeePC’s, they’ll be getting several other tech tools,  a completely redesigned classroom that will truly change the learning environment, and continuing professional development in the form of a personal learning community we’re creating.

This week is tangible. I can finally SEE the fruits of a long year of work. We’ve only just begun, but it’s exciting. I look forward to chronicling our journey, to continuing to problem-solve as we encounter hurdles, to working alongside these teachers as we enter uncharted–at least in our area–territory.

Here’s to the learning revolution: it’s happening at my school!