My high school English teacher had her AP students create an individual blog as opposed to a more traditional writing journal. I distinctly remember using my blog as a medium to post reading responses, write stream of consciousness ideas, and respond to classmates' work. I took pride in my blog and used it to express myself creatively. Using technology in this class made a big impact on me as a student and learner. Listed below are two resources that I believe will motivate my students to learn just as I was inspired by my high school teacher:
I previously discussed how I want to have a Wiki to post a class calendar, project guidelines, and class materials. I will also use the Wiki to ask students to reflect on a "Quote of the Week" or post their vocabulary words. I like the collaborative aspect of a Wiki, but also like how it is a great central repository of information. What I hadn't really thought about what having students own a Wiki on particular unit that we are covering. For example, I'm currently creating a unit plan on The Crucible. Using a Wiki is an awesome way to engage students and give them a sense of ownership in their learning. Students will contribute to and edit their site:
- A page entitled "Character Study" is a place where students can post a picture of the Venn diagrams they create that relate to a particular historical figure in The Crucible. As students observe and learn more about their character, they can edit the Wiki accordingly.
- "Contemporary References" is also be a nice page to have. Students can post videos that they liked from The Crucible movie starring Winona Ryder and Daniel Day-Lewis or share the movie that they are creating as their final project.
The website lives up to its description of classroom resources at just a click away. One aspect of this website that teachers will find extraordinarily helpful is that it is somewhat grade-specific. Recommended resources for grades 7-8 and Grades 9-12 are spiked out separately. Often times it is difficult to discern on if a web resource is grade-appropriate or not. One of the resources that I found on this site that will be useful for helping students' understand the historical context of the literature they are reading is the American Memory site sponsored by the Library of Congress. This would be a good example of a website to use on an Internet Workshop. Lastly, I like how the Literacy Web was compiled by an authority on the use of Internet technologies, Dr. Donald J. Leu, and a doctoral student focused on the integration of technology and literacy. I feel much more confident using resources that have been vetted by experts.
References
The Library of Congress. (2011). American memory. Retrieved from http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/index.html.
Literacy Web at UCONN - Neag School of Education at the University of Connecticut. (2007). Literacy web for classroom teachers. Retrieved from http://www.literacy.uconn.edu/teachers.htm.
Teaching History with Technology. (2011). Wikis. Retrieved from http://thwt.org/wikis.html.
Excellent post! Great ideas for wiki use in the classroom. Nice use of labels!! The only issue I see with your post is you have references (which look great), but there are no citations in your post. Even though you have hyperlinks to the sites, you still need an actual citation for each reference. So for example, somewhere on your cite I should see a citation for the Library of Congress - (Library of Congress, 2011).
ReplyDeleteOh! I totally forgot about that. Thanks for pointing that out. I'll be sure to include it in this week's post.
ReplyDelete