Four Corners and Anticipation Guides:Both of these techniques “activate schema” by asking students to react in some way to a series of controversial statements about a topic they are about to study. In Four Corners, students move around the room to show their degree of agreement or disagreement with various statements — about, for instance, the health risks of tanning, or the purpose of college, or dystopian teen literature. An anticipation guide does the same thing, though generally students simply react in writing to a list of statements on a handout. In this warm-up to a lesson on some of the controversies currently raging over school reform, students can use the statements we provide in either of these ways.
Gallery Walks:A rich way to build background on a topic at the beginning of a unit (or showcase learning at the end), Gallery Walks for this purpose are usually teacher-created collections of images, articles, maps, quotations, graphs and other written and visual texts that can immerse students in information about a broad subject. Students circulate through the gallery, reading, writing and talking about what they see.
Making Text-to-Text/Text-to-Self/Text-to-World connectionsCharting Debatable IssuesListing Facts/Questions/ResponsesIdentifying Cause and EffectSupporting Opinions With FactsTracking The Five W’s and an HIdentifying Multiple Points of ViewIdentifying a Problem and SolutionComparing With a Venn Diagram
The One-Pager:Almost any student can find a “way in” with this strategy, which involves reacting to a text by creating one page that shows an illustration, question and quote that sum up some key aspect of what a student learned.
“Popcorn Reads”:Invite students to choose significant words, phrases or whole sentences from a text or texts to read aloud in random fashion, without explanation. Though this may sound pointless until you try it, it is an excellent way for students to “hear” some of the high points or themes of a text emerge, and has the added benefit of being an activity any reader can participate in easily.
Illustrations:Have students create illustrations for texts they’re reading, either in the margins as they go along, or after they’ve finished. The point of the exercise is not, of course, to create beautiful drawings, but to help them understand and retain the information they learn.
Update | Feb. 2012: We'll be exploring the new Common Core State Standards, and how teaching with The Times can address them, through a series of blog posts. You can find them all here, tagged "the NYT and the CCSS."
Diigo highlighting tool allows the teacher or
student to highlight in an article or a web page
The key concepts or vocabulary words could be
highlighted to check for understanding.
Some students have problems determining what
should be highlighted in an article or passage. Teachers could use this tool to
demonstrate how to correctly highlight and find the key points.
About diigo.com
page
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About diigo.comDiigo or
Digest of Internet Information, Groups and Other stuff is a social bookmarking
site that allows its users to bookmark and tag websites. Users are also able to
highlight information and put sticky notes directly on the webpage as you are
reading it. Your notes can be public which allows other users to view and
comment on your notes and add their own or it can be private. Sites can be saved
and stored for later reading and commenting. Users can also join groups with
similar interests and follow specific people and sites. Teachers can register for an educator account that allows
a teacher to create accounts for an entire class. In an education account,
students are automatically set up as a Diigo group which allows for easy sharing
of documents, pictures, videos, and articles with only your class group. There
are also pre-set privacy settings so only the teacher and classmates can see the
bookmarks and communications. This is a great way to ensure that your students
and their comments are kept private from the rest of the Internet community.
Diigo is a great tool for teachers to use to have students interact with
material and to share that interaction with classmates.
Best Practices for using Diigo tools
Tagging
Tool
Teachers or students can tag a website that
they want to bookmark for future reference.
Teachers can research websites or articles that
they want their students to view on a certain topic and tag them for the
students. This tool is nice when
researching a certain topic. The teacher can tag the websites that the students
should use eliminating the extra time of searching for the sites that would be
useful and appropriate for the project.Highlighting Tool
Diigo
highlighting tool allows the teacher or
student to
highlight in an article or a web page
.
1The key
concepts or vocabulary words could be
highlighted
to check for understanding.
Some students have problems determining
what
should be highlighted in an article or passage.
Teachers could use this tool to
demonstrate
how to correctly highlight and find the key points.
Sticky Notes
Tool
The sticky note tool is a great addition to the
tools of diigo. Students may add sticky notes to a passage as they are reading
it. The sticky notes could be used to make notes or ask questions by the
students.
Teachers could postition the sticky notes in
the passage for students to respond to various ideas as they are reading.
