Listening to the radio

I just learned about a great website that I want to let you in on. Radio Lovers has lots of old-time (before my time even!) radio programs, at least some of which might be suitable for ESL/EFL students to listen to. They are available for free and, as nearly as anyone seems to know, without copyright issues. I want to explore these and see if I can't find a way to use some of them to spice up my classes a little. If you aren't familiar with the site and like old radio, check it out.

Maybe it is all about me!

Yesterday we learned that the two students who had taken the TOEFL earleir in the month did not get the scores they needed to leave ESL and enter the regular program. It was the end of the day, and we were all pretty shocked by the news.

My first thoughts were about what I could have/should have/might have done differently so that they would have done better. TO eb honest, I guess that is still what my thoughts are.

I find it interesting since, a few short weeks ago, I felt that my students' performance wasn't a reflection on me. As I write this, though, I think this is slightly different. Maybe that is a rationalization, though!

I am coordinator of the ESL program. I designed it. I developed most of the courses intially. Until this new TOEFL, what we were doing worked. Our students seemed to advance through our program and get the TOEFL scores they needed to move on.

This new test tests different things in different ways. And my institution has set the scores pretty high. These are the first two of our students who have taken the iBT, and this is the second time they took the test. Their overall score was about the same on both attempts, but there was significant difference in some individual section scores.

So my question for myself has to be about what we can do differently to help students on this test. It may require some substantial changes to the program or they may just be minor tweaks. But I will be spending a lot of time this summer trying to answer that question!

It could, of course, be these students, both of whom have been in this country for years and have some pretty well-established bad habits. Unfortunately, it doesn't look like we will have anyone else ready to take the TOEFL for a while, so I can't test that hypothesis. So in the meantime, I have to assume that there is something we could be doing differently.

If any of you have experience with the TOEFL iBT, I would love to hear about it. How are your students doing? What scores has your institution set? If you do not want to post here, please email me.

Frequent blogging

The other day I was working on my faculty self-evaluation. Having decided that I would include my blogging in the evaluation under professional development, I decided to count my posts from the current academic year. I was really shocked to see how few posts I had. Some months there were only 4 or 5 posts. What happened to me, the daily blogger?

And then today I was reading Vickie A Davis's post where she highlights portions of a post by Marshall K in which he interviews Gina Trapani of Lifehacker (Wow, that's more than my usual quota of links!)

Vickie seleceted portions of the interview to post in her blog, and one of them really got me thinking.

Gina on building an audience

* On the editorial side, to build an audience, you need to post often. .. definitely update every day, if not twice a day. Your posts don't have to be long and thoughtful - though some should be - just summarize and point to a news item of the moment that's related to your nonprofit's area of interest. You want to establish a constant conversation about particular themes, and show that you're an authority on those themes, able to discuss them intelligently on an ongoing basis.

I am amazed that people are still reading my blog. Looking at how few posts I had during this academic year, and reading Gina's advice, it looks like no one should be bothering anymore. Now, granted, I am not the non-profit she is addressing, but I think that the advice is valuable. If I want this blog to be for more than just my entertainment, I have to make an effort to post more frequently again. Something for me to keep in mind. I may not achieve it, but I want to try.

Blogging vs life

Christopher Sessums has an interesting post stemming from a comic strip. It is Zits strip that is, at least right now, available here. (Like most comics, it won't be available forever, so please forgive me if you look and it is gone!)

The comic has the son, Jeremy, interupting the father from telling the mother a story about his day. The son says,

I hate to see a person waste perfectly good blog material by describing his life experiences out loud.

Mr. Sessums has some interesting comments about the comic that are much more profound than anything I am going to say, so I advise you to read his post. I, on the other hand, have what is undoubtedly a much more mundane take on it.

What interests me about the comic is the idea of someone "wasting good blog material" by talking about it to a real live human being. This reminds me of something an acquaintace shared with me about her mother, who leaves family gatherings to journal about them. Do I want my written communication to replace face to face interaction with a human being? Or to take priority over it?

I love blogging. I love the conversation. But I wonder what I might be losing by blogging. Am I taking time from talking with my husband or with my friends to blog or to read blogs?

I guess I was thinking about this because of a post on a friend's blog in which he talks about his life at this point. He says, in part

Start with the little things like finding/making/carving out the time I need to write/think. Or take my daily walks - which I miss dreadfully but which are pushed back so I have more time to do -- what? Read blogs? Discard email spam? Patch computer programs? Fix stuff? Break stuff?

Heck, I haven't watched a movie in a month or more! Last thing I saw was an episode of Battlestar Galactica from season one.

I guess I am in a strange frame of mind today. But I think I am becoming clear about the place of blogging in my life. It is important. But it is not my life. I am not going to save the best parts of my life, the funniest, saddest, most interesting parts for my blog.

That being said, I have to get back to looking through my Bloglines account.

Blogging at my institution

Christopher Sessums has this post in which he gives initial results of his survey of edubloggers. Now, I had thought about answering the questionnaire but didn't. But - better late than never - I want to consider his questions here.

My institution does nothing to support or hinder my blogging either as a professional educator or, as of this year, with my students. We do not presently use any technology that would affect my blogging in any way. We began to use Moodle this year, but we have not set up its wiki capability yet. I don't think the institution has an opinion about blogs or wikis; I don't think that, as an institution, we are even really aware that they exist.

I plan to include my blog in my list of publications for my performance evaluation this year, but I have no fantasy that it will be viewed as professional writing or professional development of any kind. Since my institution does not offer tenure and evaluations don't really count for anything, I am in a position to do this to make a point -- even though few will "get it".

I feel very strongly that I connect to a community outside my institution through blogging. It is an informal community, but it is very real. This community, as I have often said, is the source of most of my professional conversation and, as a result, most of my professional learning. We don't have these kinds of conversations about teaching and learning at my institution.

But let me hasten to say that individuals in my institution have been extremely supportive of my blogging. Without their encouragement, I might have given up trying to blog with my students long before now. So I can't complain at all. The fact is that, by the very nature of my institution, we are not cutting edge in terms of technology. But we are moving forward, and there is a surprising level of acceptance.

I somehow think that my experience is not all that unusual. Maybe I am wrong. Please let me know if I am!

Keeping fresh

Kathy Sierra has a great post about pushing your skill set. Now, as usual, Kathy is talking primarily to tech people, but, as always, there is a lot that speaks to me as an educator. She starts out saying:

Are you doing anything to keep up your skills? Some of you don't have a choice--especially if you're doing client work where each new job "forces" you to learn something new. But for those of us who--like me--are mostly working on our own stuff, we can get... a little lazy. The techniques we've been using are like old friends. Doing it the way we've been doing it feels comfortable and less risky.

There has been discussion lately at my school about how students make use of what they call the "fund": knowledge passed from student to student, class to class about what particular professors emphasize, what they test on, etc. There was concern that maybe students aren't as "present" as they might be in class because of it. Now, obviously, this isn't anything new. Most of us have made use of that kind of information ourselves. But what amazes me is the reaction of many people to the situation. There is a feeling in some quarters that we should try to limit this in some way. No one is suggesting that maybe we should not teach the same class the same way with the same assignments and tests each and every year. Why? My guess is that it has something to do with what Kathy would probably call our "skill set". We are comfortable with the way we teach, with the material we present and the way we evaluate students. We shift the blame for the problem to them.

How can we push our skill set as educators? There are so many ways and they are so common and ordinary that I hesitate to even discuss them. But I think it is good for me to remind myself.

One way, of course, is just to learn more about our area of expertise. Even if you teach ancient philosophy, there must be something new you could learn about the subject matter.

If, however, you know absolutely everything there is to know about Plato, then I guess you have to think about learning something about teaching and learning. There is always something new to be learned in that area. Maybe you could learn about technology and how it might enhance what you do in the classroom.

Aside from our own learning, I think another important area to consider is how we evaluate students. If we always give the same assignments and the same type of test, we are foolish to think students aren't going to take advantage of that fact.

To K-12 teachers this probably sounds ridiculous; you cannot imagine any other way of doing things. But at the college level, it is fairly rare.

