Literacy & Technology Instructor's Edublog

Learning From Each Other

See here and here for my posts on my EduBlogInsights weblog about Literature Circles. This past week I have been giving lots of thought to the Literature Circles weblog. Students are making good observations. The requirment of two posts and two comments per week is not a lot but the students are frustrated by having to focus a great deal on what they will be posting and this is somewhat taking away the pleasure of reading. Hmmmm. I wonder how it is with the Literature Circles in the classroom. Do students in classrooms feel the same frustration? Also, these books are short for the most part and we adults are used to reading quickly through them. Students in classrooms, on the other hand, seem to enjoy a chapter a day. They anticipate what will happen next and look forward to hearing the book read by the teacher.

I am intrigued with their responses on the idiom searcher and the word wizard. They seem to get a lot of joy out of discussing the words. I have been surprised at some of the words that they do not know. Maybe online it would be better just to focus on vocabulary and make it fun. Maybe not. The die is not cast yet but I feel that we are learning a lot.

I see a lot of thoughtful observations from these preservice teachers on how this might apply to their future classrooms. They have found wonderful web sites that go with the books. They are coming up with many good things. Do we need to just get past the "piecemeal aspect of this type of weblog and focus on what these preservice teachers are learning. Lots of questions, lots of things to think about.

I am very glad that Nancy Peralta is trying this out with a younger group. See The Circle. I am going to share with her what I have learned so far and it will be good to see how her younger students do.

One thing I do know. We need to do more of these type of projects with preservice and inservice teachers. We have these preservice teachers thinking about what they are doing and that's what's important.  We need more of that. It is so wonderful how weblogs let us share the journey and learn from each other.

Weblog Requirements Negotiated!

Today in class we discussed the requirements for our Weblogs.  Reading roles and the tweaking done Friday by Anne Davis and Lynne Jordan were discussed and copies of revised reading roles were provided to cohort members.  The guidelines for comments seemed to be clearer.  Students agreed that two postings per week for a total of fourteen postings is reasonable.  Students will post in each of the eleven departments over the next seven weeks with target ending date of November 18.  Comments may be made on any post or comment with a total of fourteen comments required.  A final post will be expected between Newbery Presentations on December 8 and the final day of the semester on December 12.  We continue to look toward the goal of making weblogs a part of our teaching and learning.

I Think We're On to Something! LQJ

I have spent a  while today looking at all postings and comments as a follow up to my meeting with Anne Davis on Friday.  Because Weblogging is something I've wanted to do for such a long time, I'm feeling on top of the world when I see these postings and comments.  I see how the project has evolved and grown and changed, and I realize this is how learning and teaching should be.  For example, I'm looking for idioms and using idioms like never before ("on top of the world").  We added a department called Idiom Searcher because a student suggested it.  I've learned a great deal from my students in this project, as well as from Anne Davis, of course, that would have not been possible had we not undertaken this project. 

My goal is to have my students realize some of the possibilities of weblogging in their own classrooms.  I'm working now on ideas to make this type project manageable and worthwhile for classroom teachers.  I can certainly speak from my own experience with this first attempt at weblogging --my eyes have been opened in ways I didn't anticipate.  It has, and continues to be, worth the time and effort!

An Intriguing Sample of Newbery Postings

The View from Saturday by  EL Konigsburg

An interesting discussion  follows after Pamela makes an excellent connection post called Competition.  The comments really make you think.  How do you feel about competition?  Good or bad???? Share your thoughts.

Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson

Joan's discussion director post entitled What You Value is good.  She moves on to think about her role and others as an encourager to students. I bet many of you out there could give some encouraging thoughts to these teachers-to-be.

Missing May by Cynthia Rylant

Brenda's passage master post named Summer in Wonderland points out a passage she loves. She's not the only one who liked this passage.  See the comments and let us hear yours!

The Witch of Blackbird Pond by Elizabeth George Speare

Sunni asks What is a Pillory? on her Word Wizard post. She notes 

"I had a suprisingly, hard time coming up with a good sentence using pillory.Can you think of any other good sentences using this word?"

Can you help her out by commenting and giving a good sentence with the word pillory?

The Giver by Lois Lowry 

Michelle has a good discussion director post called Age where she wonders about everyone turing the same age in December.  She asks, "How would we suffer from it?  Got any thoughts for this group?

I'll post more another time from some of the other books.  It's interesting to note the roles that the students use more - discussion director, passage master, and connectors initially have been used the most.  Wonder if they find those easier or what?

Comments from those reading this would be wonderful so join their EduBlog and jump into the book discussion or simply comment on what they are doing.  It's fun!

 

A Shift to Blogging the Journey

I am really excited about this particular project.  Yesterday Lynne and I met to put our heads together about our Literature Circles EduBlog.  Now this weblog will shift to become a blog of our meetings, our reflections, and whatever else comes up that seems to be appropriate.  This is my first opportunity to work with a GSU instructor who is willing to make the time to learn how this will work for students.  By that I mean, meeting times where we put it all out on the table, look at it, discuss the process, tweak it here and there, and make decisions based on what we feel will be educationally sound ones for the pre-service teachers. 

By the way, the students are a great group. If you haven't been following along on some of their postings on their Newbery winners, you're missing out!  We are asking them to do at least two posts and two comments each week. I love reading their posts and comments.  Please think about joining and commenting to them.  The University group love hearing from others outside of their group.  They're no different than we are but I think it motivates them and helps them see how you can extend your audience.  So comment away!  I know many of you love good books and these are books you need to read to your children!

Last week was really the first week, even though we had test driven it a little the week before.  Lynne and I worked at making the Reading Roles a little more definitive for the students. See here. Lynne will be going over those roles again when class meets this coming Monday. I like this kind of work where you keep working on making sure it works.  These students are great about giving feed-back to us.

We're juggling making this work for their group as "up-and-coming" educators but always with a mind toward thinking "How will this work for elementary or middle-school students?"  Now I just have to spotlight a few of their posts in my next post!