Students could use sticky notes to peer edit
and make comments on other student's work through Google docs.
These are just a few ideas of how to
apply the diigo tools to your teaching practices. Both students and teachers
benefit form using these tools. The variety of uses or practices give both
groups a hands on way of dealing with text while making it more efficient.
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Sunday,
7:53 pm
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revisions
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About
diigo.com
Diigo or
Digest of
Internet Information, Groups and Other stuff is a social bookmarking
site
that allows its users to bookmark and tag websites. Users are also able
to
highlight information and put sticky notes
directly on the webpage as you are
reading it.
Your notes can be public which allows other users to view and
comment on
your notes and add their own or it can be private. Sites can be saved
and
stored for later reading and commenting. Users can also join groups with
si
Diigo or Digest of Internet Information, Groups and
Other stuff is a social bookmarking site that allows its users to bookmark
and tag websites
Diigo highlighting tool allows the teacher or
student to highlight in an article or a web page.
The key concepts or vocabulary words could be
highlighted to check for understanding
Diigo highlighting tool allows the teacher
or
student to highlight in an article or a web
page.
The key concepts
or vocabulary words could be
highlighted
to check for understanding
Diigo highlighting tool allows the teacher or
student to highlight in an article or a web page.
The key concepts or vocabulary words could be
highlighted to check for understanding.
Some students have problems determining what
should be highlighted in an article or passage. Teachers could use this tool to
demonstrate how to correctly highlight and find the key points.
Diigo highlighting tool allows the teacher
or
student to highlight in an article or a web
page.
Teachers or students can tag a website that
they want to bookmark for future reference.
Teachers can research websites or articles that
they want their students to view on a certain topic and tag them for the
students.This tool is nice when
researching a certain topic. The teacher can tag the websites that the students
should use eliminating the extra time of searching for the sites that would be
useful and appropriate for the project.
The sticky note tool is a great addition to the tools of diigo. Students may add sticky notes to a passage as they are reading it. The sticky notes could be used to make notes or ask questions by the students.Teachers could postition the sticky notes in the passage for students to respond to various ideas as they are reading.Students could use sticky notes to peer edit and make comments on other student's work through Google docs.
"How can we possibly teach reading when our kids just
won't read?"
classrooms are one of the only text-driven environments that our students experience. Beyond school, U.S. students spend most of their time with media consuming digital information from televisions, radios, and computers. Much of this electronic information is visual or is processed passively, in small bites.
So how can you drag the wayward brains in your classroom back to deeper reading? Begin by recognizing that today's students are driven by opportunities to interact with one another. Conversations—whether they are started on Facebook, through text messages, or in the hallways—play a central role in adolescents' lives. Understanding that participation is a priority, the best teachers create social reading experiences and blur lines between fun and work.
One great tool for creating social reading experiences is Diigo
Social bookmarking applications like Diigo help my classes explore interesting texts and get students reading actively. As students highlight parts of the text they find compelling and add comments in onscreen threaded discussions, they challenge the thinking of their peers and even of the author.
To structure substantial conversations instead of reactive chatter, I defined five specific roles (listed in the Shared Annotation Roles section of the Digitally Speaking site referenced above) for students working in shared annotation groups.
Tools such as Diigo are fundamentally changing the reading experience—and effective teachers must adapt to keep their students engaged.
For those in Australia the end of the teaching year has arrived or is just around the corner. With holidays approaching now might be the perfect time to find a good book to read and reset your thinking ahead of the start of a new year. Here are my favourite reads from this year.
"As I started a go-to list of the best educational iPad apps for kids, the list got so long, I split up my posts into categories. So, today we'll start with my favorite iPad apps for literacy - reading and writing for toddlers, preschoolers, and elementary-age kids. Also, I've included special needs iPad app resources at the end of this post."
With the Christmas Holiday's finally here this is the perfect opportunity to catch up on some of that reading which has been delayed while more pressing matters are dealt with. Here are the top items on my holiday reading list. With a project underway that explores a conceptual based approach to teaching mathematics there is a bias in that direction.
the first great thing about Diigo is
that your bookmarks follow you wherever you go. When you
bookmark a site using your Diigo account, you can have access to
it at work, home, the computer lab or library. The other great
thing is that once you bookmark it, you can share your book mark
links with students and colleagues and they can all have access
to your sites.
