For the past few years, I have drifted away from teaching my students the fine details of using Word and Excel to doing more projects that integrate those programs and doing more ‘fun’ stuff, like digital stories with PhotoStory and Movie Maker. I don’t want to abandon the ‘fun’ stuff, but as I was working with my Reading kids on typing and printing a book report, I realized that they do not know the basics of setting up a document. I told them what margins and line spacing they needed to have and most of them had no idea how to change those settings. I think that next year I’m going to have to go back to teaching the basics and maybe even testing those skills. I do only see about half of the 6th and 7th graders each year (one class of 20 – 25 students in each grade four times a year – and probably 50% – 75% of the 7th graders had my class in 6th grade) and then I only have one class each year of 8th graders (about 25 kids). It is entirely possible that I could have kids in my reading class that have never had one of my computer classes. But it still made me think about what I was teaching in my computer classes. I have to admit, too, that I have become lazy in those classes; pretty much everyone gets an A. But that makes me think that I’m not challenging the kids enough. I AM exposing them to new technologies, which I intend to keep doing, but somehow I need to work the basics back in. In a 9-week class thats tough, though. I added an Online Safety component a few years ago too and that takes a couple of weeks. I usually end that unit with a digital story of some sort. After we’ve done all that ‘fun’ stuff, the kids don’t want to sit still for boring Microsoft Word parts of the screen and how to set margins and line spacing. If anyone has any ‘fun’ ways to teach that, I’d love to hear ideas!

I would like to teach my students how to use Diigo (I need to see if it’s blocked or not, but the IT guys know that I will make sure that it is used properly and they will usually unblock things for me). I think that Diigo will be a great tool for my kids to do some group research on our next unit (The History of Computers). I’m thinking about splitting up the class into generations of computer development and having them do a presentation. I’m even considering Voice Thread for the presentation – again I have to see if I can access it at school.

What I need are tips/tricks to teach my students how to use Diigo. I understand how it works and I can use it, but these are 8th graders and I need to present it well for them. Since I have just started using Diigo today, I was hoping some more seasoned people would reply with their experiences about using the tool.

Thanks!

Some background: I teach reading. Reading and Language Arts take turns reading a novel so that the kids are not swamped with reading too many novels at once. This year Reading gets the first half of each quarter, while LA gets the second half. I hate having the first half because in the first quarter there are so many things we need to accomplish in the first week or so of school, that I don’t get to start the novel right away. That makes me feel rushed to finish the novel by midterm. I never actually do and I’m very lucky that my LA partner teacher and I work very well together and coordinate our book reading well.

So back to today. I actually skipped the whole second part of the book – well not skipped, but we didn’t discuss it deeply and we didn’t test on it. I did have the kids do a Who, What, Where, When, Why summary worksheet in groups and then I took those sheets and summarized Part 2 for them. It actually worked quite well. I was determined to finish the book this week (2 weeks after midterm). Originally I scheduled a test for Friday, then some school wide testing was thrown in for Thursday. So I changed it to a Final Project. The students have to complete a Story Plot Diagram, a Problem/Solution Graphic Organizer and a worksheet that I made where they have to analyze setting, symbols and quotes from the book. I spent yesterday and today reviewing and discussing Part 3. And wow! The kids blew me away – they were making connections from things that happened at the beginning of the book to the end of the book. I had to guide them somewhat, but after I showed one connection, they made more. They saw the pieces of the puzzle fit together. They got why the author showed us some things. At least the kids who actually finished the book did, but it was some of the most unlikely kids who were contributing some of the best ideas!

The project is due on Friday – I hope I have as much pleasure reading their work as I did discussing the book with them today!

1. I went into school on Thursday to check my schedule (seems like it will be exactly the same as last year – YAY!) and my room (furniture was moved around for me in order to accommodate a cupboard that had to be moved in from the hall due to some construction) and all was exactly like I wanted – YAY!
2. The Grammar Books that I talked about in this post arrived and they look great – YAY!
3. I revamped the Newsletter Information sheet that I send out on the first day of school for each of my classes (Reading and Computers)
4. I revamped the wiki that I use for writing lesson plans. Computer Wheel classes will have plans written by week of the quarter since I do the same thing (pretty much) each quarter. That will cut down on lesson writing for those 2 classes (6th and 7th grade). 8th grade computers is now organized by what topics I will cover each quarter. I tweaked the topics a bit too and I am pleased with how it looks. I moved all of last years plans to new pages. The Reading page is ready and waiting – this is the only subject that I write traditional daily/weekly plans for.
5. I added Standards and Skills to my Gradebook program. I’m going to try to link standards to my assignments in the gradebook. There is a feature that will allow me to track mastery of standards and skills through grades.
6. I have started creating new magnet titles for my whiteboard. Since I teach 4 different subjects (Reading and 6th, 7th and 8th Grade Computers) I use the sides of my whiteboard to organize lesson info, homework, etc for each class. The left side is for Reading and the right side for Computers. Additionally, I need to separate the different grades for computers. I do this by creating titles using WordArt for everything that I need and printing them on magnet sheets. The Magnet sheets stick to the whiteboard and I don’t have to write them over every time one gets erased.

