EduBlog Insights

Kim Douillard shares her National Writing Project “Reflective Friday: Time Out to Think.”

Kim is a codirector of the San Diego area writing project. She sums the lesson up with the following:

My students have pushed me to “go past done” when it comes to thinking
about their learning. Rather than depending solely on educational research or
learning theories to tell me what they are able and not able to do, I turn to
them for answers. They have shown me that in a multiage class such as ours,
they can benefit from reflective activities during the school day. They have
shown me that reflection is not just for adults, not just for university students,
or pre-service teachers. Reflection helps us to remember, to make connections,
and to make thoughtful, informed decisions. Reflection is a process for living.

Kim was prompted to action when she heard a teacher-researcher from Alaska talking about the volume of information that teachers are supposed to impart to students and about the lack of time in the school schedule for thinking. Kim developed a schedule for Fridays that really incorporated time to think and reflect. You can see the detailed schedule for the day in her document but it includes brainstorming, activity time when students let their subconscious minds reflect while their bodies are moving, recess, writing, free read time followed by sharing with questions and discusssion, portfolio work and goal setting, thinking time, dialogue journal, recess again (Yea!), writing time and silent reading, read aloud. Now this sounds terrific! Think how well it would fit in with our blogging.

Kim gives great examples and charts the types of thinking and how they change. There is much to absorb and think about in this and it reminds me once again how important it is that we blog about it and take time to comment/talk/share with the students. This is one of the best articles I have read about really giving more ownership of their learning to the students. Kim reiterates that:

Students who set goals and evaluate their progress have more ownership of their
learning. Through realistic, short-term goal setting and evaluation, students
recognize their successes, become aware that they are responsible for their
own progress, and are more motivated to work toward the goals they set.

I have plenty to reflect on from this article. Thanks Kim, for sharing! If you have not browsed through all the terrific resources from The National Writing Project you are missing out!

Photo Credit: Flickr Photo from BaSak’s photostream

Harley is one of my favorite bloggers. He puts a lot of joy in classrooms and really gets kids actively engaged in learning. Recently he posted about the process of making maple syrup for a group of fifth graders in Georgia. He had read some of the analogies that the fifth graders were creating and he incorporated that into his post. What great reinforcement for these kids! They got to think and apply their learning in such a fun way and many of them tossed analogies back to Harley. Harley’s first post brought 53 comments from the students and his second post now has 41 comments! I’m betting we will see even more comments. Plus many of the students went on to create their own posts as they excitely shared all that they were learning. Wow! Talk about connections!

I love blogging with kids! I love the connections, the joy, and the thinking that abounds. Just think of all the neuroscience that is getting applied here:

Making it relevant….

Harley made the lesson personally interesting and motivating to the kids.

Giving them a break….

Blogging like this gives kids a break from the normal routine and it was a pleasurable activity that reduced stress and let them experience novelty.

Creating positive associations……

Kids developed associations by practicing creating analogies with a positively reinforcing strategy. (See Fifth Grade Webwriters Are #1)

And the best one, allowing independent discovery learning! These kids will no doubt remember and understand this experience becaue they had a part in figuring it out for themselves. There were choices of places to go to learn and they got to use their imaginations in the process.

Harley is not only a great blogger but has the makings of a neuroscientist too! Thanks Harley for putting all that joy into learning.

I also owe a tremendous thank you to Lani whom I had the good fortune to meet through a comment on one of my classroom blogs back in 2005. We have collaborated and learned much since that time and she personally has put a lot of joy into my learning and reflecting. Lani truly makes a difference in the lives of many….

Judy Willis wrote an article on “The Neuroscience of Joyful Education” that begins with this quote:

Brain research tells us that when the fun stops, learning often stops too.

This should be posted in every classroom. She goes on to say that “A common theme in brain research is that superior cognitive inpiut to the executive function networks is more likely when stress is low and learning experiences are relevant to students.” Now I have to ask how stress free are our classrooms in which count downs to testing and focus on testing is the top priority - the end all, be all? Judy Willis points out that classrooms need to promote novelty, eliminate stress, and build pleasurable associations linked with learning. She says plan for the ideal emotional atmosphere by making it relevant, giving them a break, creating positive associations, and guiding students to learn how to prioritize information, and allow independent discovery learning.

All this got me thinking about joy in the classroom and how much joy I have seen blogging in the classroom with kids. I’m thinking in particular of the J. H. House kids as I have spent most of my time blogging with them. My next post is going to feature one of my favorite bloggers who has put a lot of joy in a few classrooms over the past few days.