This would be the first reason to use Diigo in the classroom
The next big plus to Diigo is that you get
to “tag” the sites you want to bookmark. A tag is the
classification system you determine so you can organize your
bookmarks and find the link the next time you need it; this is
known as a folksonomy.
On the sticky note the teacher
could ask questions and Diigo allows people to comment and reply
to the questions on the sticky note. Students could also add
sticky notes for other students to comment on as well. Another
way to use the highlighting tool is that students could go
through an article and highlight all of the vocabulary that they
didn’t know and learn what it means prior to reading the
article. Or students could put sticky notes about questions
they have when reading the text.
But, now let’s get to the “social” part of social bookmarking. Let’s say
you find a really awesome site for your unit on Greek Mythology, and you tag it
on Diigo. You see when you look at your bookmark list that 72 other people
have tagged that exact same site. You can see the lists of the other
people who have tagged that site, and you might discover a 6th grade
teacher in Wisconsin who has an amazing list of Greek mythology sites that you
didn’t even know about. Now you have taken advantage of the social part of
the bookmarking process by adding some of those bookmarks to your list.
I've recently read some articles on how physical exercise helps students learn, and thought I'd put together a related "The Best…" list. However, I only have a few resources now, and I'm sure there are plenty others out there. I'm hoping readers will contribute more (I, of course, will give you credit for ones I add to this list).
Feed readers
are probably the most important digital tool for today's learner because they
make sifting through the amazing amount of content added to the Internet
easy. Also known as aggregators, feed readers are free tools that can
automatically check nearly any website for new content dozens of times a
day---saving ridiculous amounts of time and customizing learning experiences for
anyone.
Imagine
never having to go hunting for new information from your favorite sources
again. Learning goes from a frustrating search through thousands of
marginal links written by questionable characters to quickly browsing the
thoughts of writers that you trust, respect and enjoy.
Feed readers can
quickly and easily support blogging in the classroom, allowing teachers to
provide students with ready access to age-appropriate sites of interest that are
connected to the curriculum. By collecting sites in advance and organizing
them with a feed reader, teachers can make accessing information manageable for
their students.
Here are several
examples of feed readers in action:
Used specifically as
a part of one classroom project, this feed list contains information related to
global warming that students can use as a starting point for individual
research.
While there are literally dozens of different feed reader
programs to choose from (Bloglines andGoogle Reader are two
biggies), Pageflakes is a favorite of
many educators because it has a visual layout that is easy to read and
interesting to look at. It is also free and web-based. That
means that users can check accounts from any computer with an Internet
connection. Finally, Pageflakes makes it quick and easy to add new
websites to a growing feed list—and to get rid of any websites that users are no
longer interested in.
What's even
better: Pageflakes has been developinga teacher version of their tooljust for us that includes an online grade tracker,
a task list and a built in writing tutor. As Pageflakes works to perfect
its teacher product, this might become one of the first kid-friendly feed
readers on the market. Teacher Pageflakes users can actually blog and create a
discussion forum directly in their feed reader---making an all-in-one digital
home for students.
For more
information about the teacher version of Pageflakes, check out this
review:
A great list of recommended reading compiled by Expeditionary Learning, a site committed to developing schools which focus on student driven learning experiences.
One of the great joys and best strategies for expanding your understanding is to engage with a great book. Fortunately the options available today are immense and electronic options and audio books make access easy and possible wherever you may be. Here is a short list of what I have been reading lately with some brief reflections.
For teachers in Australia, the long Term Three is drawing rapidly to a close. Indeed as I write this just ten days remain before a two-week break. This is the perfect time to consider a holiday reading list. Just enough time to raid the school library or place an order with your favourite book store. Here is what's currently occupying space on my nightstand.
With summer in the southern hemisphere, long days combined with school holidays for school teachers create the perfect opportunity to relax with a good book. Here are five great reads that might spark some curiosity and keep the brain working over the break.
