I just had this thought as I was looking over my kids' wikis. And if I don't write it down now, I'll forget. And if I write it on a paper, I may accidentally throw it away. So this for me, not you! :)
Know how American Idol has their theme week stuff? Well looking over these wikis I see so many varied styles of writing, from those who do just the imagery to those who are bare-bones and their writing is sparse and somewhat barren. So maybe I can tell my kids on Mon and Tues of whatever week that...
So this week is IMAGERY week! When you come up with some stories for your happy family, I want you to try to focus on giving me some really good visual descriptions (some will post pictures and that's okay too).
Then the next week:
So this week is DIALOG! When you write up your next fun and exciting story, I'd like to challenge you: try NOT to do much descriptive writing. Instead, try to let us know what happens through dialog. Imagine someone recorded the conversations and wrote them down.
Then the next week:
Come up with another story, but this time tell it from the point of view of someone NOT in the immediate family. Be creative! This and this happens, but the person telling it could be a rock or gerbil or a spatula. Whatever.
Anyway, ME, that's my little brain explosion for this Saturday. I am having so much fun reading these wikis. I guess it's kinda sad in a way, but I don't feel any guilt that I'm spending my Sat. afternoon reading their wikis.
DRAT I AM SUPPOSED TO INVITE MY GROUP TO MY WIKI ARRRRRRRRRRRGH!
Saturday, February 23, 2008
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
Midweek update
Even though I said last update would be short, it wasn't. So this one WILL be short.
Reece, I'll give you the invite to it this weekend. I will post (on my school Sharepoint site) the rubric that the kids came up with. It'll just tell them what they need to do to get a C- (70%). We'll see how it goes. I'll also post some stories they've done.
Today I had my A4 class show me how they're citing things. We came to a consensus: they will have their work cited on a separate page.
Kyle (the history side of honors 9) and I have hammered over and over and over again how to do parenthetical citations MLA style, and works cited. They have to have those for their 10+ Time Travelers, and because I want these kids to view this not as a research paper, I'm going to be very lenient re: citing.
What I do want them to do is hyperlink the heck out of their stuff. This weekend will be my first grading of their work, and I told them I'd like them to go BACK through the stories they've written thus far and see if they can link to sites they already have (due to their Time Traveler assignments).
It's going good. I have one or two who haven't done a single bit, but they're also failing both history/english classes and they haven't done much of anything all year. And the worst part is that even AFTER we talk to the parents, they still want them
Nevermind. I'm just rambling now. So 3 weeks (3 weeks tomorrow) in and it is looking very very good. They've figured out how things go, now they're beginning to focus on the stories. And so far I am absolutely happy with them. I'll tell you the great fuzzy stories in weeks to come (like the girl who really hasn't done great work on papers thus far, but she is PSYCHO good with her wiki. I mean it's freakin' SICK how good it is).
Reece, I'll give you the invite to it this weekend. I will post (on my school Sharepoint site) the rubric that the kids came up with. It'll just tell them what they need to do to get a C- (70%). We'll see how it goes. I'll also post some stories they've done.
Today I had my A4 class show me how they're citing things. We came to a consensus: they will have their work cited on a separate page.
Kyle (the history side of honors 9) and I have hammered over and over and over again how to do parenthetical citations MLA style, and works cited. They have to have those for their 10+ Time Travelers, and because I want these kids to view this not as a research paper, I'm going to be very lenient re: citing.
What I do want them to do is hyperlink the heck out of their stuff. This weekend will be my first grading of their work, and I told them I'd like them to go BACK through the stories they've written thus far and see if they can link to sites they already have (due to their Time Traveler assignments).
It's going good. I have one or two who haven't done a single bit, but they're also failing both history/english classes and they haven't done much of anything all year. And the worst part is that even AFTER we talk to the parents, they still want them
Nevermind. I'm just rambling now. So 3 weeks (3 weeks tomorrow) in and it is looking very very good. They've figured out how things go, now they're beginning to focus on the stories. And so far I am absolutely happy with them. I'll tell you the great fuzzy stories in weeks to come (like the girl who really hasn't done great work on papers thus far, but she is PSYCHO good with her wiki. I mean it's freakin' SICK how good it is).
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
Still happy, still hope you are too!