The key to pushing our skills, I think, is reflection. Unless we think about what we do in the classroom, we will never realize that maybe we need to do something differently.

So how do you keep yourself fresh? How do you vary what you do from year to year, semester to semester? I am interested in hearing and learning from you. I want to push my skills, and you can help me do it.

Update: Anne's post here seems to speak to this same issue. While she is talking about student reflection, there is a lot of food for thought for teachers as well. I am going to reread it and do some reflection of my own.

Computer problems

Just wanted to let you know that I am having computer problems and so may not get a chance to post much until I figure out what is going on with that. Hopefully it won't be too long, but you never know!

Blogging and the examined life

Jo has had a couple of posts lately that I have found to be extremely interesting. First came this one, in which she passes on some thoughts from Inspiring Teachers that she got from their eZine. She quotes some ideas about reflection, including these:

What type of reflection works best? As usual, it varies from person to person, but there are a few things that everyone can do to make full use of those informal and formal reflections we make each day.

1. Catch yourself thinking...
2. Don't be afraid to make changes immediately...
3. If you work in a teaming type situation where you and one or more teachers work together ...do some reflection together at the end of the day or at some point during the week...
4. Keep a journal...

I was an avid journaler before I became a blogger. Written reflection is critical to me. I still journal with my students, and it is usually of the writing-as-thinking variety. But now that I blog, the majority of my reflective writing is done here. Why? Because I have people to bounce my ideas off of. You. All of you who at one time or another have read and commented on my blog. You have made me examine my thoughts and ideas in new and different ways. I am grateful to you all.

Then Jo followed the other post up with this one, in which she refers to a post by Christopher Sessums. She ends that post by saying

... blogging is more than just professional learning - it is the opposite of the "unexamined life" which Socrates so disparaged.

What more could I possibly add? Check out Jo's blog, if you haven't yet.

Bud made the papers again!

Well, there I was reading a Washington Post article about teachers who blog, and all of a sudden I was reading part of a post that was very familiar to me. It was Bud! In the Washington Post!

While I was glad to see Bud getting the recognition, I was not happy to see the lead into it:

Read some and find out why more teachers than ever -- some estimates say up to half in this decade -- are leaving the profession feeling exhausted, disillusioned and underpaid.

It seemed to me that the implication was that Bud was leaving the profession or getting ready to or thinking about it.

The article is pretty simplistic, but it is nice to read about edubloggers in the Washington Post!

Characteristics of good blogs

Thanks to Darren for the link to Bill MacKenty's post in which he lists the eSchool news criteria for what makes a good blog. It includes:

1. Personality

2. Usefulness

3. Writing style

4. Usability and design

5. Frequency

6. Relevancy

7. Interactivity

8. Fulfillment of purpose

9. Appropriateness

10. Would you revisit

Bill's post includes the description of each of these. You really should check it out.

As I look at my own blog, I see that I need to do some work in some of these areas. Maybe all of them. Something to think about...

A question for the experts...

On a discussion forum my husband participates in, a computer science student asked a question about computer science degree programs. My husband asked if I knew the answer, and I said that I didn't, but that I would be happy to ask you, the experts:

Do you know of a college or university that teaches computer science and at least recognizes the open source movement? Is there a degree program out there that you know of that at least exposes students to Linux and mySQL and other open source software?

Thanks for whatever you are able to tell me.

Why aren't we all blogging?

Will's post here about people who choose not to blog or who don't get why we do this, and I had to think back to the presentation I made last week. The woman who was in charge of the technology portion of the program said that she sees blogging as a "lifestyle choice" that she isn't willing to make. She is young, a PhD, and very technologically inclined. But I think she is right: blogging is a choice that affects all the other aspects of your life to one degree or another. For me, it is all positive, but I can see that some might not see it that way.

I wonder if she and others don't see blogging as too "passive", to disconnected from life. This woman, for instance, compared blogging to her mother's need to leave a family gathering to journal about it. Of course, we who blog know that it is anything but passive or disconnected. But I wonder sometimes if people don't see it as the adult equivalent of playing video games -- an artificial online world that keeps us from socializing and being socialized in real time. I don;t know if it is possible to convince people of the value of blogging if they can't see it right off the bat.

Will also made me think about my classes. One of my students has really taken to posting on the class blog much more than his classmates have. This man is the one I would have least expected to embrace blogging, but he really has. I have seen him become much more involved in what we are doing on the blog than he ever seemed to be before we were blogging. He may not always do his other homework, but he always makes his blog posts. He checks the blog frequently to see if there are new questions for him to answer. I am not sure why this is so. But it has really made me think about how to capitalize on this interest that he has.

Will asks the question of whether or not "getting blogging" is really a generational thing. I don't think it is. But I am not sure what the difference is between those of us who blog and those who don't. Part of it may be that some of us are more comfortable with writing than others -- although I have seen my very non-writer husband take to blogging.

So why is it that some of us blog and others don't? Any thoughts?

And I guess I should also ask another question: Do we really want everyone to blog? Is that a desired outcome? If so, why?

Thanks!

Thanks to all of you who commented below to tell me why you blog with your students. The presentation went pretty well, although I could easily have used much more time than I had. A couple actually signed up for blogs during the session. In addition to some time in a technology session, I participated in a poster session where I got to talk to many teachers who weren't able to attend the technology session.

The teachers there were most impressed, I think, by your quick responses to my post. They could see the potential of blogs from that one post. I cannot thank you all enough!

And yet another favor to ask...

I am making final preparations to talk about blogging to a group of teachers on Saturday. One thing I want to talk about is why we blog with our classes. I would greatly appreciate it if you could leave me a brief comment here telling me why you blog with your students. I would like to share your thoughts with the teachers who come to the meeting. Thanks so much!

Blogging as academic writing

Jo's post about constructing an academic life really got me thinking. She says,

But there is still a disconnect between what bloggers think we'’re doing and what many academics think of blogging. The lack of editors and other gatekeepers, and the lack of peer review make the knowledge production of edubloggers suspect in some people'’s eyes. This is strange I think since blogging is not so much a technique, as a space where people write and are read, where readers can comment and writers review. Isn't this what learning is about?

I think she makes an excellent point, and I wonder what we can do to change perceptions of blogs in the academic world.

It seems to me that we would have a hard time getting blogs accepted as the equivalent of an article published in a peer reviewed journal. But couldn't it be considered the equivalent of a conference presentation, which often go through a less rigorous review process? The audience provides a type of peer review. To demonstrate audience, we could show the numbers of comments, for instance. In my case, at a very small college where things are pretty loose in some ways and we have no tenure anyway, this just might work.

Has anyone tried to get their blog accepted by their institution as academic writing? If so, I would love to hear about it.

And then there is always the other question: Is this even worrying about? I am certainly not blogging for anyone but myself. Every time I blog, every time I read another edublog, I learn something valuable. Maybe I should just be happy with that.

Is it all about me?

Somehow or other I keep coming back to this question.

As a parent, it was hard to accept that my children's failures and mistakes and even their successes as they got older were their own, rather than a reflection on me and my parenting. I remember when my oldest daughter decided at 17 to take the GED. I had a hard time accepting that it was OK -- good even. I was worried about how it would look, what people would think about me. Fortunatley, I have pretty much gotten past that.

But now I find myself asking the same question as a teacher. Are the mistakes of my students a reflection on me and my teaching?

In a comment to my previous post, Bronwyn indicated that they are. In the not-too-distant past I would have agreed with her; I felt that if my students appeared to be less than perfect, it somehow meant I was not a "good" teacher. But now I have to say that I don't agree.

My students, all learning English as adults, make mistakes in their writing. Those mistakes are probably a reflection of what they have not mastered yet, but they may not reflect at all what they have been taught and taught well. Learning a second language is not a matter of being exposed to the "right" way to do things in English and then being able to do it consistently. This is especially true when it comes to writing. I expect them to make mistakes. And I don't think it means I am a bad teacher when they do.

I would really appreciate hearing what others of you think about this. Obviously, despite what I have written here, I am still somewhat conflicted.

