Four tools for learning

Over the past six months, I've been thinking quite a bit about my school district's move to 1:1. Specifically, I've been wondering what web-based "tools" my students should have available to them for their learning.

I began by asking myself what tools I need for my own personal and professional learning. Each week I find my use of my RSS reader, Twitter, Diigo, and my professional blog (on weeks when I make time to write) are the tools I use the most. So, I gave my students the student-friendly versions of those.

This school year, my fifth graders have been using:

• Diigo -- to collect bookmarks and share to a private 5th grade group consisting of the three fifth grade classrooms in our hallway
• Edmodo -- to share thinking, questions, and resources within a private class set up for our team
• KidBlog -- for reflection and posting random assignments
  
• PB Wiki -- for publishing their writing

A few reflections on each tool after a couple months of sporadic use (we're not 1:1 yet and available lab time has been scarce in my building the past two months):

• Diigo has been a tool that I've used daily since it was presented to me at a conference back in October. The ability to set up public or private groups has been great for me and for my students. They are still learning how to share useful comments and once we have more regular computer access, I'm sure it's usefulness will grow.
• Edmodo is a tool that, like Diigo, will grow in usefulness when my students have greater access. I've shown my students how I and those I follow use Twitter (after previewing my Twitter feed for kid-friendly tweets) for sharing resources, asking questions, and responding to others tweets. My students have practiced these, but they aren't natural uses yet.
• KidBlog has been my favorite student tool so far from the teacher side. It is simple for both students and teacher alike. I can have total control over what gets posted to our class blogs by approving each post and each comment before they go public. I'm hoping that I can get my students using it more frequently for their own short reflections and writings (remember Type 1 writings?) in the coming months.
  
• This is my second year of using PB Wiki for publishing student writings after I watched how the fifth grade East Dragons out in Littleton, CO used it in their 1:1 classroom. My students really enjoy posting to the wiki and commenting is quite easy. Recently, I've been reading The Power of Less and it has me asking if I can do the same with less. I've been thinking that KidBlog could easily take the place of PB Wiki. I suggested that to my students earlier today and was met with a chorus of "no, we love the wiki." For now, it's staying.

Those are my thoughts at the present. I'm interested to know how you're using these tools with your students or if you've found others that are essential for student learning.

Launching Writing Journals/Research Notebooks

In my district, students are working on the personal narrative mode of writing during first semester.  Each year, many of my students tell me that they don't have anything to write about.  For some, that's true.  They don't go very far from home or have opportunities for experiences that expand their minds.  For others, I believe it is a matter of not paying attention to life.

A variety of sources put the idea of a writing journal in my head.  The idea goes by many different names, but essentially I wanted a place that was separate from their writing notebook that contains the material they are drafting, revising and editing in the classroom.  Personally, I have used journals for about fifteen years to capture my thoughts, ponder life, and collect quotes, pictures, and other items that strike a cord with me.  I wondered if developing a similar practice of paying attention would help improve my students writing.

We began our writer's workshop by reading the first dozen or so pages of Nothing Ever Happens on 90th Street.  As we read, we made note of the advice that was offered to Eva, the main character who couldn't find anything to write about.  We focused on Mr. Sim's advice (see image at the right) and began to talk about how we could pay attention to the "stage"" and the "players" using a writing journal.

I shared that I had seen a blog post the previous week at Two Writing Teachers that contained a video showing what one of the teachers includes in her writing journals.  Of course they wanted to see it, so I pulled it up and we watched it together and then expanded our list of items we could include in our writing journals.

I gave them the choice of either bringing in a journal or using one of the spiral notebooks I had in class.  On Friday we wrote Mr. Sim's quote on the first page and then made a short reminder list of some items to put in our writing notebooks this weekend.  

I'm hoping that not only will their writing journals be a source of writing ideas, but that they will also create a spark and interest in writing that many are expressing at this point in the year.

[I'm also hoping that their writing journals will double as their research notebooks that Harvey & Daniels write about in Collaboration and Comprehension (see p. 135), but that's a post for another day.]

Classroom Blog

I'm trying an experiment this year with a classroom blog. Each year I set three goals for myself and each of the past four years communication with my students' families has been one of those goals. I'll admit that I'm not very good at sticking with it through the year. I'm hoping with the "push-button publishing" of Blogger it will be easier to keep up with it.