Brief update. It's going well and I'll add y'all soon. You'll get an invite from PBWiki. Give 'em a password and log on. After you're done, make sure you log OFF, then go BACK to PBWiki and log in again (trust me). The first screen after your password screen, make sure you click on the pulldown bar that says somethin' like UPDATES. Click on the NEVER. Otherwise you'll get a thousand updates, and that will make you very sad. And angry. Mostly angry.
The kids are updating daily, and I'm spending about an hour each night looking through theirs and making comments. I'm careful not to tell them how they should do theirs. I'm letting them come up with everything on their own.
A4 class was given the job to figure out how we'll do our WORKS CITED. I don't want them to have to do them like their TT assignments (as I mentioned in previous update), but they also need to learn that they have to give credit when they borrow things. I've checked out their examples and we'll talk about it tomorrow (Thursday 2/14).
I haven't put together their rubric, but I have all the info. And on that note, I found that I focused TOO MUCH on the wikis the last 1.5 weeks. I haven't focused the students' attention on...say...OUR CLASS AND OUR WORK IN THE CLASS. That changed this week. We're back to reading (The Odyssey, my favorite old dead literature) and they don't have any time in class to work on it. Next week each class will get 30 minutes to go into the computer lab to work on them. I'll highlight the goods and the (very few) who haven't done much on them.
Already the kids are having a tough time organizing, and that makes me a hap hap happy boy! They're slowing figuring out how to organize their pages, and I hope this transfers over to their next TT assignment.
Also, I'm getting some great and intriguing stories here. Really! Captivating ones. To this extent, I hope their papers have more voice, more personality to them.
We'll see. Hi hi hi!
The kids are updating daily, and I'm spending about an hour each night looking through theirs and making comments. I'm careful not to tell them how they should do theirs. I'm letting them come up with everything on their own.
A4 class was given the job to figure out how we'll do our WORKS CITED. I don't want them to have to do them like their TT assignments (as I mentioned in previous update), but they also need to learn that they have to give credit when they borrow things. I've checked out their examples and we'll talk about it tomorrow (Thursday 2/14).
I haven't put together their rubric, but I have all the info. And on that note, I found that I focused TOO MUCH on the wikis the last 1.5 weeks. I haven't focused the students' attention on...say...OUR CLASS AND OUR WORK IN THE CLASS. That changed this week. We're back to reading (The Odyssey, my favorite old dead literature) and they don't have any time in class to work on it. Next week each class will get 30 minutes to go into the computer lab to work on them. I'll highlight the goods and the (very few) who haven't done much on them.
Already the kids are having a tough time organizing, and that makes me a hap hap happy boy! They're slowing figuring out how to organize their pages, and I hope this transfers over to their next TT assignment.
Also, I'm getting some great and intriguing stories here. Really! Captivating ones. To this extent, I hope their papers have more voice, more personality to them.
We'll see. Hi hi hi!
Wednesday, February 6, 2008
I am HAPPY! I hope you are too.
Going to keep this short because I only have 2 hours to check out all my wikis so I don't want to spend all my time yacking on here. I'll talk on here another time, i want to spend mucho time on the wikis so the students know I'm serious about it.
Some short points: I have ALMOST all my students fill out the survey form. A couple didn't. Boo.
PBWiki has lots of cool toys but I found that many have ad links for stupid spam MySpace crap sites. I emailed them and they apologized but said it's the deal they have with the widget people. So that sucks. I talked to all my classes about it and my kids have found ways to put the chat program on the site without ads (I have some crackerjack future hackers). The chat program is ONLY for everyone who is currently logged on PBWIKI so they can talk if they're on. It's good so far.
Same thing with music. They have dumb ads. But my @#$()*& kids have figured out a way to put music on without ads. God bless them.
This week each class went over what kinds of things I need to look for when I grade these. As something new, and because I got into a great discussion with my AP out the merits of rubrics (she hates them and thinks they're one reason our kids only strive for mediocrity), I decided we're going to come up with what everyone needs to do the BARE minimum. The rubric will be for a 70 (C-). i.e. this is what you need to have on your wiki to barely pass. I'll keep you posted on that one.
I have it set up so that I get updates on the hour. I have it piped into my special Outlook folder. It's so coool. I want to hug PBWiki. So far I would say 70-80 percent of my students play with their wikis at least once a day.
Kids are doing what I asked them to do this week: get on, play around with it, and get in contact with the other students in their civilization. EVERY STUDENT HAS DONE THIS.