Web application(networked studentcomponent)
Tool usedin test case
Student activitylevel of structure
Social bookmarking (RSS)
Delicioushttp://delicious.com/
Set up the account
Subscribe to each others accounts
Bookmark and read 10 reliable websites that reflect the content of chosen
topic
Add and read at least 3 additional sites each week.
News and blog alert (RSS)
Google Alerthttp://www.google.com/alerts
Create a Google Alert of keywords associated with selected topic
Read news and blogs on that topic that are delivered via email daily
Subscribe to appropriate blogs in reader
News and blog reader (RSS)
Google Readerhttp://reader.google.com
Search for blogs devoted to chosen topic
Subscribe to blogs to keep track of updates
Personal blog (RSS)
Bloggerhttp://www.blogger.com
Create a personal blog
Post a personal reflection each day of the content found and experiences
related to the use of personal learning environment
Students subscribe to each others blogs in reader
Internet search (information management, contacts, and synchronous
communication)
Google Scholarhttp://scholar.google.com/
Conduct searches in Google Scholar and library databases for
scholarly works.
Bookmark appropriate sites
Consider making contact with expert for video conference
Podcasts (RSS)
iTunesUhttp://www.apple.com/itunes/whatson/itunesu.html
Search iTunesU for podcasts related to topic
Subscribe to at least 2 podcasts if possible
Video conferencing (contacts and synchronous communication)
Skypehttp://www.skype.com
Identify at least one subject matter expert to invite to Skype with
the class.
Content gathering/ digital notebook
Evernotehttp://evernote.com/
Set up account
Use Evernote to take notes on all content collected via other
tools
Content synthesis
Wikispaceshttp://www.wikispaces.com
Post final project on personal page of class
wiki
The process and tools are overwhelming to students if presented all at once.
As with any instructional design, the teacher determines the pace at which the
students best assimilate each new learning tool. For this particular project, a
new tool was introduced each day over two weeks. Once the construction process
was complete, there were a number of personal web page aggregators that could
have been selected to bring everything together in one place. Options at the
time included iGoogle, PageFlakes, NetVibes, and Symbaloo. These
sites offer a means to compile or pull together content from a variety of web
applications. A web widget or gadget is a bit of code that is executed within
the personal web page to pull up external content from other sites. The students
in this case designed the personal web page using the gadgets needed in the
format that best met their learning goals. Figure 3 is an instructor example of
a personal webpage that includes the reader, email, personal blog, note taking
program, and social bookmarks on one page.
The personal learning environment can take the place of a traditional
textbook, though does not preclude the student from using a textbook or
accessing one or more numerous open source texts that may be available for the
research topic. The goal is to access content from many sources to effectively
meet the learning objectives. The next challenge is to determine whether those
objectives have been met.
Figure 3: Personal web page compiles learning tools
Table 2: Personal learning environment toolset
Web application
(networked student
component)
Tool used
in test
case
Student activity
level of
structure
Social bookmarking (RSS)
Delicious
http://delicious.com/
Set up the account
Subscribe to each others accounts
Bookmark and read 10 reliable websites that
reflect the content of chosen
topic
Add and read at least 3 additional sites each
week.
News and blog alert (RSS)
Google Alert
http://www.google.com/alerts
Create a Google Alert of keywords associated with selected topic
Read news and blogs on that topic that are
delivered via email daily
Subscribe to appropriate blogs in
reader
News and blog reader (RSS)
Google Reader
http://reader.google.com
Search for blogs devoted to chosen topic
Subscribe to blogs to keep track of
updates
Personal blog (RSS)
Blogger
http://www.blogger.com
Create a personal blog
Post a personal reflection each day of the
content found and experiences
related
to the use of personal learning environment
Students subscribe to each others blogs in
reader
Internet search (information management,
contacts, and synchronous
communication)
Google Scholar
http://scholar.google.com/
Conduct searches in Google Scholar and library databases for
scholarly
works.
Bookmark appropriate sites
Consider making contact with expert for video
conference
Podcasts (RSS)
iTunesU
http://www.apple.com/itunes/
whatson/itunesu.html
Search iTunesU for podcasts related to topic
Subscribe to at least 2 podcasts if
possible
Video conferencing (contacts and synchronous
communication)
Skype
http://www.skype.com
Identify at least one subject matter expert to invite to Skype with
the class.