There’s still plenty more to do – some can’t be done until I’m actually in my classroom (August 10th), but I’m sure I’ll find ways to keep myself busy.

Oh – and while doing all that I still managed to read the new Harry Potter Book in two days

One thing that Reading teachers have been asked to do this year is to cover a bit more grammar, freeing the Language Arts teachers to concentrate on more of the stuff they need to cover. I have found a resource that looks like it will be a great thing – easy to implement, doesn’t take a lot of time and looks to be fun for the kids. The books are Caught’Ya !: Grammar With a Giggle. I plan to get the two books. There is a third book as well, but I will wait to see how these books work out before I get that one. I plan to do these as a warm up 2 – 3 times a week. I have other things that we need to do as warmups, as well; silent reading and a computer fluency program.

I’m also thinking about my Bulletin Boards. I have four in my room. One I make as an information board. It has a large printout of the Bell Schedule, a school calendar and a some other things. Two others will each be a generic Computer and Reading board (the two subjects that I teach). The last one changes from year to year. This year it will track the books that my reading kids read and the points they earn using the Reading Counts Program.

OK – that’s enough for now – I am still on vacation…..time to hit the beach…….

Now on to my post……..

Lately my 8th graders have been really bad – well just a few of them – but they ruin it for everyone. With four weeks let in the school year I have decided that I was not going to fight them any longer. So I created a unit on Technology Careers that will keep them busy for the rest of the school year. They have something due each week and they have class time to work on it. On Thursday, they just wouldn’t stop talking while doing their typing (15 mins of silent typing at the beginning of each class) It took them 40 mins to all stop talking for any length of time. That left them 20 mins to work on their project. The first part is due at the end of class Monday (Friday was the 8th grade field trip so I gave them Monday for a due date). The biggest complainers were the kids who were talking! They seemed to think it was MY fault that they couldn’t work on their projects and when I pointed that out to them, they thought it was the funniest thing – that OF COURSE it was MY fault….sigh. Well, needless to say – I was very happy that I didn’t have to see them on Friday.

But I did see them tonight. Tonight was the 8th Grade Formal. Boy those kids clean up well! And they were so well behaved! I walked into the room at one point near the beginning and realized that there were no adults in the room except for the DJ. And do you know what those kids were doing? Sitting at tables or quietly talking in nice groups! They were being good! Overall, tonight was a really good night and the kids had a great time!

Damn I love those kids……sigh

I’m reading through 1st period’s answers and I’m pretty impressed. We did discuss the answers briefly after the movie, but I didn’t feed them any answers. I just clarified some things for them.

This whole experience is really opening my eyes to the idea that we get what we expect. Not that that is a new idea – I know that teacher expectations greatly impact student achievement. I even just read an article yesterday about a study that showed that students who were praised for their hard work put forth more effort and challenged themselves more than students who were praised for their intelligence (if I can locate that article again, I’ll link it here). My students keep telling me that Anthem is hard, and I keep telling them that I know it is, but that I wouldn’t give it to them unless I thought that they could handle it.

My kids are making really good connections about the conflict in Animal Farm and the theme of Collectivism vs. Individualism that we’re discussing with Anthem. They need help with their writing, but we’re working on that too

It’s days like this that really make me feel like I’m reaching the kids

I began teaching Anthem by Ayn Rand last week with my 7th Graders. I was concerned that it would be too much for them, but I boiled it down to Collectivism vs. Individualism. I did some pre-reading stuff by looking at vocabulary; collectivism, conformity, individualism and altruism. I used thereflectiveteacher’s powerpoint that he used to introduce Anthem to his class (he graciously sent me the powerpoint).

If I must say so myself – I think it went really well! At first he kids were extremely frustrated; they could NOT understand why anyone couldn’t have an individual identity. They couldn’t understand why someone would just go along with it. They couldn’t grasp the idea that someone wouldn’t know about free thinking and individuality. I finally had to tell them that they just needed to accept that there were times and people who were forced to do and think things and that they didn’t even know that there were other ways to act and think. It was interesting because we are in South Florida and we hear so much about people escaping from Cuba – but the kids didn’t seem to make that connection. By the end of the class period, though, they understood the idea of collectivism vs. individualism.

I’m not going to get very deep into Ayn Rand’s ideas…that’s too much for 7th graders. What I want them to get out of reading this book is that going along with the group, in essence, peer pressure, isn’t the best thing to do. I want them to see that thinking for yourself can lead to good things, even if it’s rough going to get there.