I set up a helper elf chart on front page today and asked those HTML students who want to volunteer to help with the little things (background colors, videos, etc) can sign up so everyone knows who the experts are. This is the smartest thing I've done thus far.
I am extremely and absolutely happy with the way things are going so far. I'm going to wait a week before I give YOU the link. Some are almost viewer-worthy, most are still in their infancy stage.
Bye bye bye!
Some short points: I have ALMOST all my students fill out the survey form. A couple didn't. Boo.
PBWiki has lots of cool toys but I found that many have ad links for stupid spam MySpace crap sites. I emailed them and they apologized but said it's the deal they have with the widget people. So that sucks. I talked to all my classes about it and my kids have found ways to put the chat program on the site without ads (I have some crackerjack future hackers). The chat program is ONLY for everyone who is currently logged on PBWIKI so they can talk if they're on. It's good so far.
Same thing with music. They have dumb ads. But my @#$()*& kids have figured out a way to put music on without ads. God bless them.
This week each class went over what kinds of things I need to look for when I grade these. As something new, and because I got into a great discussion with my AP out the merits of rubrics (she hates them and thinks they're one reason our kids only strive for mediocrity), I decided we're going to come up with what everyone needs to do the BARE minimum. The rubric will be for a 70 (C-). i.e. this is what you need to have on your wiki to barely pass. I'll keep you posted on that one.
I have it set up so that I get updates on the hour. I have it piped into my special Outlook folder. It's so coool. I want to hug PBWiki. So far I would say 70-80 percent of my students play with their wikis at least once a day.
Kids are doing what I asked them to do this week: get on, play around with it, and get in contact with the other students in their civilization. EVERY STUDENT HAS DONE THIS.
I set up a helper elf chart on front page today and asked those HTML students who want to volunteer to help with the little things (background colors, videos, etc) can sign up so everyone knows who the experts are. This is the smartest thing I've done thus far.
I am extremely and absolutely happy with the way things are going so far. I'm going to wait a week before I give YOU the link. Some are almost viewer-worthy, most are still in their infancy stage.
Bye bye bye!
Thursday, January 31, 2008
Oops
I'm going to add my group's email addresses to my PBWiki page so that you can view it whenever you'd like. But I'll add it AFTER this weekend. I don't want you to see it in its bare-bones.
Going to wait until the students add just a FEW tiny things.
If you want access now, let me know. Otherwise I'll invite you on Tuesday (the next time all my classes will have met).
Going to wait until the students add just a FEW tiny things.
If you want access now, let me know. Otherwise I'll invite you on Tuesday (the next time all my classes will have met).
FIRST DAY
So I started wikis today. I think it went VERY WELL! We had to do some other things first, things that were very important (finish up reading projects and go over the haikus my students posted on my Sharepoint). That left us with 45 minutes. Not enough time!
Yesterday I wrote out my survey questions. I added as many as I could possibly think of. I figured when this is all over I can weed out the ones that end up being irrelevent. I'll post the questions on here sometime. I've got to send myself an email from school (blogspot is banned from all DoDDS Pacific servers and for good reason! There's a massive dearth of inappropriate blogspot sites out there for HS students). The survey questions are on my Sharepoint, so I'll get to those later.
I ran out of time for my A3 class. I forgot to have them take the survey. DANGIT DANGIT DANGIT! That's going to be troublesome because when they end up taking the survey on Monday, they'll have spent the weekend getting to know what a wiki is and I fear their survey answers will be inaccurate. Ugh ugh double ugh. I'll post a notice on my home page asking A3 kids to respond to survey during seminar tomorrow.
I had them working on eNotes (Cornell notes on a word document and they just submit it to my Sharepoint drop box) while I called them up one by one to give me their email addresses. Then they logged on and set their own passwords. I purchased the upgrade to Silver for one reason: so that each student has their own password to access the wiki. Oh, and because it has more memory space and some more functions.
Their assignment for this weekend is to put their contact email on the group project template on PBWiki. The other things they have to do are: contact the other member(s) in their civilization; figure out a family name and where in their civilization's history they want the happy family to begin their story; and spend at least 30 minutes getting to know/playing with the wiki. They know they are supposed to snoop around the other civilization wiki pages, but they are not allowed to alter the other civilization pages one single bit.