Bud pointed to a new article, Linkin’ (B)logs: A New Literacy of Hyperlinks, in the English Journal column “New Voices” by Tiffany J. Hunt and Bud Hunt. They are the column editors for the EJ column. It is a terrific article speaking about the read/write Web  in this participatory culture. The article posts about the obstacle of filtering and how it “blocks” us. I really like reading the story of Bud’s learning from blogging and the community of readers and writers he has met along the way. I identify with that and also with the teaching of blogging being hard. It is the building of a different type of community and this article helps us define the literacy development better. It is so encouraging to me to see this quality of writing about the learning with students. We need more articles where work with students is shared.
Bud shares on his teacher blog how he encourages students to focus on writing three kinds of posts: research-related posts, speech-class content posts, and classmate-related posts. He provides a detailed description of each post type in the article. I like how he tells the students that they are free to write about whatever they wish that’s relevant to their course.

Kudos to Tiffany Hunt and Bud Hunt for sharing their good work! I look forward to reading more.

I know, I know, I am a day late with this post in recognition of BlogDay but hey, as they say , “better late than never!” I actually did start it yesterday so I’ll just look at it as finishing up today! Here goes!
I like the idea of recommending other blogs. That’s something I do a lot of anyway. So today I thought I’d recommend some of the blogs I read that I find intriguing for reasons other than my usual focus on kids in the classroom who are involved with blogging. These blogs are ones I thoroughly enjoy for a variety of reasons. You can’t go wrong adding any of them to your current reads.

blethers - The author of this blog is Christine McIntosh from Dunoon, Argyll, United Kingdom. She describes herself as a former English teacher on the loose. She is quite a writer and has a quick wit and blogs about so many interesting things that are not always on my radar. I learn a lot. In addition she is a photographer with an eye for unique shots. Her pictures have been the focus of many of my students’ creative writing ventures. They love her pictures, as I do.Here’s a great bonus for you on this recogniton of Chris as a fine blogger - she has two sons who have great blogs too. (Okay, boys thank your good mother who you know deserves a lot of credit for your good works!) Ewan McIntosh’s edu.blogs.com and Neil McIntosh’s Complete Tosh are excellent blogs.

I love the concept of this blog. Here and There Japan is written by a former English and reading teacher in the United States, Malaysia, and Japan. She spends her time taking pictures and writing about things they see, use, and do in their daily life in Japan. Her tagline says “snapshots of life in Japan, written especially for kids. It is a delightful blog and one that my elementary students and myself have spent lots of moments enjoying as we read, and view the fascinating pictures. I wish others would make similar blogs. Think how much we could learn about different countries and the journey is so much fun! So consider doing something like this for your country. She also screens her comments and welcomes them but wants to make sure they are kid-friendly so that is a great feature as you can be sure that all is “kid-safe”. Links are also provided to favorite children’s books about Japan.

goldengod iis a blog I came across when I was searching for images. The author is Andrew Ferguson who is a Vancouver photographer. His blog is chocked full of wonderful information and tips on photography. My hope one day is to have time to give to learning more about photography,I really enjoy his posts. They are inspiring. His style of writing appeals to me and I am learning a lot. He lists his top photography blog posts on his side bar. One of my all time favorites is “How to Find Great Free Photos”. I posted about that before here but I continue to find on his blog what I consider to be some of the best tips on the web about photography. Go add this blog to your reading list.

Things My Kids Say is a blog that makes me laugh and it is guaranteed to put me in a good mood for the day. It will touch your heart. This sleep-deprived mother of four from Los Angeles, CA shares pictures and moments from her family’s life. Here are a couple of my favorites, The trash truck is coming! and But I’m not tired!!!. We all have had those moments around our home where the humor and love makes it all so worthwhile. It is really neat to have a peek inside the lives of others who are sharing such good, warm family moments. Plus what a great model for other families to see. I have to disclose here that this blog is from my cousin’s family. I have never met my cousin’s wife f2f but through this blog I feel I know each family member. Now that is really cool, don’t you think? Thanks “sleep-deprived” for sharing those precious and those hysterical moments of your day! I love it!

My final blog is Word. This is the official blog of READ and WRITING magazines and it is just so appealing. It is a literary blog that has lots of writing tips, book reviews, and other tidbits of information. They just celebrated their second birthday. Word also has a My Space page. There are so many good posts on this blog and they lead to lively discussions in our classrooms. The blog features many different authors. I like the clever titles and the variety of subjects. They feature student writing- fiction, non-fiction, and poetry! It includes a spot to submit student writing. I think this is one of the few, if not the only, commercial blogs I have in my aggregator. It’s well worth taking a look.

I received an email from the instructional technology specialist at the elementary school where I have done a lot of blogging projects these past few years. Hillary told me about Julie McCullers who taught third grade and had participated in a class blog in one of the projects.It was entitled McCullers Weblog. I want to point you to one of her posts from back then, A Final Goodbye. It is absolutely one of my most favorite posts coming from a classroom. It got the kids engaged and having fun as they were learning. Steve Dembo even commented to them! Julie is a creative teacher who does great work with kids. Her current blog, Blogging Along…. is so inviting! Check out this post, School Now. I like the questions she is asking the kids. I can’t wait to follow this blog this year. Welcome her back to the world of blogging! Julie has moved on to another elementary school closer to her home. We miss her but now her blog will keep us in touch and just think of the learning and sharing.

