What Are Kidwatching, Microblogging, and Podcasts?
Thursday, August 19th, 2010 | Education, assessment, social media | No Comments
Soon NCTE will be launching an online site for members that will include many cool features, including an online glossary for English teachers.
My assignment this afternoon was to come up with 3 definitions to add to the collection as examples—and to make sure they were backed up in case they get accidentally erased. So here are my three rough drafts. What do you think? I’d love to hear suggestions to make them stronger!
Kidwatching Definition
Kidwatching, a term popularized by Yetta Goodman, is a way to record your students’ development by observing their behavior, strategies, and ways of making meaning. In the simplest explanation, kidwatching is exactly what it sounds like: watching kids—as they read, write, collaborate, and participate in your class—and taking notes on your observations of students’ effective use of skills, concepts, and strategies.
Observations alone can be useful; but what makes kidwatching a particular strong tool in the classroom is the step that teachers take to move beyond observations and note-taking to analysis and curriculum building based on on those observations and notes.
For more information, see O’Keefe, T. (1997). The Habit of Kidwatching. School Talk, 3(2). 4–5. [Available online at http://www.ncte.org/journals/st/issues/v3-2]
Microblogging Definition
Microblogging is an online publication method that allows writers to publish very short updates, typically in 140 characters or less. Tools used to post microblog updates include Twitter (the most popular tool), Jaiku, and Plurk. Status updates posted in Facebook can also be microblogs.
Microblog updates can touch many kinds of writing, from exposition to fiction and more. Twitter originally asked writers to post a response to the question “What are you doing?” The question has evolved to “What’s happening?” today. Microblog posts can include any of the following:
- a status update on where you are and what you’re doing
- comments and reviews on a book, movie, concert you’ve attended
- links to pictures with short comments on their significance
- pointers to websites, news articles, and other resources you’ve found valuable
- questions and calls for suggestions (as well as related answers)
- haiku (or Twaiku, as they are sometimes called) and other ultra-short poems
- one-sentence stories
As far as the content is concerned, anything goes. What primarily defines microblogging are the length and its publication in an online forum.
Some teachers use microblogging assignments as part of their class activities, to share quick updates on class business and as a writing activity. See Profhacker’s Framework for Teaching with Twitter for additional tips if you decide to try microblogging with students.
Podcast Definition
Podcasts are serial audio or video recordings, posted regularly online. Some people call video podcasts vlogcasts. You might think of a podcast as a kind of blog that posts recordings (rather than webpages) on a regular basis. Some call any audio or video recording a podcast, but in the strictest technical sense, the word refers to episodic publications.
To listen to a podcast, you can either play it directly (streaming) on your computer or download the file and listen to it later (on your computer or on an MP3 player or smartphone).
Podcasts can be used for any purpose a text might serve—they can tell fictional stories, share and comment on recent events, inform listeners about a topic, and persuade listeners to take an action or adopt a stance. As a result, podcasts are valuable tools for teaching students to use spoken language to communicate effectively with a variety of audiences and for different purposes.
For more information on podcasts, see the ReadWriteThink strategy guide Teaching with Podcasts.
My Top 3 Tips for Teaching with Twitter
Sunday, July 18th, 2010 | classroom activity, community building, social media | No Comments
So you’re ready to dive in and try Twitter in the classroom. Let me share these tips that can make sure your classroom experience is a smooth and effective.
- Create separate logins. Audience and purpose shift from message to message. Set up different Twitter accounts to keep classroom updates separate from updates for family, friends, and others. There are tips to make managing multiple accounts easier. Encourage students to create a separate account for official class work as well. I actually post on four accounts:
- @newsfromtengrrl for college education in the news
- @tengrrl for personal updates to friends
- @hokiebunny for info related to my friends from Geekshed
- @BedfordBits for updates on Bedford/St. Martins blogs
- Use hashtags. Choose a specific and unique hashtag (# plus a keyword) to group updates from your different classes (e.g., #VTEngl10). See “How To Create Successful Chats on Twitter with Hashtags” for more suggestions. Lists can work too, but you have to set up a list. You can just search for hashtags.
- Use search creatively. Obviously you can search for those hashtags you’re using, but there are some more sophisticated search tools you can use to narrow down exactly what you’re looking for. Pair a search for your hashtag with filter:links to get just the Tweets that have URLS. That’s an easy way to find those links to an assignment students posted. The until: and since: operators can narrow down Tweets by date.
And one extra tip: you can always Make your own Twitter bird if you need to relieve some stress.
[Creative Commons licensed Flickr photo by Lisa Yarost]
Classroom Activities Using Twitter
Tuesday, July 13th, 2010 | classroom activity, lesson plan, social media | No Comments
Since Twitter is a communications tool, there are infinite ways to use the site in the English classroom.
