Technology Reflections

With 5 days still to go in my vacation, I’ve really started to think about plans for after vacation. Yesterday I was in computer class mode and today I’m in Reading class mode.

I was looking at some wikis that I had created, but never actually used with my classes and I decided to resurrect them. When we were reading our first novel, Tangerine by Edward Bloor, I set up a wiki for the kids to write a summary and discuss characters, plot development, themes and symbols. I never got around to doing it with them, though. We have one more week of reading Absolutely Normal Chaos by Sharon Creech so I set up a wiki for them to discuss this book. I need the kids to complete everything by the end of next week, though – only 4 days of classes. I’ll have to assign some for homework, but I’ll give them class time to complete the work too. Here’s the assignment as the kids will see it – Room 140 – Reading.

The kids read this book in Literature Groups. I assigned the groups and each member rotated through each role weekly. They posted their assignments on their own blogs, for the most part. There were some technical issues – both from the school’s end and from learnerblogs, but overall it went well. There are things I feel *I* didn’t do well, though. I didn’t get to the groups the way I had planned to, but I did listen in and the discussions I heard were pretty darn good . I also wish that I had had more class discussions, but again, from what I heard in groups and read on the blogs and role sheets that were handed in, the kids read and understood the book pretty well. It’s an easy book so I could do it this way. Also, we read it in the weeks before Winter Vacation when everyone was tired and it was an easy way to get through a book while still gaining knowledge. The next book we read, Walk Two Moons also by Sharon Creech, has a lot more stuff going on and needs to be read in class with good discussions. We’ll be starting that book right after state tests at the beginning of March.

After we finish Absolutely Normal Chaos, we will be doing test prep – hard core work on the standards the test tests – things like Main Idea, Author’s Purpose, Compare/Contrast, etc. These are things we have been working on all year and are basic skills for a Middle School Reading Class, but time to make sure the kids know them cold