Editing student work

Mousing Around - MGuhlin.net - Editing Student Writing

Miguel writes about a discussion list posting about editing student writing that is going to be put online or, really, published in any way. I had seen the list postings when they were made but somehow or other I didn't connect to them until I read about them in Miguel's blog. (Does that say something about where and how I get my real professional development? I think so.)

The gist of the question was whether or not teachers should "tweak" student writing so it is "perfect" prior to publication. On the list several arguments were presented for both sides. Miguel talks about how he had decided to not do that kind of correcting when he was in the classroom full time.

The post got me to thinking about my own situation.

A couple weeks ago I decided that my students weren't careful enough in their blog posts, so I had them look at other class blogs to see the quality of the student writing. (This was the basis of my "failed experiment.") They didn't see what I had wanted them to see there.

But I am wondering why I want their posts to be perfect. Is it for them or for me? I think I know the answer and I don't like it too much. I have to think about this some more.

Thanks for the suggestions

Well, if I weren't already convinced, the quick responses I got to my earlier post about ideas for sharing blogging with some teachers would have made me a believer in the support we can get and give in the blogging community! I'd like to thank Bud and Stephen for their ideas.

I was interested that they suggested Darren's work -- not because I didn't know about Darren or because I didn't think his work was any good but because I had shown my students one of Darren's class blog just the other day. I was trying to get them to better understand what I wanted in the daily log/scribe posts. We have been doing them all semester, but I thought it would be good for them to see other examples. So I guess Darren will definitely be included in my presentation!

To try to answer Bud's questions, this presentation is part of what is normally the Southeastern Louisiana Writing Project's "October Showcase". Because of Katrina, it wasn't held in October but was postponed to March. The audience is largely teachers or ed students who want to get some ideas about including writing in their classes. We have some writing activities throughout the morning but before that there is a time when attendees wander around looking at posters and talking to the teacher-consultants who have prepared them. Last year (actually a year and a half ago - before I was blogging) I talked about using Nicenet as a place to publish students' writing and as a way of communicating with students and, if desired, with their parents. The teachers I spoke to said it sounded good, but they had no real access to computers in their classrooms -- or there was one computer for the whole class to use. I doubt that things will have improved in this past year. My guess is that most teachers who come this time will not be at all familiar with blogging, so I will be introducing the concept and then talking to them about the possibilities for blogging with their students.

That being said, there are a few teachers who will be there who are already using some blogging in their classes, so I will be further exploring the possibilities with them. I think they can benefit from Darren's work, too.

So once again, thanks for the suggestions, Bud and Stephen. I want teachers who aren't yet blogging to see the kinds of support available to them through the blogging community, so I will be talking about you on the 18th, too!

Helping student bloggers get it

In a comment to a recent post below, Susan made some great points. She said

As I introduced the blogs, I told them that part of the power of having their own blog was that it could help them share the things they care about, and it could connect them with other people with the same interests.

What a perfect explanation!

She goes on to say that she is thinking of having her students set up Bloglines accounts so they can begin to read and comment on blogs of interest to them. It seems so obvious to me now that it will be easier for my students to get commenting if they are reading blogs -- especially blogs they are really interested in! So that goes on my agenda for things to do this semester.

Any suggestions?

I have been asked by our local Writing Project to prepare a presentation on blogging to share with local teachers on March 18th. Does anyone have any specific suggestions as to blogs to send them to or anything else that I should be sure to include? I think there is added value if I can tell them that readers of my blog made suggestions because they will start to get the idea of how blogging can create connections between writers and readers, who are themselves writers with readers.

Anyway, I'll be looking forward to your suggestions. Thanks in advance!

Networked learners

A post over at Remote Access today made me think about what I am doing in my classes and in my life. But then, that's the point of all this, isn't it?

Clarence Fisher talks about how, as a "professional learner", he has come to depend on the networking that goes on online. And then he goes on to talk about how that translates -- or doesn't -- into the classroom. He says

How much time do we give kids to explore, to think, to gather, to graze? We often look upon this time as unproductive when we see kids grazing across the information ecosphere, but yet that is when we often stumble across a gem of some sort..... Literacy is a social act of understanding, I get that now. How social is it when kids turn their work in the inbox on my desk for only me to see?

I think about my own classes and wonder how much time I allow students to "graze". Don't we, usually, consider it a waste of time? At the very least, it is not considered academic. I have to think about how I can incorporate more grazing, more reflection, more networking into my classes.

And I have to thank Clarence for the post that caught my attention and made me think about my classes in a way I hadn't before. Like, him, I can always use a little help from my friends.

Not really failed...

As I looked at my blog just now in preparation for a different post, I saw the title of the last one, "Another failed experiment". And I had to ask myself why in the world I had chosen that title.

The only thing that failed was that my students were not able to get what I wanted them to from the other blog. They didn't see what I wanted them to see. But once I pointed it out to them, they understood and began to make some edits on their own posts to the blog. So on that level it was a success.

The title, then, is more a demonstration of my own frustration when nobody got it on their own. But since I hadn't really prepared them to see what I wanted them to see, I really had no right to be frustrated, much less turn it into a "failed experiment".

What I got from this is that I need to teach my students to sometimes look at the bigger picture. And I need to remember that what is in my mind as I design an activity isn't in theirs -- unless I put it there.

So it was only a failure if I don't remember those things and try to do it better next time.

Another failed experiment

Sometimes it seems that I only learn from my own mistakes. Today it led to frustration and, for me at least, a little learning.

I have been blogging with my intermediate level ESL students this semester. It has been a great experience except for one thing: the students post things that are only minimally intelligible even to me. Not all of them all the time, but enough that I think it is a problem.

I tried to address this today by having them look at a high school math blog to see what a class blog could be like. I asked them to look at some of the posts and then comment on what they noticed about the blog. They commented on the substance of the blog, on the explanations of math that they didn't understand. None of them noticed that words were spelled correctly and that there was appropriate punctuation. Finally I had to point it out to them. After that they said they understood what I had been trying to get at, but I am not convinced.

I am not sure where to draw the line with this. I believe that their writing will improve by writing, so maybe I should just be patient. But I don't like the idea of them publishing their writing without any concern for the formalities and conventions of writing in English. The blog is for a reading class rather than for a writing class, but I still believe they should at least try to write correctly. I'm just not sure how to make this happen!

Some ideas for writing

Thanks to Mark Liberman for this link to a list of the 100 Best First Lines from Novels.

The list is interesting reading in and of itself. But I immediately began to read the list as a teacher.

When I got to

41. The moment one learns English, complications set in. — Felipe Alfau, Chromos (1990)

I could no longer control myself. What a great beginning to an essay for an ESL student!

But then I began to think about this seriously. Why not give the students this list to read? They are bound to find at least one of the openings that resonates with them. Have them use that as a writing prompt. I would ask them to write the story that comes after that line. I wouldn't actually ask them to use the line, but I would ask them to write that story. I think it could work. I think I will try it!

Change is possible

Well, this is post 200, and I had been waiting for an appropriate topic. I think I found it this morning as I checked Bloglines and found this post from Will about his experiences in Savannah.

The post was very upbeat and encouraging -- until I got to the last line. He said:

But while the tools are certainly disruptive and potentially powerful, few if any of them really think things in education are going to change anytime soon.

I agree and disagree with that opinion. I think that the big cumbersome process/institution we know as education won't change any time soon unless we are willing to change. If enough of us change how we teach, how we run our classes, how we allow and encourage students to "be" in our classes, education will change. If, however, we say that nothing is going to change so we might as well not bother, then things will never change.

I guess I am naive. But I really believe that.

Writing on task -- maybe too much so

Over on the blog of proximal development, Konrad wrote about writing assignments for his students. For some reason, it made me think of an experience I had today in class.

My ESL students are in the process of writing an essay for their Psychology class comparing their ideas on religion to some of those of Freud. We have talked about Freud's ideas. I have asked them to think about their own ideas on the topic. We have talked about how to write a compare/contrast essay. I had done everything I thought I should have done -- until I looked at what was supposed to be their first drafts today. While they addressed the task, they were lifeless.

