The Digital English Classroom

This has been an extremely valuable experience.  I am looking forward to reviewing all of the new tools and applying them with my students. 

It would be really beneficial to meet with other BEST members at our school to have conversations about some strategies for implementing these tools in the classroom.  Also, it would be helpful to the school community to make presentations about some of the tools to other teachers. 

Overall, some tools I feel I can most easily use right away in the classroom are Quizlet, wikispaces, Edublog (or Edublogger for sure), podcasting, Flickr, etc. 

This experience was eye opening for me and  allowed me to see more possibilities for using technology in the classroom for better learning. 

Classroom 2.0 presented a variety of interesting ideas on how to implement 2.0 tools in the classroom.  I was very intrigued by a few teachers who were discussing the idea of using cell phones in their classrooms.  Although the logistics were not completed yet, I thought about how much we struggle on a day to day (period to period) basis trying to get our students to stop using their cell phones in the classroom (texting is an epidemic).  Can they be used as a learning tool?

I appreciated the idea of having a social networking page such as this for all areas of teaching, not just 2.0 tools.  For example, as an English teacher I spend hours doing searches on writing, literature, and vocabulary ideas.  It would be nice to find a social networking page that has teachers present their ideas (again, not just 2.0 ideas).

Ning in Education seemed to be a bit disappointing for me.  I guess I wanted more from the website (longer posts, topics that apply to my subject, creative discussions on pedagogy, etc).  I did come across a post by an English teacher who wanted to know how to get his students to better appreciate literature.  I thought the response to the post was insightful and interesting.  I would have joined the discussion but it took place in February and wasn’t sure if people would see it and/or respond to it. 

Maybe I just need to investigate the site some more to fully realize its potential.

In David Warlick’s post Where’s the Line? from his blog entitled 2 cents worth, he talks about how it is getting harder and harder to prevent students from cheating given the technology today.  He gives the example of the student who wrote a partial article for Wikipedia and waited for editors to add to it before printing it out and turning it in as his own.  Secondly, he talks about students outsourcing their college coursework to other countries from minor assignments to final projects for small fees.  Most of this happens and is very hard to detect, if at all.  This is interesting and all so true on the high school front as well. 

I think back to how in high school I felt so lucky and rebellious getting a hold of a coveted copy of Cliffnotes (the paper version—we didn’t have Internet then).  As far as technology making it easier to cheat, I remember the closest I came to it in college occurred when I saved a research paper on a neighbor’s computer, and she printed off her own copy and handed it in as her own.

The web can be a scary and frustrating place for a teacher.  Trying to catch students cheating can be a Mission Impossible scenario unless they copy and paste something word for word from the Internet, which they sure don’t anymore.  You can tell without a doubt a student didn’t write his paper but you couldn’t keep spending hours (I have done this) doing Google searches on various paragraphs and sentence variations.  You just have to hope that some of them are still learning something and move on.

This tool is incredible!  I had so much fun creating my own Pageflakes’ page that I even created one for my husband.  Usually, both of us spend the first fifteen minutes of our mornings perusing our favorite Internet sites (local news, sports’ scores, weather, etc.).  Now, all we have to do is click on our Pageflakes’ page, and most of our links are in one convenient location.  I like the fact that you can add multiple pages.  You can create personal pages for the whole family and work related pages.  For example, I am creating a page that has word and quotes of the day, literary sites, poem of the day sites, etc.  It is all so exciting and very easy! 

I would love to use this in the classroom, but I am wondering if people can only view it privately or if there is a public view function.  Students could benefit from having a page with useful links on it (word of the day, on-line dictionary, writing help sites, daily assignments, etc.)

This tool seems really easy to use.  I uploaded a few Word documents and a PowerPoint Jeopardy review and created a document as well.  This would be a great way for teachers to collaborate on particular units of study without the hassle of emailing each document and waiting to make all of the corrections.  Actually, usual teachers just email each other the documents without collaborating at all, so this would be a wonderful way to learn new teaching strategies.  For example, three sophomore English teachers could put together a unit of study on The Tempest by William Shakespeare that includes study guide questions, quizzes, tests, and various multimedia. 

Secondly, teachers could invite students to view a test review document and/or collaborate on their own test reviews. 

Also, it would be a great way for me to work with my substitute when I go on maternity leave J I could email her quizzes and tests from Google Docs to use for a particular unit and have her modify them to fit her teaching needs. 