These two excellent videos provide introductions to using Twitter with students that are polished enough to share at staff meetings and professional development sessions:
- The Twitter Experiment – UT Dallas is one of the first stories of a teacher using Twitter in the classroom to hit wide distribution . The YouTube video includes discussion and feedback from Dr. Monica Rankin and students in her history class. Rankin’s focus is on increasing discussion and class participation.
- Twitter in the Classroom? shares details on a partnership between University of Minnesota and Roosevelt High School to use Twitter to communicate and engage students.
In addition to giving students some basic tutorials and guides, it’s useful to go over the information from College Student’s Guide: Twitter 101. The page shares advice on how to make choices wisely so that students are taken seriously when they use Twitter as part of their classes.
For some more concrete classroom activities, look at Twitter Resources for the Classroom and Ten Ways to Use Twitter with Colleagues, both from Bedford Bits.
You’ll also find useful examples in these articles:
Resources You Need to Teach Effectively with Twitter
Wednesday, June 30th, 2010 | 21st century literacy, classroom activity | No Comments
Tuesday, I argued that Twitter is a great classroom tool. Students can publish their ideas immediately to a ready audience of readers. This authentic audience and purpose makes Twitter one of the many ways that teachers can engage writers in meaningful communication.
So how do you teach effectively with Twitter? Today I’m sharing classroom resources you can use to get started and tomorrow I’ll have details on specific classroom activities you can complete with Twitter.
Basic Twitter Guides
Regardless of the project or activities, you’ll need some basic tutorial or guide to share with students and colleagues.
The classic explanation of Twitter is Twitter in Plain English from The Commoncraft Show. Originally produced in March 2008, the video is dated in places, but it’s still a good overview for someone who has never heard of Twitter. Chances are your students already know all about the tool, but if you’re trying to explain the resource to colleague or students’ family members, the video can be useful.
Ten Handy How-To Resources for Twitter from Bedford Bits includes guides and tutorials you can use yourself and share with colleagues or students. Twitter features have changed over the months, so some information will no longer match the site exactly.
Twitter’s Help Resources and Twitip’s Beginner’s Guide Posts are the best place to find the most current information. The 5 Naming Tips can get you going if you still need to set up your own Twitter account.
Specific Twitter Features
For classroom use, be sure that you talk about these features:
- #hashtags
- media sharing services like Twitpic
- retweeting and the new retweet function
- replies, mentions and direct messages
- following
- Follow Friday
- Twitter clients
Twitip’s 5 Commonly Misunderstood Things on Twitter addresses several specific features quickly. Some may not be very relevant for class activities (e.g., tracking retweets), but others are crucial—like effective use of the @ sign in Twitter updates.
Be sure to come back later for information on how these features can be part of great classroom activities.
Is Twitter Classroom Worthy?
Tuesday, June 29th, 2010 | 21st century literacy, classroom activity | 2 Comments
I have a confession to make. I spend more time sending out Twitter updates (commonly called tweets) than I do on email these days.
Why is it a confession? Twitter has gotten a bad reputation in some circles. The College Humor video Twitter in Real Life demonstrates the way many people perceive the world of Twitter—it’s all a bunch of random, mediocre comments about whatever the writer happens to be doing at the moment in time.
Just because you can use Twitter for random reports on your day, however, doesn’t meant that you have to use it that way. In fact, I’d argue that a lot of the updates on Twitter are anything but random and mediocre when they are read by the intended audience in the appropriate context.
Yep, it’s all about the rhetorical situation. There are lots of people using Twitter to publish status updates about projects, news, and their lives in ways that are anything but random. Take @BreakingNews for instance. All day long, every day, the editors post the latest news stories in 140 characters or less, often with a link to a page with more information.
Looking for a more local example? The town where I live posts regular updates about road construction, town planning, town council meetings, and special events as @Blacksburg_Gov. Virginia Tech, my local university, posts similar updates as @vt_edu and @vtnews.
But is Twitter classroom worthy? Obviously, you can send similar class information and news to students using Twitter, but is the social networking tool capable of more than simply class announcements? Absolutely.
If you’re unsure, think about Twitter as another of the many ways that students can publish their writing. Make it one of the tools in your arsenal, placing it alongside blog posts, Wikipedia updates, email messages, and web forum posts.
Now any one of those tools for publishing writing can be used in mediocre ways that are not worthy of classroom exploration. That’s where the teacher comes in. The teacher has to talk about the audience and purpose for the messages and help students find the most effective ways to communicate—whether students are using blogs, email messages or Twitter.
Now just how do you go about it? Come back later this week for tips on how to introduce Twitter and ways to use Twitter in the classroom.