We talked about it and I finally realized that they were trying to answer a question, not write. They had followed the formula we had discussed for compare/contrast essays, but I quickly noticed that they had discussed Freud's ideas more completely than they had their own.

This was my fault. I should have encouraged them to explore their own beliefs more first. But even I got caught up in the task. I put too much emphasis on the task, on the form of the essay, and forgot about the content. Or I assumed it would take care of itself.

So I told them to put the psychology assignment aside for awhile. They need to explore their own beliefs, their own thoughts and ideas, before they can hope to write a decent essay.

I only hope I can remember this next time.

I couldn't agree more

As frequently happens, Kathy Sierra over at Creating Passionate Users has said what I have been trying to say, but she always says it so much better. Her post here is a great one. She talks about the power of blogs and blogging. She says, in part:

To those of you blogging (or commenting on other blogs) who may be thinking of giving it up... don't. You never know how the "butterfly effect" of that one sentence on your blog or a comment you leave--that someone found serendipitously (or even randomly)--can change a life.

and

And those who post comments (or send emails to the bloggers) are just as important to the discussion as those who make the posts. It all matters, and it's all meaningful... even when we're simply having fun.

Check out her post -- and her blog.

Comments

I have been writing in this blog for more than a year now. I have made almost 200 posts. I have been fortunate that many people have taken time out of their day to comment on my posts. And if that isn't amazing enough, I can honestly say that I have never in that time received a comment that has not been positive. I don't mean that everyone always agrees with me, but there is a level of civility on blogs (at least on mine and on the blogs I read regularly) that I don't always see out in the world at large.

So I guess the purpose of this post, other than to generally thank everyone who reads my blog, is to let Joanna and others know that I have never found their comments to be critical in a negative way. I think we are all trying to do the best we can in life and, in the case of us teachers, what's best for our students. I appreciate all your input, both thoughts and questions.

New look - sort of

In case anyone actually visits my blog, you will notice that I have done away with the tan/green background. It is the same basic template -- just new colors. After more than a year, I was ready for a change!

What makes Writely different?

I feel a little funny explaining Writely when I am only beginning to explore how to use it, but I have been asked what makes Writely different from a word processor, and I need to respond.

The easiest way to explain it is to ask a question: What is the difference between a blog and a paper journal? You can express yourself and your ideas in a journal. Why bother with a blog? The answer, quite obviously to anyone reading this, is that a blog encourages interaction. It brings people together and can deepen our knowledge and understanding as we enter into dialogue about our ideas.

A word processor allows students to record their ideas, to edit their writing, to produce papers that they will, in turn, submit to instructors for grading. Writely allows for those same things, but it also makes it easier for students to work together on things. They can submit parts of a project and it will all be instantly available to any member of the group. Once again, it is the ease of interaction that sets Writely apart.

I am sure I am not really doing Writely justice. As I said, I am just beginning to explore how I can use it with my students. Ask me in a year, and I will probably have a much better answer. For now, though, I just recommend that you look at it and see what uses you can come up with!

An explanation and an update on Writely

I have been incredibly busy at school working on getting my classes up and running on Moodle and various other things. I have thought about writing, but somehow or other, it hasn't gotten done.

But I wanted to write about what I've been doing with Writely. I have used it with my advanced writers several times, and they have really enjoyed it. The first day, I gave them something I had written and then created verb errors in and asked them to correct it. Now, I only have students in that class this semester, so this might not work for everyone, but this first time I just told them to correct it. So they were changing things and then having their changes changed. They had a lot of fun with it. Eventually we settled down and I assigned different paragraphs to each student and they finished the task. The next time I gave them a different piece with different problems and had them correct them. The energy in the room was good throughout the activity. I had them do some as homework, too.

The last thing I had them do was post their own writing to Writely and invite the rest of us to collaborate. I started by having them underline verb and pronoun problems they found or thought they found in the other's work. Then the author went in and looked at the marked parts and had to decide if they really needed changing or not. When thus was finished, I went into their papers and highlighted one kind of error that I found (verb, word form, whatever). They then made the corrections they thought were needed. I erased the highlighting if the change was correct and left it when it wasn't. When all of that kind of error was corrected, I moved on to a different error. The students really enjoyed this. It was certainly more fun for me than wading through pages of essays marking errors.

Since one of main goals for the students this semester is to get them to edit their own work, I really think Writely will be useful. I am not sure how it would be done with a large class, but I could easily do what I did with my students with a group of ten or so.

As I do more with Writely, I'll let you know. And if anyone comes up with ideas, please let me know!

An experiment with flash

Someone wrote that it is possible to put PowerPoint into Flash to post on a website. I want to see if I can do it or not.

I had thought to delete this, but I will leave it for the time being at least to see if anyone knows how to make this work better. I have uploaded it to Yahoo briefcase and then linked to it here. It was set up as an automatic presentation, but it is manual in Flash. Is that normal or did I do something wrong?

It would be nice to be able to include presentations like this on class blogs. As my students do presentations throughout the semester, I could post them to the blog so there would be a permanent record of them. But I need to know if what I am doing is what I should be doing. It seems to work, so I guess I am happy. But if anyone can give me some hints as to how to make it work better, I would appreciate it!

Update 1.29.06 Thanks to a note from Joanna, I discovered that no one else could access the file. I moved the file to elgg and I am trying again to see if it will work now.

The wonders of the Internet

I am totally blown away! My daughter just asked me for help finding an article she needs for a paper for law school. She could find plenty of places to buy it from, but she was hoping to find it for free. I did a simple search on Yahoo for the author and part of the title and immediately found two sources of the article for free. One even let me send her a plain text copy of the article!

It's all out there if we are only willing to do a little work to find it. But I am always amazed when it happens!

Learning to search efficiently is the key, I think. That is something I want to work on with my students. They so often will try one search term and then give up. I have found this to be true when they do an Internet search and when they are searching the library databases for articles. Does anyone have any good ideas for helping me teach effective searching?

My students are blogging!

Today I brought my intermediate students to the computer lab to get them set up on our class blog. They were confused at first, but I think they are starting to get the hang of it. After showing them around, I had them each post something just for the experience of posting. Then I had them comment on each others' posts. There was a lot of laughter and excitement as they were reading the comments.

I am asking the to use the blog for some very specific purposes: to post daily logs, to post summaries of our reading, and to answer specific questions that I ask. I haven't decided yet if I will require comments. I hope they will pick up on it on their own, but I can easily build that in to my plan if they don't.

I realized today just how technologically inexperienced they are. They can do email and, since last semester, use PowerPoint, but there is so much they can't do, but it is only because they have never tried to do it. I hope that this class blog will give them some skills and experience that will be transferable to other uses of technology.

WebQuests and Oral Skills

I am busy trying to get the semester off the ground and participate in the two EVO sessions I signed up for: Creating WebQuests and Oral Skills and Technology. As happened last year, I find I am more interested in one session than the other. But I am getting good ideas from both of them. It is so cool to see what we can learn from each other this way!

Next week I am supposed to begin designing a WebQuest. We'll see how that goes!

Personalized learning

Clarence Fisher has an interesting post about personal learning. He makes what maybe should be a very obvious statement, and yet it's something that I know I lose sight of. He says:

Personalizing learning is a complex task in a classroom filled with 20 + students. But personalizing learning is not about us doing the personalization; it is about teaching our students how to become learners...

It is interesting to me how we as teachers, as adults, frequently/often/almost always assume that we are the ones who have to make the decisions about what each student/child needs and should want.

Clarence goes on to say:

We must find ways to slowly shift the responsibility of providing content and questions from ourselves to our students so that we can spend our time doing the much more valuable tasks of helping them achieve this goal. It is a complete shift. From teacher as content provider, to teacher as director and supporter of learning.

I need to think about how I can apply this to my own situation. I have planned this semester to give students more freedom in what they wrote about, but I am still basically supplying the vast majority of the content and structure.

