Teaching to reach every single student

In my previous post, I shared what has been happening in the first couple of weeks of having my 7th and 8th grade science students posting assignments and responding to one anothers’ work on my class blog. This has been really exciting and a bit vertigo inducing.

At the same time, I have been going public (at least in my district) with what I have been doing with blogs, wikis, podcasts, and the like.

Last week, during one of our Superintendent’s Conference Days, I was invited to give a workshop for other teachers on using these tools in the classroom. About 15 teachers and administrators participated. It was, of course, an honor to be asked to do this workshop. And it was really good to lay out what I was doing and what I saw as possible to such a large chunk of other partners/colleagues/companions. This part was a relief, frankly, to finally have others participating with me — to expand this community beyond one (namely, me).

As a result of that, I have been asked to do a presentation for the district’s administrators and another for the parents at an upcoming PTA meeting.

I just wanted to make my students more engaged, honest.

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I cannot believe I haven’t posted anything new is such a while, but have barely had time to poke my head up as well.

It has been an amazing 2 weeks with my 7th and 8th
graders on the blog. As a group, and as individuals, there work has
really gotten better. Some students have improved dramatically, even
over the traditional paper versions of the assignments that they used
to hand in to me (in those old, old days of last month). Some of them
have really jumped into their responses to the science articles they
are reading, which has always been the point of the assignment.

They are also posting comments to other students’ work as well. There
is still much work to do here. Many comments have been good and
constructive (even if critical). Some are still in IM/text message
speak. I have tried to do little moderating to give them a chance to
connect with each other in this new venue, but this is clearly a place
where I need to add some instruction.

I hadn’t anticipated all of the changes in my thinking and my practice
that this has necessitated. How much (if at all) do I participate in
the conversation? How do I administer the grading? Since the students’
work is anonymous, I could post the grades to the blog directly, but
wasn’t prepared to do this.

I am very interested to hear others are doing.

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After all of the churning and roiling about should I move ahead with blogging in the classroom and how to move ahead with blogging in the classroom, I have, at last, moved ahead with blogging in the classroom.

This week, I trained my 7th and 8th grade middle school science classes to use my blog.

I have had a standard (and traditional assignment) for my students to find an article each week that is science related and then to write a brief report on it. The report consists of a citation (the name of the article, who wrote it, who published it and when), a brief summary, and a reflection. In the reflection, I ask them to let me know what they think about the article, whether it was convincing and why, and what suggestions they might have for changing it.

The reports have, for the most part, been really good, but I had begun to notice that the conversation started was pretty limited: the student produces work which I read and then return. The circle is closed immediately.

So, this is the assignment I have moved online to my blog. Now, in addition to posting their weekly report, I have asked the students to read at least 3 others and comment (constructively) on those.

At the moment, the students are at work to get this done by Friday. I have noticed some interesting things already. First, they have started the assignment earlier than when it was just to be done on paper. There has been a buzz of activity from the very beginning of the week. Second, their comments have been good and thoughtful (so far). And I must say that receiving stacks of emails as their comments are posted is such an interesting (and satisfying) experience for me as their teacher.

This is very exciting.

This month, there were two articles about using Wikipedia in classrooms in two different teacher-oriented publications.

The first was in NEA Today. This one is a general article about Wikipedia, highlighting some of the key issues between the public/democratic goals of Wikipedia (and other wiki projects) against concerns about its reliability and authenticity. Here’s a quote from this article:

But with wiki technology, students can go beyond simply reading sites to helping write them as well, fulfilling the Web’s promise of becoming a fully interactive medium. According to Frey, whether or not Wikipedia is a reliable source is beside the point. Its value, he says, is in its collaborative nature. “It’s an organic product, it’s an interactive product, and it’s a community product,” he says. “You can’t compare it to traditional resources. It encourages us to accept that in today’s world, anyone can be a published author.”

The second was in American Teacher. This one took a point/counterpoint format with an educator taking pro and con views of using Wikipedia with students. Here’s a brief quote from each:

… And teaching students the patience to delve into credible resources is the task and responsibility of the educator. We, as educators, cannot condone lazy techniques or unreliable research tools.

Unlike a more static writing process in which publication marks the end of revisions and the end of the process, wiki writing is instantly published while undergoing infinite revisions. The wiki therefore brings literacy and accountability to a whole new level. Students are not simply skimming for content, they are constantly evaluating from an editor’s point of view in order to improve what they are reading/publishing.

Lastly, an anecdote from my middle school. The technology teacher had been doing a lesson on Wikipedia and how it works and how to assess accuracy in an on line source. During the class, a student went in and edited two entries by deleting what was there and adding nonsense. Since Wikipedia tracks vandalism, it noted the school’s IP address and has prevented anyone from editing any entry for a chunk of time (a week, I think).While I disapprove of the student’s behavior (as did his teacher), I think it serves to highlight the points of these articles as well as what we face as educators bringing this part of the web into our classrooms.

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My old friend Ed, who blogs as Big Ed, sent me to this article by King Kaufman, a sports columnist for Salon.

He wrote a short piece when he noticed that he had a one-line entry made in Wikipedia and then discovered this brief entry was marked for deletion.

Then, he wrote this piece, a longer one, describing his experience with the on-line community. Here’s a big of his experience:

I found that one-sentence entry about me, laughed, and wrote a short item about it.

And of course within minutes it started getting updated, filled out. False information came and went. New factoids emerged. I’m from Los Angeles, it turns out. (True.) I once wrote that second base should be eliminated. (False.) Soon the deletion notice went away. Saved! The wisdom of crowds!

Soon there was a notation in the item that I’d written a column on Aug. 10, 2006, bemoaning the fact that my item might be deleted. Whoa, feedback loop! That was removed in short order as a “navel-gazing reference to Wikipedia.”

His discussion, while far afield of using blogs and wikis in classrooms is a good case study of one person’s interaction with the social web.

King Kaufman’s Sports Daily | Salon

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