I went back to the elementary school where we blogged last year. The classroom teacher is getting her three classes up and going. Here is her class blog, Fifth Grade Web Writers. Welcome her to the world of blogging! She is a terrific teacher and I know she is going to do a great job this year.The student blogs are in the process of being created. I’ll let you know when they are up and going. I had the opportunity to teach a couple of classes today. They spent time browsing through past years’ blogs of previous students. Then we had lively discussions! What fun! Students shared what was relevant, what piqued their interest, and what they noticed about the comments. They really picked up how important the six traits of writing can be while blogging. I am going to try to touch base with these classes at least once a month this year. If any classes wish to communicate through commenting with these students let me know or email the teacher directly on her class blog.

On my high school classes I’ve been thinking about forms to send home to parents and forms for students to sign in regards to our blogging project. I have gone back through a number of my posts and relied (and borrowed) heavily on good sources from Nancy Bosch. Check out the Broken Arrow EL Center and follow links to the blogs. There are a lot of good things going on and one of their dads is building and hosting their blog site. Thanks Nancy for sharing your good work. I also sifted through Susan Sedro and Bud Hunt’s letters and others on his Blogging Polices and Resources Wiki. Thanks to each and everyone of you.
At this point these are the three items I am thinking of using. They are just drafts now because I need to think about them some more. If you see something I missed in introducing this let me know. Any thoughts would be appreciated. I have a ParentLetter.doc, Blogging Terms and Conditions.doc, and I plan to use David Warlick’s bloggers_contract.doc . Many thanks to David! I haven’t had a chance to run these by the classroom teachers. I’ll do that next week when we meet so as I said it is in draft status and could change some. What do you think?

Yesterday I spent the day observing in the classes and then in meetings with the teachers. I can tell it is going to be an interesting blogging project. Both teachers are going to be great to work with and I really enjoyed meeting and talking to the students.

Both teachers are brand new to blogging so they will be learning as we go. We probably will use blogmeister in the biology class and typepad in the other class. Both teachers want some control over the process and after a lot of discussion we decided to try these two programs. In one class none of the students had blogs or knew very much about them. Not so in the other - several students in this class had blogs on My Space. I think one might have had one on Live Journal. Kind of two extremes - interesting.

They asked me to be a part of the first staff development day which will be September 28th. I will be talking about blogs in educational settings. I think they are going to have a number of sessions in which the presenters will do them several times over the day and each teacher will pick 3 sessions to attend. I look forward to that!

We have more details to work out - blogging contracts, guidelines, and other such items to think about before we actual are up and blogging.

As I was driving home I thought that I’d like to take a survey with these students to get a clearer picture of their technology use. I hear all the time about how much the students know and are doing but this seems to be more with particular groups and I don’t think this is the case with at least one of these groups. I don’t want the survey to be too long but I was looking through this survey example. I really like the questions. Anyway I am working on this piece but if any of you already have one and would share that would be terrific. I am interested in how they use technology and what online tools they may use and how they generally use technology in their learning. This information was gotten from the post Some real data on Web 2.0 use on the TALL Blog. This blog is a wonderful source of information. I am still plowing through it and it is good. Here is the about blurb on their page:

The TALL group is part of the Department for Continuing Education at the University of Oxford.

We research technology & learning, develop online courseware, and provide consultancy in e-learning for in-house and external clients.

It would be worth your time to check it out. Also, if anyone knows an online tool that lends itself to this type of questioning let me know.

I love these blogging beginnings!

A new blogging project is brewing and I can’t wait! I met with two teachers at a nearby high school. One had called me to ask for some “Open House” help in the technology part and one had visited the Blogical Minds group last year and expressed interest in a project. That led to a meeting with the two of them and they are ready to venture into the world of blogging! I will be blogging with two classes to begin with - both are ninth grade and one class is biology and the other group is a gifted class. In the gifted class we will be centering in on environmental issues. They are known as the green team. I don’t have all the details yet but I will return next Tuesday and spend a lot of time observing that day as we begin to construct and plan. If anyone can point me to good high school examples of class blogs along with student blogs I would be most appreciative. Of course Darren’s blogs are terrific and I always point to them as a model. I hope the teachers will be interested in using scribes. We discussed the gifted class mentoring the elementary classes as the classroom teacher from last year’s project is going to be up and going soon. I will be going out to that school the end of next week to help them set it up.I have been thinking and planning. It made me think how I used to prepare for my elementary classes for the year. I always went to high school sources and materials and then adapted them for use with the elementary students. I could find more interesting items. I could get more ideas. Now I have the web to travel around and learn from others but tips from you high school experts would be great! I haven’t been able to find enough examples of student blogs so please point me in those directions if you know of some.

I really enjoyed reading Dean’s Reflections of Online Teaching/Learning. Then I traveled over to his student blogs and found some great reflections from the students themselves. I have commented on a few and hope to get back to comment some more. As Dean says,