SAT Vocabulary Builder    (Note:  Video would not embed.  I could not find the “code” button on dashboard as indicated in directions)

When visiting YouTube, I first typed in the word “Shakespeare,” and several interesting videos appeared.  A comical and clever “Who’s on first” sketch seemed to playfully expose Shakespeare’s intriguing language.  Also, several amateur excerpts appeared from some of his plays.  Some very interesting versions of The Tempest, a play we read in 10^th grade, appeared as well.  These could be used in the classrooms to compare/contrast.  Also, students would have fun creating their own versions of the play, and this activity may help them bring the play to life. 

I also observed some parts of Disney’s The Sword in the Stone that could be used while teaching T.H. White’s The Once and Future King.

A favorite site on You Tube was the SAT Vocabulary Builder Lesson.  A narrator reads the words on the screen and provides a sentence for them as well.  Sometimes students really benefit from seeing this on the screen and hearing it from someone else other than their teacher. 

TeacherTube provided more variety for teachers.  I looked at two “How To” videos for how to solve math equations.  One was rather simple and banal while another entitled “Mr. Duey Raps the Fractions” was educational, entertaining, and very useful.  It looked like it was professionally created with lots of visual effects.

For fun, I looked up my actress/friend from New York City, Sarah DiMuro, and watched her demo reel and other pieces she debuted in on AMC and The Insider. 

Overall, I think students could really benefit from creating their own You Tube videos, especially to review plays or other texts.  They also can use it as a supplement when writing process essays. 

I really enjoyed this activity and thought it was extremely easy once the account was established. Students could really have fun creating their own podcasts.

How can we make this easily accessible in the classroom in light of the fact that it costs money to use Evoca (I think it said you have to pay after a certain amount of minutes)? Also, I used my headset to do the recording, but do most computers have built in microphones? Overall, I think this would be a wonderful tool.

I Listened to the podcast The Poetic Voice by Houghton Mifflin.  I chose to hear about American poet Galway Kinnell (I actually recently met him at a writing conference in NYC).  The ease and accessibility of listening to this podcast was pretty cool (for lack of a better word).  These Podcasts definitely could be used in the classroom.  Instantly, I attempted to subscribe to the podcast but could not do so through iTunes (I tried to do this for an hour but to no avail), but I did add it to my Google Reader.  I have to admit, I know my students may not be as excited by these Podcasts as I am, but I have realized that when they witness my own excitement, it becomes contagious.  

Some students have extreme difficulties reading texts (especially long ones) on their own and often buy recorded versions.  Sometimes the recorded versions are not readily available or too expensive.  It may be motivating for students to create their own podcasts of part of entire texts we are reading.  Perhaps they can record their favorite passages from a specific text.  Then they can really become engaged in the reading process and use their theatric abilities to create sound effects, etc. 

LibraryThing is an excellent tool to promote reading to students.  I especially like the 50 Book Challenge because it connects readers to readers as they collectively share their fifty book yearly goal.  Colleagues and students could utilize this site.  Students could be directed to use it for personal uses or generate book lists from what they read in the classroom.  Seeing how many other people are reading fifty books as well can be quite motivating.

Also, the group What are you reading now? would be a great source for students who want to read material outside of the classroom.  I especially like the book lists because they include both contemporary and classic titles.  Students could see that the books they are currently reading are read by thousands (John Steinbech name lists 39,841 copies read). 

Investigating  del.icio.us

I have accumulated an innumerable amount of English and teaching related websites and I am always on the look out for more. 

It is especially easy to get lost on Google.  Typing in the word “Shakespeare” will bring up thousands of websites and it seems daunting to locate the wheat from the chaff; however, you can use del.icio.us to find appropriate websites for easy access and use. 

I searched several texts I use in the classroom and discovered many different types of sites.  When typing in “Siddhartha,” sites about Herman Hesse’s novel and the historical background of him appeared.  The organization of the sites made it easy to find material.  Also, the amount of people who save the sites is also of particular interest.  It shows the popularity (but maybe not the validity) of the sites. 

Setting up an account and getting started is extremely easy.  Teachers are not the only ones to benefit from this tool, but students could as well.  If students were working on a research paper about a certain topic, the teacher could collect a series of suitable sites and have students use them for their research.  The uses are endless. 

http://del.icio.us/curranb