To follow up my first post tonight on setting up the Gmail and Blogger accounts, there is a second reason that I am having students set these up. The first use will be to post journal entries in French about their weekends, read other students posts and write comments and questions to each other in French about each others posts/weekends. The second goal is to begin playing with the document reader applications and to take some tiny steps forward toward their "French music research projects".
I am imagining that they could share with their own groups via the google reader accounts/blogging and also they could share information that they find along the way with other groups and help each other?? Please let me know if you have ideas on other ways that I can best use this technology and the blogging to improve their overall learning during the unit where we will research some small aspect of French rock music.
Sunday, December 14, 2008
Check out my web page...its evolving beautifully!
I love the idea of a teacher web page for my use, student use and parent use. However, it has proved to be time consuming and in the long run I would be quite frustrated if I were a parent in Mpls b/c there is not a minimum standard for what every teacher is required to post on their website. This is frustrating for both parents and teachers, because teachers don't know exactly where to start when they are not given a basic framework to begin with. I was lucky to have taken several classes with the wonderful tech guys at 807, usually John Mc and Todd P, who taught me the basics.
One bummer about our mpls web pages is that they don't "travel" with you. So when I started a new position at Washburn this year, i had to completely start over my web page. The good news is that I was able to go to another "help session" last week at Washburn w/ John McCreary and got my web page looking a bit more professional. I have been using it all of second qtr on MOndays in the computer lab with my students, but they had to scroll way down to the bottom of my page, or to pg. 3 of my web page, and now I have all the links on the rt side. Check it out if you have a chance. Click on "My assignments to see what I have attempted to do over the past month to begin the Blogger/REader/Gmail process.
My web page is at: http://washburn.mpls.k12.mn.us/Lynch.html
One bummer about our mpls web pages is that they don't "travel" with you. So when I started a new position at Washburn this year, i had to completely start over my web page. The good news is that I was able to go to another "help session" last week at Washburn w/ John McCreary and got my web page looking a bit more professional. I have been using it all of second qtr on MOndays in the computer lab with my students, but they had to scroll way down to the bottom of my page, or to pg. 3 of my web page, and now I have all the links on the rt side. Check it out if you have a chance. Click on "My assignments to see what I have attempted to do over the past month to begin the Blogger/REader/Gmail process.
My web page is at: http://washburn.mpls.k12.mn.us/Lynch.html
Signing up 140 kids on Gmail & a Blogger site
After 4 trips to the computer lab I now have 95% of my students successfully signed up for a Gmail account and who have created a Blog web site. In addition they have all "Blogged" or posted comments about 3 French music videos, in which they were suppose to use "Accountable Talk". I think that maybe 10% understood or put forth the effort to defend their comments with examples from what they saw in the videos or from quotes from a part of a song, all songs were sung in French with an English translation below each line.
My ultimate goal of this assignment is for students to accomplish two things. First they will begin to use "Google Reader" and import the URL blog sites of all of their classmates. They will use this to Post their weekly French "journals" where they write about their weekends, etc. in French. Prior to using Blogger they just handed them in to me and some kids shared theirs orally with the whole class and others shared with a couple kids around them. Now, students will have the opportunity to read all of their classmates weekend journal blogs and will be asked to comment on them and ask questions in French to get more details. Therefore they will be working on improving their "storytelling techniques" and working on their writing skills, which will hopefully help improve their writing in French and English.
I have learned a lot through this process of getting "set up". Mainly that it takes a lot more time than I would have guessed, but in the long run the students are learning a lifelong skill and enjoying learning about this new technology/web 2000 tool. In addition, I think it is going to make our Monday computer lab days more interesting...once they are all on board.
My ultimate goal of this assignment is for students to accomplish two things. First they will begin to use "Google Reader" and import the URL blog sites of all of their classmates. They will use this to Post their weekly French "journals" where they write about their weekends, etc. in French. Prior to using Blogger they just handed them in to me and some kids shared theirs orally with the whole class and others shared with a couple kids around them. Now, students will have the opportunity to read all of their classmates weekend journal blogs and will be asked to comment on them and ask questions in French to get more details. Therefore they will be working on improving their "storytelling techniques" and working on their writing skills, which will hopefully help improve their writing in French and English.
I have learned a lot through this process of getting "set up". Mainly that it takes a lot more time than I would have guessed, but in the long run the students are learning a lifelong skill and enjoying learning about this new technology/web 2000 tool. In addition, I think it is going to make our Monday computer lab days more interesting...once they are all on board.
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