Final Project: Character Blogs

Character Blog Matrix

This Language Arts lesson plan focuses on students creating a character blog for a novel of their choosing.  To make this lesson plan more technologically integrative, I adapted the lesson plan to include more technology.  I used exclusively only resources I compiled from the technology inventory I created in a previous exercise.  The original lesson plan detailed only a blog to be created by the students.  For those students who do not excel in writing, I adapted the lesson to also creating a video diary for the character.  In this way, the five or six session lesson integrates more than one form of technology.  I aimed to have students use technology on a personal level, as well as a cooperative level.  They use technology here to communicate, and to accomplish a common goal.  Any adaptions made are bolded.

Session 1:

Row one encompasses the introductory portion of the lesson plan. Students will choose a character from a novel that they wish to mimic for a blogging/video diary project.  Utilizing the novel, they will map out the events, choosing four significant events that they will discuss in their blogs or videos.  As a class, we will discuss the elements of novels that cause characters to be who they are.  We will compile a list on the board for students to see. Students will begin a Webquest worksheet.  They will be searching through Blogger for blogs and what message each blog conveys through its design and posts.  For those who do not finish the worksheet, it will be homework.

 Session 2, 3 and 4:

Rows two, three and four function as research into the students’ blogs.  Those that choose to do a video diary will post their entries onto a Blogger site, so this still applies to them.  In row two, students will utilize their novel and the four main events they chose to begin writing reactions for their chosen characters.  Those that chose blogging will begin to write journal entries right onto Blogger, reacting to events in the novel just like their character would.  Those with the video diary project will begin writing their scripts in a similar way, and may even begin to record their diaries utilizing the school’s webcams if available, or a camera I supply, or one they can bring in.

Row three details the students’ incorporation of the blogging site’s capabilities.  The narratives/scripts that the students have written must correspond with the components of their blog.  Attention to detail here is important, because parts such as the blog’s background, must match the character’s personality.  If students choose to incorporate pictures into their character’s blog, the pictures must also relate.  Their goal is to create an authentic blog their character would create based on how they analyzed their character’s development.

Row four incorporates the first assessment portion of the lesson.  By the end of the fourth lesson, students must have completed at least three main entries or videos to ensure the students are on track.  This checkpoint will be an opportunity for the students to go over with me what they are doing for their project, and to ensure they are remaining as true to character as they can.  I will read over some of their scripts or blog posts, posting feedback on their pages.

Session 5 and 6:

In row five students will have partners.  Working with these partners, the students will be able to identify portions of the blog that need to be corrected.  At the beginning of session 5, I will have a presentation detailing what sorts of things to look out for while the students are reading their blog.  I will provide them with a checklist, and project it onto the screen for those who are more visual learners.

Row six incorporates another assessment portion of the lesson.  After the students go around and look at each other’s blogs (video and blog posts) they will have the opportunity to revise their work.  They will use the worksheet from the Peer editing portion of the lesson in order to strengthen their blogs.  When they have finished they finished editing, they must post a general reaction to their experience with blogging on a group discussion board in order to reflect on their use of technology and what they have learned about their character.

For the final row, students will have the opportunity to view other’s work.  Using a blog rating worksheet, students will walk around to other students’ work and either listen or read their character blog.  Students will decide if reading or watching the blogs makes them feel like they are actually in that character’s shoes.  This will serve as another portion of the assessment for the lesson, to see if students were able to accomplish the task of creating a character blog.  Students will take into account the blog as a whole, taking a look at elements such as the background, music etc.  To reflect, students will comment on at least five peers’ blogs and describe how and why things worked or didn’t work.

Teachers Can Learn from Technology Too

Something I have definitely learned in this class is the potential that technology has in the classroom.  I have always been thinking of how technology can help the students learn, but I never thought of it to fill my needs as an educator.  Technology is an invaluable source of learning for teachers everywhere.  So I went on a little research spree and I discovered www.webenglishteacher.com.  In this website there are plenty of resources to help teachers.  Everything from normal lesson to technology integration lessons that can be found here.  While it is important for our students to be users of technology, we must also be apt at using the resources, and technological inventory readily available for us at our future schools.  Take a look at the hyperlink at the some of the examples of the ways that teachers are integrating technology into their classrooms.  Some of them are ways I would never have thought.  Every teacher stands alone in his or her classroom, but we are connected by a network of resources that we can all use and share to reach our common goal of education.

Why Use Technology?

This course details why educators should use technology in their classrooms.  All semester, though, we have been forming out own reasons as to why we should use certain kinds of technology.  I found a video online that spells out the top ten reason WHY we should do certain things in the classroom.

Right away, the first comment the video made caught my attention because it is something that we have heard before.  Teachers are not going to be replaced by technology, but teachers who do not use technology will be replaced by those teachers that DO use technology.  This resonated with me because we heard this before in one of the other interactivities.  Those teachers that do not use technology will be left behind.  Aside from that, here is the ten reasons the video talks about, and to me, they seem pretty reasonable and obvious.  It made me think, why shouldn't I use technology?

