Hi Jaime I just wanted to let you know I am having some connectivity issues at home that should be resolved by tomorrow. I enjoyed your module and look forward to commenting on it tomorrow when I do not have to worry about all my work disappearing as I submit it! Thanks! Laura H
Our connectivity issues were not addressed until late in the day yesterday sorry about that! Loved your narrative as I found it easy to read, well thought out, and logically ordered. I think the choice of a blog is perfect f or what you are trying to do and that you really do connect with the students you are trying to reach very well. I really like the way you clearly laid out how they were todo the reader response, what the expectations were, and thought the "helpful hints" were a really nice touch that sort of "warmed" up the informative tone of the blog. I do think adding a component of "community" might be really nice, this is a big subject, that might have some evoke strong reaction so being able to discuss it in a group could elicit some strong learning experiences. Using voicethread got me to thinking that might be a really good way of going back and forth with students? What do you think of adding something like that where the students could communicate with each other in ways outside of posting their reader responses? Even if it was not synchronous a meeting place where they could chat outside of their responses might help work through the material in other ways?
I did feel that the students would be able to easily operate the blog, getting around it was no problem, due in part to your clear instruction. There were only two small things I found myself missing. One was an overarching structure to what was going on, the blog dives right into the meat of it, so maybe provisioning something along those lines might be helpful? Perhaps in the rubric? Which brings me to the issue of scrolling through, is it possible to divide up the pages so there is less scrolling down through the information? I wonder if chunking it up a bit might allow the students to pay more attention to each individual section before moving on?
Thank you for your great blog, I did think it was really well done, and easy to navigate, and think you are very right in stating that a blog like this would give the chance for students to be successful with DE! You should try this out for real because your first attempt was stellar! Thanks Again Laura
My first year out of university I was offered a job teaching English and was terrified. But by the end of the year it was my favorite class in my timetable. My favorite part was witnessing the creativity and insight pour from the mind to the paper of these young adults. It was like being in an incredibly large book club and I could talk about stories and characters all day. I love the idea of moving this experience into a virtual world. This not only will make the course more accessibly to students at a distance, but as you stated in your narrative, also " at risk" youth. My husband works with adults who have Fetal Alcohol Syndrome. a result of their condition, some of these adults can be impulsive, have difficulty focusing and at times quite tempermental. A course like this that could be taken online, would remove some of the barriers for some of these adults who have attempted grade 12 several times and not been successful despite their high intelligence level. In your narrative you wrote, " The modules are designed with some flexibility to accommodate the various time commitments". This would help them so much. A Blog is also effective for students who struggle with face to face conversation due to self esteem or social issues. I found the blog easy to follow and I thought the directions were clear. I think that the information sorted itself by date so the welcome came up after the instructions and the student blog. Is there a way to rearrange this? In your narrative you wrote, " I have also tried to keep the tasks for the module relatively simple be utilizing one piece of technology, a blog, and referring to a single piece of literature" and I think this was an excellent choice. You are having the students focus on one piece of content instead of several pieces of technology. Eli Wiesel’s memoir, Night sounds like a very effective choice for at risk kids. I wonder if you could add some links to information about the holocaust to the blog not as an assignment, but as optional links to further learning. You spoke about a package for the kids to pick up. Does this package contain the required reading material? Would it be possible to scan the documents as post them as a PDF? Many of my students lose their books and materials and then don’t want to ask for more, especially if it means another trip to the school. Overall I thought it was excellent! I thin the kids will really "buy into" having a community online to discuss literature.
Hi Laura and Danyelle. Thank you so much for your encouraging words and feedback.
I feel that I should clarify something about my blog. It is meant to act as a snapshot of what the blog WILL look like and is no means complete. The module I refered to for this assignment was a part of the way into the novel study so we would be done the introductory work. Ideally, I would have more links on the blog for different modules (like a youtube video and links to the Holocaust Museum website in the introductory module). This is part of a smaller unit that would be made up of six or so modules and I simply did not have the time to include all of this in the blog. Laura, I hope this clears up some of your confusion about the overarching structure. In my narrative, I tried to give some context for this but maybe I need to be more clear on this. Thanks for pointing that out.
I agree about needing more pages. After my paired discussion with Tanya and after looking at how others organized their blogs, I would use the archives a little differently. I would put the rubric and other helpful hints on a different page. This project has definitely been a learning experience for me.
Laura, I love the suggestion of using Voicethread. I really wanted a communication tool but wasn't sure about something like Skype or webconfercing. After seeing how well Voicethread has worked for our showcase discussions, I've been convinced of it's value. I think it would even be great to provide an option for students to orally present their reader response (especially for those who struggle with writing).
Danyelle, thanks for relating this to your (and your husband's) personal experiences. To be honest, I find it difficult at times to reach these at-risk students and they can fall through the cracks. I really wanted to design something that would allow for optimal success. I'm not sure about scanning the novel, as I think that would violate copyright agreements. I think the poems could be scanned but the longer materials would still need to be picked up/sent.
Great suggestions ladies and I will definitely use them to improve my blog. Thanks.
Hi Jaime
ReplyDeleteI just wanted to let you know I am having some connectivity issues at home that should be resolved by tomorrow. I enjoyed your module and look forward to commenting on it tomorrow when I do not have to worry about all my work disappearing as I submit it!