I guess I justify not letting students personalize their own learning more by saying that we have so much that they have tolearn and there isn't much time left over for anything else. But I wonder if that is really true. I think that I could do much better than I have been in this regard. I will be on the lookout for ideas on how to incorporate more of this kind of personalized learning into my classes as we move through this semester. Maybe next fall I will have some of it worked out and worked into my program.

Anyway, check out the whole post over at Remote Access.

A PBS blog?

Bud has once again pointed me in the direction of a new blog that should be interesting to follow. This one is from PBS and is written by Mark Glaser. It is called MediaShift.

I am glad that Bud wrote about it because a look at the PBS website gave no indication that there was such a blog. A search on the site turned it up, though, so maybe they are going to change the site to include mention of it on the homepage. I hope so. Anyway, it looks like it may be worth a read. Why not go on over and check it out?

Uses of Writely

Iris commented on my post below about use of Writely to share a document. In this case it was a document started in Brazil and finished in Portugal. What a great idea!

From what I can see so far, students who were going to be working in Writely as individuals would need only an email address and password. It would be easy for the teacher to set this up by posting a document and then inviting students to collaborate on it. The teacher would invite the students by providing their email addresses. They then log on with a password that they are given in the invitation email. That password can, of course, be changed.

I can't see how it would work to have more than one student editing a document at a time because I have to log out of one of my accounts to log in with another, but I think it should work well.

I really want to try this in the coming semester. Thanks, Iris, for the encouragement and example!

Writely

Have you heard about Writely? It is a tool for writing and collaboration that I read about over on Thoughts on Teaching. I went on over to check it out, and I think it is going to be pretty cool. I am trying it out on myself first to see how I think it might work for my students, but I think it has real potential. If anyone has looked at it, please let me know what you think and how you think it might be used in a classroom. I would like to see if I can use it for class editing of a document or collaboration on a story, for instance.

Anyway,check Writely out. I'll be interested in your comments.

Lies in science, too?

Charles Nelson, in a comment here, reminded me of the fact that chemistry teachers also "lie" to their students. Thinking back to a science class I recently sat in on, the instructor said, "Later on you will find out this isn't exactly true, but for now..." At least he was sort of honest. Charles' example and the case of the instructor I observed are definitely examples of trying to make things simpler for the beginner.

So I go back to writing... Is it helpful for beginners to be taught these "rules"? I was talking recently with a friend who told me she still tells her students they can't start sentences with "but". I remember being taught that 40 years ago or more. But of course, you don't write much without starting a few sentences with "but".

My philosophy for the last several years has been to let students write. Period. I try to teach about audience, and that is maybe where I would tell them that some people will not react favorably to certain constructions like contractions or more informal language. But I am not even sure that I am not lying to them still. Will a philosophy professor react negatively to a paper in which the student uses lots of informal language if he expresses himself clearly? I don't know. Guess I should ask one!

Charles has a blog if you would like to check it out.

Lies, lies and more lies

Bud shared part of a post from Tim about lies we tell our students. Bud mentions the lie of the 3-5 sentence paragraph.

We talk a lot in our Writing Project institutes about not giving students these formulaic views of writing. As readers we know we don't enjoy reading things that follow these "rules" and yet many teachers tell their students that they are RULES that must be followed.

Anyway, check out Bud's post and Tim's if you haven't seen them yet.

The need to change education

While I can't imagine anyone reading my blog would not be reading Will Richardon first, I want to be sure everyone reads his post Change or Die.

Video Games

Having just spent a weekend with extended family, I was interested to read Dennis Jerz' post this morning.

My son, who is almost 19 and a really good kid, spent a bunch of time this weekend defending his love of video games. Now, my fmaily isn't really opposed to him playing games because they know him, but they feel video games cause other people lots of problems.

Responding to another post, Dennis says

Diana laments that she can’t get her son to be social, to go shopping, go to a movie, or travel. But he may already be socializing with friends online. He may be shopping online, watching movies online, and exchanging e-mails with people from around the world.

If he knows how to negotiate alliances and trade resources in a virtual environment, he may be developing vital skills that will help him in the global information economy. Diana’s son may be developing leadership skills, mentoring newbies and rejoicing in their accomplishments. He may have have published his own game strategy guide, written fan fiction, or created his own user mods (new content that can be played by owners of existing games).

Dennis makes some great points about the benefits of video games. I think there is more chance for someone to be really creative and involved and to learn something of value playing a video game than there is watching TV, for instance.

I really think a lot of this is a fear of the new. My brother, after talking about video games with my son, acknowledged that by jokingly referring to the fear we heard expressed when we were teens that Rock-and-Roll would destroy the nation. Every generation, it seems, has its "demon". Did Rock-and-Roll ruin us? There are some who would say yes, but for the most part I think we acknowledge that our music didn't destroy us. I don't think vidoe games will, either.

Opportunities to learn something new

It is time for TESOL's Electronic Village Online courses. Last year I did a blogging course, which led me to create this blog. I also did a Moodle course. This year I am taking one on using technology in teaching listening and speaking and another one on creating WebQuests. I am really looking forward to them.

In case you are interested, you might want to check out the call for participation.

Happy New Year!

It has been a busy end of the old year/beginning of the new. We had to move the last of our things out of the house we were living in before the storm and put them in storage. Yesterday my husband, son and I sat on the porch of the old house and talked about how much we loved sitting on that porch. Living there was a wonderful experience.

But now that is behind us. We are in 2006, what we hope and pray will be a better year for most of us than 2005 was!

Happy new year to you all!

Looking forward to the next semester

I am excited about this new semester. My intermediate reading students will be reading two books by Thomas Merton about the Psalms. We are going to have a class blog where we will post summaries of the reading we have done, daily class logs, and whatever else I come up with. I am going to require posts to the blog instead of having them type the same information up and print it out. I am also going to require comments. I haven't worked out all the details yet, but I am on my way!

My advanced writers, if I have any, will also blog. I haven't quite figured out how. I think I will move some of their journaling to the blog. We will also be reading a novel, and I may track their progress on it through the blog. I obviously have a lot of thinking to do on this class still!

Last semester's blogging was good in that it acquainted the students with the concept and with blogger. But that is about all it did for them. They never really got blogging. My goal this semester is to help them/us build a sense of community on a class blog. If they achieve that, they will be much, much closer to understanding what blogging really is and what it can do for them. I will be extremely happy if we get to that point!

What do you want your kid to do?

As the mother of an 18 yr old who is occasionally trying to find some direction in his life, I really appreciated Kathy Sierra's post about career advice. I am so sad to see the number of kids who feel at 14 or even 18 that they have to know exactly what they want to do when they are 40!

Only one of my three children knew what they wanted to do by 18 or so. And even she has altered the picture somewhat. (She is a nurse.) Her sister at that age wanted to be a doctor one day and a diesel mechanic the next. She designed her own Bachelor's degree in "Sustainable Communities" and then decided she didn't want to work with non-profits. At 24 she decided she wanted to go to law school. Since starting law school she has become less sure about the kind of law she wants to practice. And my son? He may want to be a game designer or a chef or a librarian. Or something else.

Kathy says:

The advice I would give ... is that the most important preparation skills/orientations today are:

* Creativity

* Flexibility

* Resourcefulness

* Synthesis

* Metacognition (thinking about thinking)

I always knew that I wanted to be a teacher. I guess I was lucky. Or maybe just not brave enough to think outside the box. But in my life I have had to be creative and flexible and resourceful. In addition to teaching a variety of subjects Pre-K through college , I have also worked as a bookkeeper, a nursing assistant, a mental health technician, an egg handler, a health club receptionist, a drug store cashier, and probably a few other things I can't remember right now. Right now I am teaching at a college. But what will I be doing in 10 years? Who knows?

As Kathy says, this isn't the the world of the parents of the 1950s, the world of my parents. We need to encourage our kids -- and ourselves -- to take Kathy's advice.

As the semester comes to a close...

I find myself trying to see what actually transpired in my classroom. It hasn't been a particularly stellar semester, but I am trying to not get bogged down in the negative. I am looking for some of the good and trying to figure out how to improve the rest.

