Power of Sharing-Digital Storytelling

Page 127 in our textbook talks about the power of digital storytelling. Given our high at-risk population, this seems to be a strong education strategy as well as a beneficial mental health activity. Searching online there are many resources for such a project. Think this will be an engaging and fun end-of-year project and a perfect follow up to our study of biography.

Getting students to use resource

Because of the E2T2 grant, I set up a class wiki site. Thinking this would solve many problems - especially those of "lost" copies of materials, I ventured forth to build, what I believe, is a helpful resource. While I may think it helpful, students seem very resistant to use it. They "forget" about it, claim to forget the site (even though the address remains on the board), and seem genuinely disinterested. Is there something wrong with my site? Is there a way to better engage and motivate students to use this resource I put my time and energy into? Thoughts, ideas? Feedback on wiki? (http://kimberlyhetrick.wikispaces.com)

Lesson Plan 2-Transitions

I am planning my second technology lesson today. As I work with 8th graders, our project focus is going to be on "transitions"...specifically what, when, why we experience them in life. Students are going to reflect on their upcoming transition to high school and write a short paper on their thoughts, feelings, fears, hopes etc.

Technology-wise, students are going to blog about the definition of transition and what that means to them. Read and answer other students' blogs. Finally, students will use Wordle and Glogster to graphically represent their upcoming transition to high school.

I believe this project will address literacy and ITSE standards. "By multiple definitions, literacy boils down to learning to be independent, aware and productive citizens. A true-to-life project naturally involves opportunities for learners to become literate in the 21st-century sense of the word..." (Reinventing Project-Based Learning, 2007, p. 49)

Self direction

What drives a student to remain engaged in a self-directed activity?

What are some elements that you think need to be in place?
What does it look like in your classroom?

First was the novel study of The Hunger Games. The content was so stimulating and relevant to students that class discussions about themes took off. Students challenged each other to further define themes and pull examples from the book.When asked to write a blog reflection about the book, students did so and then went on to find the music and upcoming trailer for the movie which generated discussion about who was casted for what characters.


The second example is when the students were asked to set up their own blogs through Edublogs.  Students ended up helping each other and NOT asking me a single question.  They were so engaged that I ended up watching the class hum. It was a rewarding and thrilling time as an educator.


My observation, from these two experiences, is that students are self-directed when the content is highly relevant and engaging. Students like to talk through ideas to reach conclusions together. Students relish team input and team encouragement.

Skype and Learning

Spying on my teenage daughter, I had to smile as she was "skyping" her friends while doing homework.  Teenagers, do they not get enough of each other during the day?  To her credit, she was doing her work and, in fact, the kids often broke the chatter with questions about their homework.  Made me question how we could incorporate such a tool in the classroom.  Instead of penpals, we could have Skype-pals?  Has anyone used Skype in the classroom?

Obama to spend $6 billion on rural broadband

Having lived in very rural areas in the past, I was delighted to see that our President is committing to technology investments.  Not only will this enhance education, it will expand it.  Sometimes it is hard to imagine being so far out of civilization that the Internet is the only connection.  But our vast country has its very hard to reach areas and this project will enable kids and their families to have ready access to online education.  Education the great equalizer...no matter where you live.

When discussing this with our Technology Director, Kathy Ferrell, she had this to say...
Colorado is working on a project called Eaglenet to bring greater bandwidth into the District and it should be here by 2013, but that will not service the community, just state agencies and specifically schools.

Blogging with Students

Because of our technology class, I decided to integrate our novel study with the skill of blogging.  Students were instructed how to set up a blog on Edublogs and then had to write reflections about The Hunger Games.  Students were much more engaged in this writing activity online than writing with paper and pencil.  They relished creating their own designs and having other students read their work.  I linked their blogs to our class Wiki.  I am going to use this strategy more often - especially with building background knowledge.