Content gathering/ digital notebook
Evernote
http://evernote.com/
Set up account
Use Evernote to take notes on all content collected via other
tools
Content synthesis
Wikispaces
http://www.wikispaces.com
Post final project on personal page of
class
wiki
The process and tools are overwhelming to
students if presented all at once.
As with
any instructional design, the teacher determines the pace at which the
students best assimilate each new learning tool.
For this particular project, a
new tool
was introduced each day over two weeks. Once the construction process
was complete, there were a number of personal
web page aggregators that could
have been
selected to bring everything together in one place. Options at the
time
included iGoogle, PageFlakes, NetVibes, and Symbaloo. These
sites
offer a means to compile or pull together content from a variety of web
applications. A web widget or gadget is a bit of
code that is executed within
the
personal web page to pull up external content from other sites. The
students
in this case designed the personal web page
using the gadgets needed in the
format
that best met their learning goals. Figure 3 is an instructor example of
a
personal webpage that includes the reader, email, personal blog, note
taking
program, and social bookmarks on one
page.
The personal learning environment can take the
place of a traditional
textbook, though does not preclude the student
from using a textbook or
accessing one or more numerous open source texts
that may be available for the
research
topic. The goal is to access content from many sources to effectively
meet the learning objectives. The next challenge
is to determine whether those
objectives have been met.
AssessmentThere were four components of the assessment process for this
test case of the Networked Student Model: (1) Ongoing performance
assessment in the form of weekly assignments to facilitate the construction and
maintenance of the personal learning environment, (2) rubric-based assessment of
the personal learning environment at the end of the project, (3) written essay,
and (4) multimedia synthesis of topic content.
Points were earned for meeting the following requirements:
Identify ten reliable resources and post to social bookmarking account. At
least three new resources should be added each week.
Subscribe and respond to at least 3 new blogs each week. Follow these blogs
and news alerts using the reader.
Subscribe to and listen to at least two podcasts (if available).
Respectfully contact and request a video conference from a subject matter
expert recognised in the field.
Maintain daily notes and highlight resources as needed in digital notebook.
Post at least a one-paragraph reflection in personal blog each day.
At the end of the project, the personal learning environment was
assessed with a rubric that encompassed each of the items listed above.
The student's ability to synthesise the research was further evaluated with a
reflective essay. Writing shapes thinking (Langer & Applebee, 1987), and the
essay requirement was one more avenue through which the students demonstrated
higher order learning. The personal blog provided an opportunity for regular
reflection during the course of the project. The essay was the culmination of
the reflections along with a thoughtful synthesis of the learning experience.
Students were instructed to articulate what was learned about the selected topic
and why others should care or be concerned. The essay provided an overview of
everything learned about the contemporary issue. It was well organised,
detailed, and long enough to serve as a resource for others who wished to learn
from the work. As part of a final exam, the students were required to access the
final projects of their classmates and reflect on what they learned from this
exposure. The purpose of this activity was to give the students an additional
opportunity to share and learn from each other.
Creativity is considered a key 21st century skill (Partnership for 21st
Century Skills, 2009). A number of emerging web applications support the
academic creative process. Students in this project used web tools to combine
text, video, audio, and photographs to teach the research topics to others. The
final multimedia project was posted or embedded on the student's personal wiki
page.
Analysis and assessment of student work was facilitated by the very
technologies in use by the students. In order to follow their progress, the
teacher simply subscribed to student social bookmarking accounts, readers, and
blogs. Clicking through daily contributions was relatively quick and efficient.
Scholarly and important but also practical. Scroll down for an incredible chart of ideas that challenges older students to take charge of their own learning.
good list of edtech blogs, some better than others. The list seems to have a wide scope to include all levels and subject areas rather than the best blogs.
Update | Feb. 2012: We'll be exploring the new Common Core State Standards, and how teaching with The Times can address them, through a series of blog posts. You can find them all here, tagged "the NYT and the CCSS."
A good list of reading strategies for informational text from the New York Times.