1) Students love it.
2) It engages the four key elements of learning.
3) Professional development reasons.
4) It makes life easier for us!
5) It improves test scores.
6) Helps students with low attention spans.
7) Learn from the experts.
8) Encourages homework.
9) Saves money.
10) Remove obstacles.

If anyone is interested in listening to what the video has to say about each of these, here it is:

Apps in the classroom

iPad as a Smartboard? 

My last post was about how we must use discretion about when to incorporate technology into the classroom; however, today's post brings about an instance where I think technology is making a great leap, and should be included into the classroom.

For those users with an iPad, there is a new app called Paper.  Paper works similarly to a journal or a notebook.  It lets you draw or take notes.  The article stated that, "one might be devoted to handwritten notes during meetings, a second could serve as your virtual napkin to sketch out drawings and a third can be used to storyboard a new ad campaign."

With all of the different templates that are useable, the potential for this app is infinite!  The reason I wanted to share the news about this app, is because it reminds me of a mini smartboard.  With the tap of a screen, a student can email their notes, share with friends, and on social media.  It takes interactive learning to a whole new level, because now, if you miss a class, you can get the exact replica of a student's notes in an instant.  Students can submit notes to teachers for notebook checks, and can also serve as other formative assessment tools.

To use this, it does assume that every student has access to an iPad or iPhone, and in a perfect world, everyone does.  Some schools provide their students with these tools, and some students are fortunate enough to have one.  As a teacher, it is imperative that we make ourselves familiar with the most innovative, and newest technology so we are not left behind.  Apps like this one, lets us help our students turn recreational devices into tools for learning.  There are a plethora of others apps out there that help students in the academic setting as well, and we as educators can be the link between fun and learning.

E-Readers used to grade essays?

 Facing a Robo-Grader? Just Keep Obfuscating Mellifluously

This article in the New York Times caught my eye immediately.  There is a computer developed that can be used to electronitcally grade essays without the need of a human!  As an English teacher, one of the forms of assessment I would be using would be essays, but what would be the point of having teachers if a computer could grade the work for them? I was immediately skeptical about the E-rater as it is called, because an essay is not black or white.

Upon reading further, I discovered that, "the substance of an argument doesn’t matter...as long as it looks to the computer as if it’s nicely argued."  The student could completely lie, saying something along the lines of "King Kong climbed to the top of the Eiffel Tower; however, because of his great size, he was required to take the elevator to accommodate for the weight."  The sentence is grammatically correct, and complex.  To the trained teacher's eye, the sentence is nonsense, but to the E-rater, the sentence is literary genius.

The reason the E-rater is getting so much attention is because it "can grade 16,000 essays in 20 seconds."  A little ridiculous if I may say so myself.  The E-rater may be efficient, but it is not appropriate to use, especially when trying to teach students how to appropriately write.  The E-rater can give feedback on craft, but not on content, because it cannot measure the facts.  I wanted to post this summary and analysis of this article because I think this is a great example of how using discretion when incorporating technology into the classroom is beneficial.  As a future educator, I cannot see myself being a proponent of such a technology, especially while it is not perfected.

Happy Earth Day, Everyone!

Earth Day Games for Kids

USA Today is my Sunday newspaper of choice.  Not only because it is the only one delivered right to me, but because it does a great job at reporting smaller stories that The New York Times or other larger newspapers do not.  Today while I was on the USA Today website, this article really caught my eye.  I love video games, and when an opportunity arises for video games to be used in an educational setting I jump all over the opportunity.

These games strategically combine fun, fast-paced graphics with facts towards living a greener lifestyle.  This synergistic effect is a prime example of incidental learning.  Students are learning one concept while doing something else. Incidental learning is a great tool to use in the classroom, especially when the subject matter being presented is boring to the students.  The incidental learning will distract them from the actual target objective, while still learning.  The games in the article cost money, but educators can adapt this learning strategy into any material and formulate specialized games or tasks for specific topics.  Using technology in this way is just another example of how using multimodal forms of educating in the classroom can bolster learning!

Pineapples Don't Have Sleeves

Pineapples Don't Have Sleeves

The phrase mentioned above is found on a standardized test.  the article is quite interesting because it demonstrates what happens when active students meet ineffective assessment.  this phrase confused students, which sparked them o take action because they thought that it was crazy that a standardized test THEY paid for would contain something they could not understand.  Students began to ridicule the exam, making a joke out of the expression.  I found this interesting because my Assessment class is currently looking at how to create effective assessments.  I think that this instance serves as a warning for teachers everywhere.  We are charged with a responsibility to make assessments clear to students.  We always should keep that in the back of our heads, and sometimes the students don't realize that we hold this power until they take the exam.  Therefore, it is very important that we take preventative measures and try to create the most effective assessment for them that we can.  If we learn that an assessment is not effective as in this case, then we must use that as a diagnostic tool, and create a better exam.  This process is repeated until the exam has been made as most effective as possible.  If you have time, I would suggest reading this short article about the dangers of creating assessments.