I didn't give my students a fair shot a blogging this semester. It was complicated by switching blog providers mid-semester. But I just never managed to convey my enthusiasm for blogging to my students. But you know, I never really shared my blog with them, either. Maybe I will set up a class blog for the next semester. Maybe participating in it together will help them see the communal nature of blogging more easily.

I haven't worked this out in my mind yet, of course. As a matter of fact, the idea just came to me now as I was writing. But I can see advantages.

Mostly, though, I have to work on setting it up so they will want to blog. I have to help them see the value in it. I didn't achieve that goal this semester. Hope I do better next time!

What is wrong with us?

If you read the Washington Post report on the student who was expelled for answering a question in Spanish, I hope you are asking yourself that question.

I can see encouraging students who are learning English to speak the language, but this kid was bilingual. What harm does it do? We should be praising him for being able to speak two languages. But instead, we expel him.

This is old thinking. Native Americans used to be punished for speaking their languages in school. Mexican Americans were often punished for the same thing. But that was 30 or more years ago. Have we really learned nothing?

Check out the article if you haven't yet.

But I am grateful for so many things.

The last post was very depressing, and it is important that you know that most of the time everything is pretty good and I am doing pretty well. The problems we have here are minor compared to what people in many parts of the world experience on a daily basis. I have no real right to complain!

I am grateful for the fact that, even though it is maddening slow, there is progress. Things are improving. Everyone that I know personally is OK. Some have lost their jobs; others have lost their homes; a few have lost both. But they are alive. That is a blessing. My family and I have a place to live and jobs to go to. Everything else is really pretty trivial!

I am also grateful to the many friends from around the world who have taken time to write to me or to leave comments here since Katrina. It is nice to know that people I have never met face to face care enough to send a good word or ask a caring question. Part of the difficulty for us in this recovery process is that everyone around us is in the same boat or worse. There is no one here who can really lend a hand or even an ear because everyone has their own situation to deal with. So you are all especially important to me right now.

I hope to get back to blogging on a regular basis. It is important to me. Thank you for reading and sharing.

To give you an idea of what we live with still...

People are always asking me if life here is back to normal yet. Surely, here on the north side of the lake where there was not as much devastation as in New Orleans, things are back to normal! Well, it is 8:35 am. Let me tell you about my day so far.

I got up and got ready for work. I live about 3 miles from the college where I teach, and the trip takes me 5-7 minutes. Well, I was about 2 minutes from work, on River Road, the little road the college is on, when I saw up ahead a lot of trucks and a big machine moving debris from the side of the road and loading it into the truck. There was no warning. They were just there. There were a number of other vehicles lined up along the road in front of me, but they were all trucks of workers involved in the project. I waited a couple minutes, but as there was no workman on my side of the work, no one knew I was there. Now, I have waited as much as 15 minutes for these guys to finish loading a truck before they let cars pass. I have also waited 15 minutes and still not seen any sign that they were going to let cars pass, so I have turned around and gone another way. I chose to leave after just a couple minutes today because it was pretty obvious they had a long ways to go before the truck would be filled. So I backed up, turned around and went back towards home. I had to wait a couple minutes to get back onto the highway because of all the traffic. Finally I was able to get on the highway and get to an alternate way to get to school. Everything was going well. I got back to River Road the college was on, or almost to it, when I saw a big truck -- a semi tractor pulling probably a 30 foot trailer that was built up to carry storm debris. I was on River Road and wanted to turn onto the road I was on. Now, you have to understand that these are not real roads. Two cars can pass on them, but there is no shoulder, so passing a truck that big requires caution. I waited and let the truck begin his turn -- because he gave no sign of waiting for me to do anything else. The turn is not a normal 90 degree turn but, from the side he was on, probably about 75 degrees. And there is, of course, a power pole right on the corner. He could not make it in one try or even two or even three. Finally, he recognized the fact that the truck would have to be perfectly positioned on River Road before it could hope to turn onto the smaller road I was on. So he played around and got the truck back on River Road. After a bit longer, he backed up enough to clear the intersection, and I was finally able to turn onto River Road and get to work. All this took about 30 minutes.

So, while I now have Internet at home, life is hardly normal. Or at least I hope this isn't normal. I am really tired of it. In all honesty, I think they should declare a moratorium on debris pick-up over here. That would help me get back to normal more than having all the debris picked up will. This formerly heavily wooded area will never be back to normal in my lifetime. All we can do is try to make life as easy on us as it can be.

Sometimes I think people who have evacuated feel that they are suffering more than those of us who are here now are. They feel a loss of community and experience a lot of nostalgia for how things used to be. They do not, however, have to deal with the fact that nothing works yet. Nothing. We may have the basic services, but we don't get the bills on time or we don't get them at all or they are totally wrong. Everything is a battle.

I didn't sleep well last night, and that may account for some of this, but my tiredness is deeper than lack of a good night's sleep. I am tired of the struggle that life here is now.

My friend Melanie wrote

I wish I could remember being light-hearted and happy, feeling attractive, being fun and flirtatious. I've gotten so old-hearted lately. I've lost my mirth. And I don't know how to retrieve it. Is innocence and joy ruined?

I understand completely. There is a heaviness in all of us that doesn't seem to want to go away.

So this is my life for now. I don't expect you to really be able to understand because I don't even, really. But I wanted to try to explain anyway. Thanks for listening.

And another apology

Well, after my moaning and groaning about the fact that we still don't have internet access at home 3 months after the storm -- I came home to find out that the cable company finally got here today to solve our problem! So we are back in business again! So this time I must apologize to Charter Communications for not believing them when they told us, yet again, that they would be out to take care of it. And I apologize to you all for taking up your time with this drivel!

An apology

Actually, I have no excuse for having been so negligent with this blog. I truly consider it a casualty of Katrina. I can only hope that I someday get regular Internet access at home again and get over this funk that I have been in. I am ready for normalcy again!

Thanks to any of you who are still willing to drop by or look at my feed. I appreciate it!

A blog you might like to read...

I just stumbled across a blog called After the Storm. It is written by a teacher from New Orleans who has been displaced to South Carolina. It is a wonderful read, and I encourage you to stop by and take a look at it.

Teaching in a Lower Gear

If you haven't read this article on the NEA website, I recommend that you do. It reminds us of the value of slowing down our classes, taking time to really explore topics.

For me, I know that sometimes I allow myself to worry about my students not finishing the textbook or not writing as many essays as I had originally planned. Then I think about what we did instead. Maybe we had wonderful discussions about the topic being studied. Maybe we finally grasped some concept that had evaded us. Almost always there has been something of equal or greater value that has transpired.

I am lucky. I wrote the curriculum. My students don't have to take highstakes tests (except the TOEFL, but that is different). We have the luxury of taking or time and doing a good job rather than rushing through. Sometimes, though, I need to remind myself of that. This article helped to do that.

Links to my students' new blogs

Here are the links to my students' blogs here on Blogger. They like Blogger better already!

Beto
Juan
Son

So far you have to have a blogger account to comment on their blogs. We may change that once they are used to the new site. Until then, I apologize for the inconvenience.

Changes...

I finally gave up on journalspace and decided to move the students to Blogger. We are working on it right now. I will update the links here as soon as I can.

Where do the days go?

It has been over a week since I last posted. I honestly can't understand why. I am busy, but I think the biggest problem is still not having internet at home. I hope someday to get back in the swing of this.

Filters

Bud and others have been talking about the subject of filters ... something near but not-so-dear to my heart. E-school news has an interesting article on it that you might want to check out!

An example

I meant to include an example of cell phone failure in the last post. It will give you an idea.

I called my son, Parviz, yesterday. The first time I tried, it rang and then went to his voice mail. But instead of the male voice I was expecting, I heard a woman say, "You have reached the voice mail of Roz A..." I hung up, figuring she -- whoever she is -- wasn't going to get a message to my son. I tried a couple more times to get him, but I always got a "System is busy" message. Finally, I was able to make the call. It rang a couple times and then there was silence. I said, "Hello," and a woman's voice answered, "I'd like to speak to Terry, please." I explained that I had been trying to call my son. We hung up. Then I tried calling my son again. I got through this time. As I started to explain what had happened, he told me that he had answered that last call to him. His phone, instead of saying I was calling him, said that he was calling me. And when he said hello, he found he was talking to someone in a store somewhere.