Thanks!
Laura H
I look forward to reading your comments Laura!
ReplyDeleteOur connectivity issues were not addressed until late in the day yesterday sorry about that!
ReplyDeleteLoved your narrative as I found it easy to read, well thought out, and logically ordered. I think the choice of a blog is perfect f or what you are trying to do and that you really do connect with the students you are trying to reach very well. I really like the way you clearly laid out how they were todo the reader response, what the expectations were, and thought the "helpful hints" were a really nice touch that sort of "warmed" up the informative tone of the blog. I do think adding a component of "community" might be really nice, this is a big subject, that might have some evoke strong reaction so being able to discuss it in a group could elicit some strong learning experiences. Using voicethread got me to thinking that might be a really good way of going back and forth with students? What do you think of adding something like that where the students could communicate with each other in ways outside of posting their reader responses? Even if it was not synchronous a meeting place where they could chat outside of their responses might help work through the material in other ways?
I did feel that the students would be able to easily operate the blog, getting around it was no problem, due in part to your clear instruction. There were only two small things I found myself missing. One was an overarching structure to what was going on, the blog dives right into the meat of it, so maybe provisioning something along those lines might be helpful? Perhaps in the rubric? Which brings me to the issue of scrolling through, is it possible to divide up the pages so there is less scrolling down through the information? I wonder if chunking it up a bit might allow the students to pay more attention to each individual section before moving on?
Thank you for your great blog, I did think it was really well done, and easy to navigate, and think you are very right in stating that a blog like this would give the chance for students to be successful with DE! You should try this out for real because your first attempt was stellar!
Thanks Again
Laura
My first year out of university I was offered a job teaching English and was terrified. But by the end of the year it was my favorite class in my timetable. My favorite part was witnessing the creativity and insight pour from the mind to the paper of these young adults. It was like being in an incredibly large book club and I could talk about stories and characters all day. I love the idea of moving this experience into a virtual world. This not only will make the course more accessibly to students at a distance, but as you stated in your narrative, also " at risk" youth.
ReplyDeleteMy husband works with adults who have Fetal Alcohol Syndrome. a result of their condition, some of these adults can be impulsive, have difficulty focusing and at times quite tempermental. A course like this that could be taken online, would remove some of the barriers for some of these adults who have attempted grade 12 several times and not been successful despite their high intelligence level. In your narrative you wrote, " The modules are designed with some flexibility to accommodate the various time commitments". This would help them so much. A Blog is also effective for students who struggle with face to face conversation due to self esteem or social issues.
I found the blog easy to follow and I thought the directions were clear. I think that the information sorted itself by date so the welcome came up after the instructions and the student blog. Is there a way to rearrange this?
In your narrative you wrote, " I have also tried to keep the tasks for the module relatively simple be utilizing one piece of technology, a blog, and referring to a single piece of literature" and I think this was an excellent choice. You are having the students focus on one piece of content instead of several pieces of technology. Eli Wiesel’s memoir, Night sounds like a very effective choice for at risk kids. I wonder if you could add some links to information about the holocaust to the blog not as an assignment, but as optional links to further learning.
You spoke about a package for the kids to pick up. Does this package contain the required reading material? Would it be possible to scan the documents as post them as a PDF? Many of my students lose their books and materials and then don’t want to ask for more, especially if it means another trip to the school.
Overall I thought it was excellent! I thin the kids will really "buy into" having a community online to discuss literature.
Hi Laura and Danyelle. Thank you so much for your encouraging words and feedback.
DeleteI feel that I should clarify something about my blog. It is meant to act as a snapshot of what the blog WILL look like and is no means complete. The module I refered to for this assignment was a part of the way into the novel study so we would be done the introductory work. Ideally, I would have more links on the blog for different modules (like a youtube video and links to the Holocaust Museum website in the introductory module). This is part of a smaller unit that would be made up of six or so modules and I simply did not have the time to include all of this in the blog. Laura, I hope this clears up some of your confusion about the overarching structure. In my narrative, I tried to give some context for this but maybe I need to be more clear on this. Thanks for pointing that out.
I agree about needing more pages. After my paired discussion with Tanya and after looking at how others organized their blogs, I would use the archives a little differently. I would put the rubric and other helpful hints on a different page. This project has definitely been a learning experience for me.
Laura, I love the suggestion of using Voicethread. I really wanted a communication tool but wasn't sure about something like Skype or webconfercing. After seeing how well Voicethread has worked for our showcase discussions, I've been convinced of it's value. I think it would even be great to provide an option for students to orally present their reader response (especially for those who struggle with writing).
Danyelle, thanks for relating this to your (and your husband's) personal experiences. To be honest, I find it difficult at times to reach these at-risk students and they can fall through the cracks. I really wanted to design something that would allow for optimal success. I'm not sure about scanning the novel, as I think that would violate copyright agreements. I think the poems could be scanned but the longer materials would still need to be picked up/sent.
Great suggestions ladies and I will definitely use them to improve my blog. Thanks.
Jaime
I really enjoyed your module! It gave me some great ideas! Thank you!
ReplyDelete