I showed them how I can check the history pages and how easy it is to revert it back to the previous copy. And, because I'm dealing with 14 and 15 year olds, I felt it encumbent upon myself to add, "please do not ever let me find out you tried to vandalize another civilization's pages."
I hated that I had to include that but...I want to cover all my bases. No one will, but I'm trying to plan for everything here.
The best part? This evening I was at my desk and I got a dozen notices of students who went on and played around with their wikis. That made me so very happy to see!
Next week we will come up with a grading rubric for the wikis, and we'll come up with project goals. As I said in my TIP, I do not want to tell them "you must have so-and-so amount of links, and so-and-so many pictures, videos, etc." I want them to be as creative with this as they humanly can.
Yesterday I wrote out my survey questions. I added as many as I could possibly think of. I figured when this is all over I can weed out the ones that end up being irrelevent. I'll post the questions on here sometime. I've got to send myself an email from school (blogspot is banned from all DoDDS Pacific servers and for good reason! There's a massive dearth of inappropriate blogspot sites out there for HS students). The survey questions are on my Sharepoint, so I'll get to those later.
I ran out of time for my A3 class. I forgot to have them take the survey. DANGIT DANGIT DANGIT! That's going to be troublesome because when they end up taking the survey on Monday, they'll have spent the weekend getting to know what a wiki is and I fear their survey answers will be inaccurate. Ugh ugh double ugh. I'll post a notice on my home page asking A3 kids to respond to survey during seminar tomorrow.
I had them working on eNotes (Cornell notes on a word document and they just submit it to my Sharepoint drop box) while I called them up one by one to give me their email addresses. Then they logged on and set their own passwords. I purchased the upgrade to Silver for one reason: so that each student has their own password to access the wiki. Oh, and because it has more memory space and some more functions.
Their assignment for this weekend is to put their contact email on the group project template on PBWiki. The other things they have to do are: contact the other member(s) in their civilization; figure out a family name and where in their civilization's history they want the happy family to begin their story; and spend at least 30 minutes getting to know/playing with the wiki. They know they are supposed to snoop around the other civilization wiki pages, but they are not allowed to alter the other civilization pages one single bit.
I showed them how I can check the history pages and how easy it is to revert it back to the previous copy. And, because I'm dealing with 14 and 15 year olds, I felt it encumbent upon myself to add, "please do not ever let me find out you tried to vandalize another civilization's pages."
I hated that I had to include that but...I want to cover all my bases. No one will, but I'm trying to plan for everything here.
The best part? This evening I was at my desk and I got a dozen notices of students who went on and played around with their wikis. That made me so very happy to see!
Next week we will come up with a grading rubric for the wikis, and we'll come up with project goals. As I said in my TIP, I do not want to tell them "you must have so-and-so amount of links, and so-and-so many pictures, videos, etc." I want them to be as creative with this as they humanly can.
Monday, January 28, 2008
It's ALMOST time
The new semester starts tomorrow (Tuesday). My classes are going to the computer room on Thursday and Friday to begin working with their wikis.
I spent this weekend weighing the pros and cons of using PBWiki and Sharepoint wiki and I even made a list...a physical list. Without further ado, I'm going with PBWIKI. Hooray!
It was the really boring and crummy layout of Sharepoint that tipped the scales.
I'm going to give them an online survey to fill out this week (using, funnily enough, the Sharepoint survey system). I'll be using questions I created in my TIP proposal last summer.
Speaking of my TIP, I found it but I can't figure out how to post it on this blog. So I'll just email it to y'all. I went back over it and I'm pretty much doing every single solitary thing on the TIP.
My principal is doing his Professional Growth Plan observation on Thursday, so that'll be fun and exciting! Now off to look at my group's TIPs.
I spent this weekend weighing the pros and cons of using PBWiki and Sharepoint wiki and I even made a list...a physical list. Without further ado, I'm going with PBWIKI. Hooray!
It was the really boring and crummy layout of Sharepoint that tipped the scales.
I'm going to give them an online survey to fill out this week (using, funnily enough, the Sharepoint survey system). I'll be using questions I created in my TIP proposal last summer.
Speaking of my TIP, I found it but I can't figure out how to post it on this blog. So I'll just email it to y'all. I went back over it and I'm pretty much doing every single solitary thing on the TIP.
My principal is doing his Professional Growth Plan observation on Thursday, so that'll be fun and exciting! Now off to look at my group's TIPs.
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