That story, 100% true, is my life in a nutshell right now. Things like that seem to be happening on all fronts. So if I seem a little crazy these days... I probably am!

An update

Well, I guess it is time to give you an update on life in these parts. There really isn't much to say except that we are all still recovering. Those of us who suffered no real damage - and I am fortunate to be in that group - have the luxury of talking about how our cell phones don't work half the time and we still don't have cable. Others, of course, are not so lucky.

Time here is still screwy. We can't remember what day it is. Did something happen last week or three weeks ago? Now, normally I have a little problem that way (old age, I guess), but this is way beyond me and my normal forgetfulness. Things are not helped by the fact that a trip that used to take a half hour may now take an hour.

You have to think about what stores are open and what hours they are open. Most stores still aren't back to normal hours -- largely because there aren't enough employees to keep them open. The ones that are open (which is most of them), have trouble keeping items on the shelves because so many people have had to replace so much.

We are trying to retain a sense of humor, but for all of us from time to time, it gets old. We are short on patience. We want things to be easy again.

And then we hear the stories of more bodies found or someone's elderly relative having suffeed due to being evacuataed. Then -- if only for a moment -- we are grateful.

Links to my students' blogs

Well, here are the links to my students' blogs. We have a new student who started today, so his is empty at the moment, but it won't stay that way for long!

Beto

Juan

Son

Also, they are now listed in a sidebar on this blog, for those of you who actually look at the blog!

Another glitch

Well, as you may know, I have chosen journalspace for my student blogs because it was the only site we could access at school with our regular ISP. (Things are different now because of Katrina, but I didn't want to set them up anywhere else in case we go back to the old ISP next semester.) Well, Bud just told me that he can't access the site at his school because it is blocked. I hope there won't be many people who have that problem.

Journalspace is really clunky to me -- probably just because I started here on Blogger. For instance, I had trouble figuring out how to get links to my students' blogs on my journalspace blog. And it says there is RSS feed, but I haven't gotten that straightened out on their blogs yet. Next semester, if it looks safe, I will set my students up here. It is so much easier.

But at least we are up and sort of running. I'm happy about that!

An invitation

Well, my students have started posting to their blogs, and it is quite exciting. They have really gotten the idea of publishing their work! They were writing stories for another class and told me that they wanted to post them on the wall outside the other class so others in the college could read them. I suggested that they post them to their blogs, and they are going to do it!

So here is the invitation: Come over to my blog at journalspace. In the top right corner is the list of our class blogs. Click on them and see what has been posted so far.

I guess I am going to have to go back in and look at how to set up RSS feeds for their blogs as I couldn't get it to work today when I tried to subscribe. I probably just need to have them change a setting. Until then, though, you can get to them easily through mine.

Problems, problems

Well, my students have set up their journalspace accounts and have begun writing in them. They posted introductions and an essay about immigration. They are next supposed to be comparing their own personal immigration history to that of the group they wrote about before. They seem comfortable with the format, but I am not finding journalspace as comfortable and easy to use as blogger. So I am not sure what to do. I guess I will stick it out this semseter and then change to blogger -- assuming we can still access it then. Anyway, the students are almost ready to have visitors to their blogs. Once they are, I will let you know how to find them!

Thanks again!

I would just like to take this opportunity to thank you all again for your good wishes.

Of course, as I sit writing this, we are watching Rita closely to see where she will go. We are all hoping and praying that the forecasters are right and that she will go away from us -- almost anywhere as long as it isn't here. Of course, all the refugees from Katrina currently in Houston and elsewhere in Texas are right in the path of this one.

The people of New Orleans still need your good wishes and thoughts! And I know you will send them their way. Thanks!

A start ... at last!

Well, I have finally had my advanced students set up their blogs over at journalspace. While right now they could access any blog site, I decided to stick with journalspace since it was the only one they could access before -- and it may be the only one they can access again.

Today we just set the blogs up. They haven't posted to them yet -- that will come in a few days. I told them that I wanted to share their blogs with other people, friends of mine, and they seemed amazed. I also told them that, eventually, I want to share them with the college administration. I want them to take this seriously because if they mess up, it could cause lots of problems for future students. I am really sure, though, that they will be responsible and make me proud!

Now, this may seem like a lot of work and worry and bother for 2 students (Yes, I have only 2 advanced students!), but I am excited.

Once they are up and running, I'll let you know. The students won't be posting there a lot -- and some of it will be formal postings (responses to assignments and such). But I know they would appreciate your comments.

Update from my part of Louisiana

Well, we started classes today at the college. We are still running on generator power and there are no phones, but we have Internet -- although it is not real reliable right now. I am hopeful that I will be able to get my advanced students blogging, but I am not counting on anything at this point in time. I am just glad to see them again!

People here are in kind of shock. None of us can tell you much about the last two weeks. Many people still don't have power and/or water, and many people are not back in there homes yet -- and may never be. The good news is that things are moving forward. As gasoline and food have become more readily available and banks are opening up again, we can begin to take control of our lives again.

I am looking forward to getting back on here more regularly. I thank you for being patient with me in the meantime.

Thanks to you all

Many thanks to you all for your emails and comments inquiring about my safety after Katrina. We stayed in our house through the storm and got through it with nothing more than a blown out rear window on the car. We have no electricity or water, but we are fine. We have food and can haul water from the college where I work. Things are getting better every day.

I had to drive 30 miles to get internet, so it will be awhile before I post again, I'm afraid. I just wanted to let you know I am fine and that I will write again when I can.

What happened to me?

I don't know what happened this last week, but I am finally here to post again. Actually, I know what happened. Students arrived on campus; I had to test them; I had to finish getting things ready for the start of the semester. And now, of course, I get a two-day "reprieve" due to Hurricane Katrina since the start of the semester has been postponed in anticipation of her arrival. While I am glad for the extra time, I am not looking forward to the storm. But there is nothing I can do about it - except find my flashlights and candles - so I might as well sit back and relax.

Not knowing whether we will lose power or not, I don't know for sure when I will post again. Please forgive my absence.

Update on possibilities for my students

Well, I have thought a lot about it and talked to Anne and looked around, and I have decided that I am going to set my students up on journalspace this coming semester. It looks like it is the only (Wait, I don't want to say the B word! Someone might be reading!) site my students will be able to access. I am busy trying to get the semester planned out so I can get us started ass soon as classes start on the 30th. I'll let you know the addresses as soon as we have them set up.

More on blogging and professional development

Dave Warlick has a great post over at 2 Cents Worth talking about using blogs rather than discussion boards for collaboration among teachers. While I found the entire post interesting, there was one part that really attracted my attention. He said:

A teacher blog article comes from the person first, and the teacher second. Discussion boards are designed around topics. Blog environments are designed around people.

This idea of putting the person into a blog, and therefore, into the discussion that ensues, is a truly important one. How much of our professional life is spent without the person being present? In "professional development" situations we sometimes have a tendency to tune out entirely. But that isn't how blogging works. We are present if we blog. And we are present when we comment on the blogs of others. And when we are present, we can truly learn from one another and from ourselves.

As I write this, I just got through talking with Anne Davis about my blogging problems. This is just one example of collaboration that has arisen out of blogging. I feel sorry for anyone trying to teach who doesn't have blogging friends to bounce ideas off of. I couldn't do it without you all!

Looking forward to fall, continued

First of all, I'd like to thank Jo from over at The Open Classroom for commenting on my last post. It's funny what a comment can do. It lifts the spirits, points in a new direction, and just generally lets us know we are not alone out here.

Jo comments on Anne's post about things students might blog about. There are some really good ideas. I will have to think some about how to adapt them to my situation (college ESL), but I know I could do it.

So I am back to being more optimistic about this. I will have to make my decision soon because there is a lot to do to prepare for the semester, regardless of what I decide.

