Creating a Blogging Community

I've seen many an eye roll at me when I talk about my blog. Many people still have this idea that blogs are for celebrity gossip and angst filled teens. Blogging is used for those things, but they can play an important role in the classroom as well. I've decided to create a Blogger's Cafe in my room to encourage student blogging and opening up my class to the world.


Blogger's Cafe

The Stage in my Classroom

I plan to set up a lounge style seating area on the stage that will have space for two students to use netbooks and live blog/tweet the class discussion/lecture. Students will rotate blogging day to day to ensure that a different perspective is gained in class. The goal is to create a comfortable environment for students to work. The students will post the blog on my schoolwires page at the end of class. Students who were not blogging will be able to go back to my page at any time and add any information they thought was important. It allows for students who were absent to see what happened in class and for parents to actually read exactly what happened in class that day. It knocks down the walls of the classroom and lets the world see the learning first hand.

The Blogger's Cafe will be important and students work with other students from Van Meter, Iowa. Students will be working on various units with other students from Van Meter and will need a space to work on different parts of various projects. Student blogs will be used to explore different ideas and reflect on experiences. It will be an avenue that will allow all students to freely participate, instead of the select few that love to raise their hand in class.

Literacy

Another reason I want my students to blog on a more regular basis is because it will help them become better readers and writers. I had my students answer discussion questions last year using Turnitin.com. At the end of the year, I realized that I had my students write the equivalent of 3 extra essays. I could tell by the end of the year, their writing was sharper and their though process stronger. Just writing essays might not be the only way to strengthen writing skills. Blogging allows for students to freely express their thoughts on topics without being stuck following a strict essay format. That ability to let ideas flow will help students as thinkers, not just writers. Literacy is no longer just reading and writing. Computer Literacy needs to be considered as these students move on to college or the job market. The more experience students have with computers and web tools, they better prepared they will be for college.

My Goal

My big goal for the year is to have many other students, in many different content areas, in many different building, start to blog and have their students blog. I want to create a Blogging Community in the district that will allow students to read and comment on various types of blogs. I have a Math and Science teacher ready to blog in their class and I don't want to see it stop there. I want to assign their blogs as reading in my class. This will allow reading and writing to finally be spread out across the curriculum. By having students engage in reading and commenting on other content blogs, they will be reading and learning about new ideas.I would love to see 8th graders reading and commenting on 9th grade blog posts. Freshmen engaging in discussions with AP students on different topics in Biology or History. The potential is truly limitless if a Blogging Community is created. As this idea grows, discussions can begin with other schools in other districts. Eduction should not happen behind four walls alone. Blogging knocks down those walls and opens the world to our students. Before we see the world, we need to create the right environment in the district.


This is a big goal and I don't expect it to happen over night. I do know that I teach with some of the best teachers in the world and they are dedicated to using the best methods available to prepare our students for the tests they will take in the future and college down the road. Now is not the time to be scared to try something new in the classroom. We have a chance to do something different that will help all of our students. If you think that more reading and writing will help the students in your class, please send me an email and together we can set up a class blog. 

I hope many of you will give this a try!

-Nick

Knocking Down Walls with Van Meter

I'm not exactly sure how it started. I went to ISTE10, met some awesome people and now I'm working on a Freshmen English Curriculum with the great people of Van Meter Schools.

I connected with Shannon at ISTE and we talked about doing something together in the future. I've said that to many people whose work I admire. I say it because I really do want to work with them, but often, life gets in the way. Shannon made sure that life would not get in the way and quickly created a Google Doc so we could start sharing ideas. She quickly connected me with Sean and Jared to think about Curriculum ideas.

Why are we doing this? I think this is the question I'm going to get most from parents and other teachers. I think in today's education, a global education, we start to connect students with people outside of the small bubble of their classroom. For me, Literature is done a disservice if it is discussed from only a couple of view points. Literature has so much to offer and I think it is important to open up literature as much as possible. Connecting with different schools from all over the world will allow students to see how different cultured interpret different works of literature. As a high school teacher, one of my goals is to prepare my students for college. College is filled with many different cultures, so it's important to expose them to as many different ideas as possible.

Another reason to connect with other schools is to allow students to use different types of scale media and web tools they will need to be familiar with when they head to college and the job market. The more practice that these students have using these important 21st century tools, the better off they will be in the long run. I firmly believe that we are not just teachers of content. We owe it to our students to impart everything we can to make them successful and productive members of society. Connecting with different students from different backgrounds will only be beneficial to our students.

Here are some things we are working on:

- Shared Ning site: We want to create a space where all of our students can meet and share ideas. We will have about 90 students from GPS and 150 from VM. A centralized place to meet and discuss ideas is necessary to bring everyone together.

- Student Blogs: We want to have our own areas for students/teachers to blog that will be accessible to the other schools. This will allow the teachers to have a space they can modify/moderate for their specific school. The teachers can set this system up in a way that is best for their students. It's a nice way to differentiate for each class.

Joint Units: We have looked at our schedules and curriculum and decided on a unit on/unit off schedule. This will allow the teachers time to collaborate after units and work our the bugs after each unit. Also, it will allow teachers to still tackle important district curriculum during the off time. For students, we hope to see them sharing connections during the off time and during their personal time. Connecting through Facebook, Twitter and other social media outside of the school day would be a great success for this idea.