The second day we began reading the book together. I took the whole hour to get though about 2 pages because I really wanted to make sure the kids got it. One of the most difficult things for them to get was that the narrator talks in plural pronouns because there are no single pronoun words in his society. They thought that was “weird”

We had interesting conversations about when the story was taking place – they did all eventually come around to realizing it was in the future. Some are still very much in the concrete thinking stage because that was hard for them to grasp. Overall though, I think I am challenging my students to think and they are rising to the occasion.

Yesterday I had a sub and I left them the rest of Chapter 1 to read and some questions to answer. I wanted them to work in pairs because the text is difficult, but apparently in first period the kids weren’t totally on task so the sub decided they couldn’t work in pairs. I was in the building, just in a meeting, so I went to my room and told the sub they really needed to work in pairs because of the complexity of the text. She said “but they were talking about other things”. OK, I understand it’s hard being a sub, but what happened to “Do your work or I’ll leave a note for your teacher” or just being the adult in the classroom? Most of our subs are fantastic and I had a feeling this one was weak when I met her in the morning. I found out later that she is a sub who another teacher refuses to have her room after one time. I’ll be telling the sub coordinator not to give her to me again either

On Monday the 8th graders have a state science test so the rest of us have to stay with our first period classes for the first 3 hours of the day. This means that I won’t see all my classes on that day and again on Wednesday when we have the last of our tests. Since I have 1st period for so long, I decided that I wanted to show a movie, but one that would have some relationship to Anthem. We have the TNT production of Animal Farm in the media center so they will see that. They will have questions to answer, as well. I think I will also show it to my other classes even though it will take 2 class periods to get through the whole movie. Normally I’d do something like that after we finished a novel, but the timing works to show it now.

OK enough rambling I’m really excited about this novel – I think the kids will enjoy reading something different and being challenged to think in new ways.

I’ve blogged a lot this week about lesson plans for next week and I really thought I had it down, but I also had a nagging thought that I even voiced in a post (see bold below).

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.

Well, I have decided that it is NOT enough time to teach them how to use the wiki and have them do a good job summarizing the book on the wiki with only 4 school days. Instead, I’m going to have them complete a neat thing The Reflective Teacher posted on his blog a while back – The PocketMod. We will discuss themes and symbols and characters and setting and main idea and all those other things we do to analyze novels and they will write it out on the PocketMod. Each flap will have a different requirement (that I’ve yet to work out, but I will right after I finish this post ). I have tons of colored printer paper, so the kids can choose their own colors. The can also illustrate as appropriate, but what they have to say will be what they are graded on. Hmm I think I’ll have the kids help me develop the rubric (if there’s time).

I was planning on using the PocketMod for the skills we cover in Reading as some state test prep so this will be good practice for using it well.

Ok – now I need to go edit the assignment on the classroom blog and change my lesson plans.

I had a strange dream last night about school. I dreamt that I was walking down the hallway and a student asked if she could use a computer in my room to do an assignment – it wasn’t clear if it was before school or during a planning a planning period (which I do not have this year), but we walked into my classroom and there was someone else teaching in there! The tables were all messed up too – I have four rows of tables (along both side walls and a double row going down the center of my room) in my classroom, but in my dream only the center rows were there and they were way up close to the white board at the front of the room. The kids were all over the place – which is something I don’t usually allow, but in the dream the kids did all seem to be working on assignments from the mystery teacher. The mystery teacher welcomed me into my room and it was apparent that he was not there to take my place, but was an additional teacher. Since I DO teach all six periods in my room this year, it was a bit unsettling. I woke up with the dream still in my brain and it was one of those WOW moments. I guess I’m thinking about going back to work, and that I’m not ready.

I love my job – I really do! I have the best schedule this year for my pseudo-ADD brain (I get bored easily doing the same thing). This year my schedule is Reading, Computers, Reading, Computers, Reading, Computers. All the Reading classes are the same – 7th grade average readers, but each Computer class is different – 7th grade wheel, 8th grade all year and 6th grade wheel. The 6th and 7th grade classes do basically the same things, I just go a little slower with the 6th graders. Since I get bored seeing the same assignments over and over again (I do each 6th and 7th grade class four times each year!) I mix up the assignments while still teaching the same skills.

This post was intended to get me motivated to write actual lesson plans, rather than all the planning I’ve been doing in my head lately. I write my plans on a wiki, but I don’t use it in a collaborative way – though that would be a cool thing for teachers who do plan together! Also – I hate writing plans and I’ll admit the plans on the wiki are a bit sketchy – especially the computer ones. Our plans are not checked every week – we do hand them in at the end of the school year, but that’s just for accountability in case a student comes back and says they never learned something

It’s a beautiful day here in South Florida – 78 degrees and sunny at 10:00am – so I’m not sure when I’ll actually get to my planning – and I do still have tomorrow too, but I know in my heart that I need to plan in order to teach well on Tuesday. I’m actually going to try to plan for the next three weeks. I have two 4-day weeks then a 2 ½ day week because I’m leaving to go the Florida Educational Technology Conference (FETC) halfway through the day on Wednesday January 24th. I will need to write sub plans for Thursday and Friday, too.