Anyway, thanks Jo and thanks, Anne!

Fall 2005 semester

The new semester is about to begin. Actually, classes don't start for 2 more weeks, but the final preparations for the semester have already begin.

As you may remember, if you have been reading this blog for awhile, the issue of getting my students to blog is one that is, at best, problematic. The seminary college where I teach is required to get its internet access through the archdiocese. Our students are bound by the same rules and limitations that apply to all Catholic schools (including elementary schools) in the area. And the archdiocese has seen fit to block blog sites.

I was optimistic that I might be able to get the students blogging on edublogs.org, but I have just discovered that it, too, is blocked.

Now, before you tell me that I might be able to get a particular site unblocked, let me tell you that I have considered asking for that. The problem that I see is that it is entirely possible that I might get it unblocked today but in a month or two or three they would decide to block it again. I am not sure I want to start my students blogging with that possibility hanging over our heads!

And, I must also point out, my students don't really have access to the internet except through the college. They live here as well as study here, and the only public access internet is at the public library, and it is difficult for my students to get there.

I haven't given up on this yet, but I am not overly optimistic, either. My main concern at this moment, I think, is trying to be sure that I would have a real way to use blogs in my classes if I can get my students blogging. It will be a lot of work to arrange, if it can be done, and I want to be sure it will be worth it. So I am really looking at what I normally do and seeing if I have real uses for blogs already or what I can do to create authentic uses for them. I wrote about this a couple weeks ago. I keep thinking about what Konrad over at the blog of proximal development had to say about not using blogs just to replace paper journals. I think I have some ideas, but I am not there yet.

Anyway, I just wanted to check in and let you know where I am at in terms of getting my students blogging. Wish me luck!

Learning Styles

Ula over at Blog, blog posted the results of her VARK questionnaire on learning styles. I decided to check it out myself. I was pretty surprised by the results of my test. I came out

• Visual: 5
• Aural: 1
• Read/Write: 4
• Kinesthetic: 3

Actually, I guess I wasn't all that surprised -- except that aural got one point. (I would have expected it to be lower!) What I noticed as I was taking the test, though, was that I answered some of the questions differently than I would have a few years ago. I used to automatically read everything before I would try anything new. Now I am much more likely to just get in there and try it. The change started with computers and has extended to other things as well. Interesting.

Community, blogging and professional development

Refelctive Teacher writes about blogging as a means of professional development. It is a good one. Check it out. I have been thinking about this all summer. I even wrote about here after I read this post by Anne.

Reflective Teacher includes some ideas from nb on what makes for a good professional environment. The first four on the list are:

1. A willingness to listen,
2. The confidence to admit one's own weaknesses and gaps in knowledge,
3. A willingness to share your ideas and understandings
4. Having confidence in the other member(s) to question and think critically about what you have to offer,

You can see where Reflective Teacher saw a connection to blogging, can't you?

Anyway, I am going to be reading both these blogs for some time to come because I think they have a lot to offer. Why don't you check them out?

More on reading

This article from the Washington Post a few days ago talks about the lack of progress in reading by middle school students. In light of the article from USA Today I posted about earlier, I found it particularly interesting. The article did not discuss what the schools were going to do to help students. No, that isn't entirely accurate. It said:

For example, seventh- and eighth-graders might be enrolled in "power literacy" classes, ninth-graders in "expanding literacy."

That certainly doesn't sound like anything that would make me want to read, and I am fairly literate already! I don't imagine it would be much better for the struggling kids who are put in the classes.

I don't know, obviously, what the students in these classes are reading, but it seems that it would be worth talking about how the schools are trying to inspire kids to read, not just how they are going to drill them on reading skills and, possibly, test them more often.

From my experiences with my own kids and with students, they will read if you let them read things that they are interested in. It is obvious. We are more interested in eading something we choose to read rather than something we are forced to read. Why should kids be any different?

I had the opportunity to hear Jeff Wilhelm speak a few weeks ago, and he had some great suggestions on how to reach adolescent readers. None of them, I am sure, would be included in a "power literacy" class, although they should be! Wilhelm makes the point that kids need to see an immediate value to learning activities and that they seldom do. They too often think they are doing it for us, the teachers.

We have to get kids to see the value of what we are asking them to read. That, of course, presupposes that there is some value in it aside from completing the assignment or preparing for the test. If there isn't any real value for them, maybe we need to think about asking them to read something else. And this brings us back to the textbooks. Most of them contain things I wouldn't want to read! How can I force a student to read something even I am not interested in reading?

Reading and other things

A post over at The Endless Faculty Meeting refers to the USA Today article about schools killing reading for kids by making it too heavy and too lightweight at the same time. If you haven't read the article, please do. It makes the point:

It's time for states and school districts to kick the mega-textbook habit that four or five big corporations control and start spending money on the kind of books that will make kids want to do sustained reading, to get lost in the written word. For English classes, that's paperback novels (whole novels) and collections of short stories (complete short stories) and poetry.

This is something we talked about some in our Advanced Institute this year: the influence of business in schools. We didn't talk as much as I would have liked about the textbook industry, though.

But what I found even more interesting in the article was:

The desire of school officials to make courses teacher-proof — to put more faith in bland compendiums than in the skill of teachers — is only getting stronger with the spread of high-stakes state exams.

I listened to my fellow participants in the institute talk about the new mandated curriculum they are forced to use and how they will, or will not, use it. That is what it boils down to: the school systems are so afraid of "failure" that they don't want to give teachers a chance to be creative. They want something they have been led to believe is foolproof.

I find this ofensive. It denies our standing as professionals. It implies that we do not know what we are doing. Schools are looking for something that will make all students successful, and I don't think they are going to find it. There is no one thing that will work for everyone. Good teachers know that.

How would I react if I were in this situation? I honestly can't say, but I hope I would be able to do what I felt was best for my students. I know you have to pick and choose your battles, so how do some of you deal with the issue of mandated curricula and the pressure to prepare kids for exams? How much do you use the required texts and how much do you supplement with more interesting or appropriate materials?

Nicenet

I just set up a nicenet "class" for participants in the New Orleans Writing Marathon to post their pieces for response prior to publication in the anthology, and I realized that I haven't talked much aboutNicenet here in a long time.

With the SLWP Advanced Institute this summer I had opportunity to use Blackboard for the first time. I was struck by how I could do all those same things on Nicenet -- for free! Since many of the participants in the marathon just came for the marathon, setting them up on Blackboard became a very difficult task. Hence, the Nicenet home for those folks.

If you aren't familiar with Nicenet, it is worth a few minutes of your time to check it out. It is internet-based, so there is no software to download or host. It can be accessed from any computer with internet access. Also, there is "protection" for students because the classes are closed, and you need a class key to join. As the instructor, you have the key and give it to the students. You could also give it to their parents if you wanted. That would make students' work available to the parents. It could function as a way to communicate with parents and for parents to communicate with you.

I have used Nicenet for about 2.5 years now, and I continue to see new ways to use it. And, as I said, it is free. In those 2.5 years, I have received one message from them soliciting a donation. Because I so highly value it, I sent a small donation (very small, as donations go!) and have not heard from them again. That was over a year ago, I think.

I really can't speak highly enough of Nicenet. Please check it out!

Child's Play

I was quite happy to read this article from the Hunsville Times about a pre-K program in Alabama that is not designed to give students a head start academically but rather to prepare them socially for Kindergarten. The article says, in part:

"Play is children's work," said Pamela Patton, program specialist for federal programs for the Huntsville school system. "The play that they're doing leads to the skills required for kindergarten.... We're not trying to make them into little first graders"

How wonderful it would be if all young children had a chance to experience this kind of early education!

And it would be even more wonderful if we could learn to incorporate some of that attitude into all levels of education. Especially in elementary school, but also throughout their education, we would be well advised, I think, to put more emphasis on exploiting the natural curiosity of human beings and on allowing students to utilize their creativity. This is where student choice comes in. It makes teaching harder in some ways, but it is definitely more interesting than teaching to a test.