VM and GPS will work together on short stories, To Kill a Mockingbird, Black Boy, Research Papers and Shakespeare. We have some ideas that involve discussion questions and smaller joint projects for Mockingbird, Black Boy and the short stories in the first semester. We want to move slowly and get the students comfortable with working online with students they will never meet face to face. Second semester is where we are going to go all out.

Research Paper: In Freshmen English, students are taught proper research techniques and how to write a formal research paper. They usually pick topics on Gun Control or the Death Penalty. They research one side and write the essay. Working with another school, we thought it would be great to pair students up with opposing viewpoints to research together. Give the students an opponent to their essay. Set them up with a shared space where they could exchange ideas and sources as they work to create a solid argument. One part of the essay is always on refuting the other side. Students will now be able to actually here and see the other side of the argument which will strengthen theirs in the long run.

Time permitting; it would be great to see a Skype debate on their subjects where classmates can ask questions of the two that wrote the essays. The emphasis will be on collaboration to see the other side of the argument. Too often, students write their point of view and never truly consider the other side. This project could have students see the entire argument for the first time.

The Epic Romeo and Juliet Project:

This started off as a project for my classes at GPS, but has grown into something so much more now that VM and GPS are working together. Using all forms of social media available, the students of VM and GPS are going to put on a Skyped joint production of Romeo and Juliet. The two schools will divide the play's 5 Acts and produce them at their school. Each act will be broadcast to the audience using Skype. Students will be in charge of every aspect of the production. They will be directing, producing, writing, building props, advertising, making costumes, etc.

This is meant to be a culminating project for both schools. As far as we know, no school has ever done a joint production of a play through Skype. This idea requires massive amounts of detail and work from our students. They will need to work together as they dive deep into the world of Shakespeare and the meaning of his poetry. Key decisions on the different parts of the production will need to be made by the assigned groups using different forms of technology to connect. They will use their newly acquired research skills to create. One of a kind interpretation of Romeo and Juliet.

As teachers, we will be blogging and tweeting about the work Van Meter and Grosse Pointe South are doing from an educational standpoint. Our hope is to grow this idea to a point where we have four schools rotating during the school year to allow for a different perspective for the students.You can always follow the hash tag #VMGPS to see what we are thinking over the course of the school year.

Knocking down walls is something that teachers should strive to do every day. We need to open up the world to our students so they can see the role their are going to play in the world. Students can no longer live inside the nice bubble they have created for themselves. As educators, we need to pop that bubble and show them the beauty of the world around them. Sometimes it starts with one conversation with someone from Iowa.

If you are interested in joining us on this crazy adventure, feel free to leave a comment here or send myself or Shannon a Tweet and we will get back to you as soon as we can.

How to Embed a YouTube Video

Next up in the series of How to Screencasts is how to embed a YouTube video. The steps will actually work for any video that has an embed option. Actually, the steps will work for anything that is capable of being embedded. They could be widgets, games, etc. I'll touch on those later, but here is the video on how to embed video. Oh the irony.

I hope this video made sense to everyone. I think I'm getting better at making these as I move forward. If you have questions, please feel free to leave a comment in the comment box and I will get back to you as soon as possible. I hope this video encourages more people to look at the possibilities of blogs and web pages in general.

- Give it a try!

How to post a comment on a GPPS blog

Here is a screen cast on how to post a comment on a School Wires blog. This is the video I will be adding to my school webpage and showing to students so they can post comments on the class blog. Feel free to embed this YouTube video on your site for students to view.

Don't know how to embed video on your blog? Another screencast will be available shortly to show you how. :-)

If you have questions, please post a comment on this blog and I will help you out. :-)

- Give it a try!

How and Why to Blog at GPPS

I am going to be embarking on a crazy journey this school year as I connect my classes to high schools around the world through class blogs and other collaborative web tools. I've been able to enlist a few other teachers to give it a try, but I realized that some people might not know how to create and run a blog on the Schoolwires website. Some of you might be wondering why you should start a blog and what would you do with it. Below is a Wallwisher (Wonderful tool I've used in class!) where teachers from all over have given reasons to blog in the classroom. Take a look.



Blogging has been a great way for me to flesh out ideas for classes and find the best tool to present lessons. I have met many amazing people that are willing to help at the drop off that hat no matter where they are in the world. From a student standpoint, blogging is a great way to increase the overall literacy of our students. Literacy is no longer defined as reading and writing. Computer skills need to be added to the mix if students are going to become functioning adults. Blogs and other Web tools allow students to work on these skills. Having students read and respond to a teacher's post helps with literacy. As we strive to bring the literacy level up, blogs are a great tool to help achieve this goal. Whether you are a Math, Science, Art, Music or Foreign Language teacher, blogging can help you and your students grow. Consider this when you think about adding blogs to your class. Here is a blog post about the positive impact blogging has had on a High School Administrator.

Below you will find a video on how to set up and moderate your class blog. I will be creating a series of these screencasts to share with you in the hopes it will spur you on to creating your own blog. I hope to create a great network of teacher run blogs at South and connect them to schools around the globe. It will take some time, by I'm confident that the best teacher in the world can handle this without a problem.

I hope this video tutorial will help you as you try to set up a blog. I will have other screen casts in the future showing you how embed YouTube videos and other helpful tips. If yo have any questions, please post them in the comments section of the blog. That way I can help everyone in a timely manner. Thanks!

- Give it a try!