MACUL Reflections

Looking back on our day at the MACUL Conference, I thought it was a really valuable experience, and I hope I can go back next year. While I enjoyed all of the presentations that I saw, there were a few that really stood out to me.

While the first presentation we saw was geared more towards math teachers, our presenter had a really interesting way of differentiating her instruction, and making her grading system extremely explicit for students. We attended Collaborating to Assess Student Learnig Using a Variety of Methods by Amy Nelson. She has created "menus" for her students. The menu consists of projects or activities that the students can complete during the unit to earn an A, B, or C.  Each item has a certain point value based on the level of effort needed to complete the task. 70 points is the lowest amount needed to earn a C on the menu. What was even more interesting was the fact that the tiers of the menu also coincided with Bloom's taxonomy, so the work that a student does for an A usually consists of a more metacognitive or creative project. While the unit menu that was presented was for an Algebra class, I think the menu idea could work in an English class. I haven't had the opportunity to see if other ELA teachers are using a menu concept, but I think that the menu could involve a writing component along with other supplemental activities/reading centered around the novel that the students are currently reading.

Another really interesting seminar I attended included writing with Google Drive. Not all of the information was new to me because I use Google Drive quite a bit with my students, but I did learn about some really awesome features that the program has to offer. The name of this session was Editing, Commenting, Suggesting, Oh My! with Karen Chichester. First, the presenter showed us how she helps students with research. I know copying and pasting information into an essay is a problem with my students. Google Slides is a great way to make "notecards" for the students and the students are allowed to access information with Google automatically citing where the student found the source. It is extremely easy to access. Just got to "Tools" then "Research" and Google provides you with a search bar in the window. Students can simply click and drag information over, and Google makes a footnote that links the student back to where they found the information. What was also great about this presentation was the use of text-to-speak apps that are becoming add-ons for the Google Drive program. This particular presenter uses the text-to-speak to have her students hear their work aloud, then make revisions if the work does not sound right when it is read. I often encourage my students to read what they've read to themselves out loud, and I'm sure that the students don't always take this advice. By using the text-to-speech apps, I'm hoping they will take advantage of hearing their work out loud, and then using their ears to make revision choices. I really thought all of the suggestions that this presenter gave for using Google Drive to were great for helping students become authors. Her philosphy is that we are not just teaching students to write, but we are helping them take ownership of their writing. I totally plan on using all of her suggestions with my students to help them with their own writing projects.

It's two days later, and I think I'm still trying to process all the new things I learned about at MACUL. There was one message that was clear throughout the conference; and it was that technology is only a tool we use. At the end of the day there needs to be effective teachers in the classroom that help students, and the technology is just a tool that helps us be effective with our practice.

Doctopus and Goobric... They Are Amazing!

Unfortunately, I had to miss our last Thursday class because of parent-teacher conferences. So as a make up for not being able to come to class, I'm adding an extra post into the blog. In my wanderings at Thurston, I was introduced to this AMAZING add-ons for Google Chrome, and I want to share my knowledge with you all. The add-ons are called Doctopus and Goobric. Lisa and I submitted an article to the MACUL journal about these add-ons because they truly do change the way we grade papers, but I also wanted to spread the info through my blog too.

So, hopefully I've caught your attention enough to ask, "Holly, what is this crazy add-on you're so excited about?" Well, imagine a world where you don't have to carry home a gigantic stack of 150 essays to grade. What if you could grade your essays electronically with a digital rubric that emails itself to your students after you're done grading? Doctopus and Goobric offer the ability to  import and organize all of your students work in one spreadsheet. Then grade their work and import the grades back over to the same spreadsheet. I actually used this add-on with my mentor to grade my student's mid-term papers, and I was amazed at how easy and efficient this program was to use. The program organizes all of your student's work in Google Sheets along with the links to each individual's document. Within Sheets you also create your rubric, which will then appear in your Google Docs like so:

The rubric becomes boxes that you can click on, which will then assign the corresponding number grade to the student. There is also a space where you can write additional comments for the student, and all of the Google Doc commenting features are still available. After grading, the rubric attaches itself to the end of the student's document, and emails itself to the student for their review. If you ask me, that's pretty awesome. I certainly plan on using this method of grading to stop wonderful question of, "Is my paper graded yet?" because the students will know as soon as you're done with grading their work.

I'll stow the used car salesman pitch about these add-ons for a second here to pause to reflect. At the beginning of his crazy journey called the MAC program, Google Drive just seemed like a nice tool for collaboration and making presentations. After working with this program on almost a daily basis, it has evolved in to a tool that I can use for collaboration and assessment on top of my own personal use. I'm a huge fan of efficiency, and I think this tool gives us the ability to not only be more efficient with grading, but also more transparent. I hope you find it just as helpful as I do!

Need more info about Doctopus and Goobric? Click Here

Tech Teach-In Brainstorm

For the Tech Teach-In I have a few ideas that I've been kicking around. So far I have a solid idea of what objectives the students need to complete as part of this lesson, but I'm not sure which technology tool I want to leverage to help the students complete the objectives. I want the tool to be integrated into the lesson in order to enhance learning, not just additional "fluff" that I add to the lesson to include technology only for technology's sake.

While this plan is still very much in development, here is what I would like to do as part of the Tech Teach-In:

Currently, as a class we are reading The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien. I'm hoping to implment technology here to accomplish two goals. My first goal is to hopefully organize the characters in the novel for the students, and my second goal is to hopefully use technology to help students explore some of the deeper thematic elements of the novel.

With my students I anticipate that the number of characters in The Things They Carried will be an issue. Here's why I want to use technology to help my students. I'm hoping to use a tool such as Padlet to organize the characters for the students. Each character will have its own box on the Padlet canvas with a description of the charater along with both the physical/emotional burdens that the character must carry throughout the novel. My hope is that by using Padlet the students will have the multitude of characters organized, and writing their final paper will be easier because they have this accessible organizer to reference while writing.

The second plan for this lesson is to use it as a writing assessment for the students. From a content perspective I want the students to start seeing that one of the themes of the book requires students to recognize that the "things" you carry don't necessarily have to be physical. I'd like the students to start writing on this subject so I can assess if they're grasping this particular theme of the book. I'm thinking it would also be nice to make this lesson social by having students work in groups to write the character descriptions that would end up in the Padlet.

While I'm still trying to figure out the details for this lesson, there are two main concerns that need to be addressed prior to the lesson being written. Is Padlet the best tool I can use for this lesson? Would it be just as helpful to use a tool that the students are already familiar with such as Google Drive? From a content standpoint, I'm still wondering what the writing prompt for the students will look like. So, I need to make sure those details are solid prior to planning out the full details of the lesson.

Overall, I see great benefit in using technology to help the students organize the novel while also making it more accessible (our students only have a classroom set of the book), so I'm hoping that Padlet can be the vehicle to carry out the objective, but I'm still open to any changes that could be more beneficial to the lesson.