Week in Review: January 30–February 5
Monday, February 8th, 2010 | Education, WIR, news | No Comments
The “better late than never” edition of news for this week. Be sure to check out the “Assorted Extras” links to an image placeholder technique you can share with web design students and a poetry interactive.
Campus Issues
Donations have decreased at colleges across the country (Inside Higher Ed). Yale will cut staff and freeze some salaries to meet a $150 million budget gap (NYTimes). Princeton’s efforts to squash grade inflation are meeting with complaints from students (NYTimes). In a ten-year strategic plan, the president of University of New Hampshire calls for interdisciplinary collaboration and rewards for innovation to ensure the school’s future (Boston.com).
Intellectual Property Rights
UCLA has removed all copyrighted films from their course Websites because complaints of copyright violation from the Association for Information and Media Equipment (Chronicle of Higher Ed). IP rights and piracy have been at issue for centuries (Inside Higher Ed), and many universities are unsure what is and isn’t legal (Inside Higher Ed). The UCLA action has lead to speculation about the role of video projects in education (Inside Higher Ed) and emerging understandings of copyright and online streaming (Inside Higher Ed).
In a strike against a possible plagiarism mill, an Illinois court has shut down an online term paper site until it can prove ownership of the essays it sells (USA Today).
Government
Federal funding for FY2011 may fall short for Pell Grants, the Department of Labor’s Career Pathways Innovation Fund, and the National Endowment for the Humanities (Inside Higher Ed). The proposed end to the Leveraging Educational Assistance Partnership program could spell the end of millions of dollars in matching funds from state coffers for students (Inside Higher Ed). Lobbyists are challenging the federal plan to end government subsidies to private lenders and provide the monies to directly to students (NYTimes).
A letter from Jill Biden counters misconceptions about federally-subsidized loans and urges community colleges to offer the loans to students (Chronicle of Higher Ed).
According to a recent report, the number of nonprofit schools gaining federal funding as “Hispanic-Serving Institutions” is increasing (Inside Higher Ed).
Tablet Computing
The new iPad has inspired discussion of the tablet’s educational benefits (PCWorld), how students will respond (Nevada Sagebrush), and how the various tablets stack up (Lifehacker). Apple’s decision to use a proprietary format for ebooks on the iPad complicates things for consumers and publishers (Yahoo! News). The free Blio Reader may change expectations for ebooks, with features that duplicate layout and appearance of paper-based books (eSchoolNews). Regardless of the evolution of ebooks and tablets, author Katherine Paterson argues that we’ll still read paper-based books (NY Daily News).
Technology
Universities report increasing interest in hybrid courses, which combine online and traditional classroom experiences (eSchoolNews). A Brigham Young University experiment found that free online distance courses did not harm traditional course enrollment (Chronicle of Higher Ed).
A recent Pew Trust report finds that teens do not use Twitter or blog but their interest in social networking sites is growing (Washington Post). Regardless of teen engagement, teachers can benefit from using Twitter to connect with other teachers (Educational Leadership). For tenure purposes, however, a UC-Berkeley reports indicates professors should focus on traditional publication options (Chronicle of Higher Ed).
Assorted Extras
- 8 Easy Ways to Get Digital Natives Wild about Reading (Huffington Post)
- Dummy Image Generator (Lifehacker)
- Fun with punctuation (Boing Boing)
- “For Better for Verse” interactive shows how poetic meter works (UVA Today)
- Social Learning in the Enterprise—in 4 minutes (Jane’s Learning Pick of the Day)
Why You Should Try Twitter in the Classroom
Tuesday, February 2nd, 2010 | 21st century literacy, classroom activity | No Comments
If you’re even slightly interested in how you might use Twitter in the classroom, take a look at William M. Ferriter’s essay “Why Teachers Should Try Twitter” from Educational Leadership.
The article explains, “For educators who use this tool to build a network of people whose Twitter messages connect to their work, Twitter becomes a constant source of new ideas to explore.” It includes some tips and how-to’s as well as a personal story on how the experience affected the author’s understanding of differentiated instruction.
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Literacy and Education in the News
- Disruptive Student Behavior: The Disrespecters - ProfHacker - The Chronicle of Higher Education http://hoki.es/9ifcWs
- "Working It Out: Community Engagement and Cross-Course Collaboration" from Programmatic Perspectives 2.2 » http://hoki.es/9Jvnju
- "Undergraduate Technical Writing Assessment: A Model" from Programmatic Perspectives 2.2 » http://hoki.es/aNfTKV [PDF]
- Scottish school becomes first in world where all lessons take place using computers - The Daily Record http://hoki.es/9IayAm
- Formula to Grade Teachers’ Skill Gains Acceptance, and Critics - NYTimes.com http://hoki.es/al8Hl7
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