Technology Balance

It is interesting to stand back and see how teaching beliefs emerge, are shaped, and refined. In my first years of teaching, technology did not play a huge role. However, throughout the last couple of years I wove in a lot more. Right now I find myself reflecting and reconsidering to think about how much technology is ideal and how it varies by grade level.

If it was back at the start of the school year and I knew know what I knew then, I would have held off on the technology with 6th graders until I had a chance to really launch writing workshop and given my students ample opportunity to explore and experiment in their writer's notebooks, as well as building our sense of community as readers and writers. Though my 6th graders love utilizing the various tools in their Google Accounts, at times it seems like the technology has slowed down components of the classroom.

It is hard to know exactly when would be ideal to start layering in technology and to what extent, but I would focus first on building community and confidence in writing, as well instilling a passion for reading. I would focus on book letters and in class book talks vs. books read posts on their blogs. Then about mid-way through the year or toward the end of 6th grade I would start weaving in technology components. I would progressively weave in more as they transition to 7th and then to 8th grade.

With teaching it is natural to think about the concept of wishing for the return of the start of a school year in order to improve based on new learnings and understandings, but that would happen repeatedly even if re-starts were possible. Instead, we have to start sifting through long term thoughts for fresh starts for new years and improvements to implement in current school years. Thus, for the second half of this school year, I am still thinking through what would be an ideal balance, but for now I am backing off of the technology a bit.

I will still have my students type their final drafts on Google Docs (they get to choose whether to draft on the computer or paper) and we are doing some on-line multi-age book club discussions, so it is not like I am completely throwing out technology. The concept of balance, development and growth in the 6th-8th grade span will continue to be a main topic to ponder throughout the rest of the school year. With a strong focus on my top priorities, I will reflect on what is in the students' best interest in order to develop a life-long love of reading and writing, as well as the capabilities that will provide a strong foundation for future high school and college success.

Educational Advantages of Kindles

I recently got my first Kindle, and so far I have been loving it. Last night I was reading Lorraine Zago Rosenthal's debut novel Other Words for Love. Though I have no qualms with underlining and making notes in the margins of my professional books, I would never make notes in novels, and post-it notes can get cumbersome as well. Last night part way through the novel I started highlighting with my Kindle and making brief notes about different teaching points as I went along. Mentions of plot technique, writer's craft, and literary devices, as well as my own reader response to show insights into the way that I thought as I read along.

In the future, it will be easy to do searches for specific types of teaching points and have authentic excerpts within my reach. Just as keeping a blog recording the books I read has been an invaluable resource in order to recommend books to students and refresh my memory of the different books I have read, my Kindle notations will add another level of benefits for teaching.

Another example advantage of being able to capture my thoughts long term is with different grade levels. This particular book is probably better suited for high school readers, rather than my current middle school age. Yet, who knows what the future will bring. Now I have my thoughts documented so that when I am working with high schoolers or college students, my thoughts on various points of the book will still be fresh.

I am excited to continue unlocking the potential that having a Kindle implies for enhancing my teaching.

First Quarter Update

Once again, the school year is flying by. This week we had parent-teacher conferences, and it was a great feeling to have all of my scheduled families show up, which is typical for my school. We are now officially in October, and by the end of the month, the first quarter will be over. This year my main adjustment has been a nice shift to only teaching reading and writing, but having less class time for the content areas. I have been carefully balancing how to best utilize the time available, and I can tell that I will continue to adjust and readjust, still trying to weave some components in.

I also had a realization in the first few weeks that over the last three school years my content responsibilities have narrowed, as well as the amount of time that I spend with each class. As a result, I inadvertently focused more and more on my content, rather than taking the time to firmly establish a sense of classroom community, so I did some back pedaling after the first couple of weeks to try to compensate for trying to dive into academics too fast, at the expense of getting to know you activities. This was especially essential for my 6th grade class, since my 7th and 8th graders were returning students, so we already had a greater sense of community.

One of the most exciting changes this year is that I have been collaborating with our TOSA for reading support to have her push-in to my classroom instead of pulling out students. So far we have both been very excited about the possibilities and it seems to be going very smoothly. We are both learning together and meeting frequently to discuss how we can best support all of the readers in our classroom in flexible groups. Our first round of book clubs are up and running, something that I always love.

I finally let go of having a reading log, and instead chose to focus on a books completed log with a reading reflection post on a Google Sites page for each student. I am still reflecting on this change, but my initial thoughts are that it has been positive. One initial challenge was that it was a few weeks into the school year before we had our technology parent meeting to get technology agreement forms signed and returned from parents and students. In that span of time some 6th graders had read multiple books and then felt overwhelmed about the prospect of updating their site with every reading reflection. Instead, I made updating the site optional. Instead, they were required to at least list the titles of the books but gave the option to maintain a paper/pencil copy of the response, rather than adding them all on-line. I am assessing one English and one Spanish book response each month. We already have a note to ourselves to have parents fill out technology agreements in our 5th grade spring parent meeting so that we can start the year ready to utilize technology.

Decisions, Decisions - Technology Integrations

Among my goals for this summer was to decide which platform to use for student blogs and to explore wikis. During the school year I posted about how my attempt to begin blogging with my 6th and 7th graders did not work out because not all of my students were 13, the requirement for Blogger. Later in the spring I heard about Kid Blogs via Sara Kajder's discussion of her book. I had briefly looked at the site at the beginning of the summer, but hearing her mention it again at the Boothbay Literacy Retreat was a good reminder to look into it more seriously. I figured the best way to find out would be to sign up, so this morning I took the plunge. My initial thoughts are: I love the easy set up for classes, the privacy/safety settings with school integrations in mind, and it is free. However, they look pretty blah. When looking at the design templates, it looks like there are only two. One of the other participants at Boothbay had also mentioned her concern that students might think that a name like Kid Blogs could put a quencher on their motivation for blogging. Creativity with design is one of my favorite components of blogging, and I would hate for my students to miss out on this.

With Blogger, on the other hand, there are many positives. It is where I have always blogged, so I am very familiar with it. It would save me a lot of time because I have already figured out a lot of the tricks and stay up to date on new changes via the Blogger in Draft blog. It also has privacy settings available for free, which is what originally shifted me toward Blogger instead of Edublogs. It is also my hope that some students will want to continue their blogs after they leave our school. Even if their parents decide that they would like them to keep their blogs private initially, it would be as easy as clicking a button on the control panel and their blog could be live if they wish. Having it on Blogger would be a little bit easier to network with other bloggers that share similar interests, as compared to Kid Blogs.

The one downside that I can think of right now is that there has been an increase in spam comments on my blogs. That is the reason why I ended up switching my setting to having all comments approved by me before posting. Yet, I do not know that this is really that big of an issue because before any student makes the shift to go live, I would use it as a teachable moment to be cautious with this transition. It they prepare to make the shift when they are already leaving my classroom, then a potential scenario would be to have a parent meeting to discuss blogging safe guards with the students and parents.

I feel confident with the decision to follow through with Blogger for my 8th graders. If I decide to start blogging with my younger students at some point in the year, I am glad that I know about the Kid Blogs option.

On the wiki front, I have been grateful to get some hands on experience - the best way to learn. One of my classmates in my YA class set up a wiki for the course, and Sara Kajder set up a wiki for Boothbay. Wikis seem very easy to navigate, especially coming in with a blogging background. The one drawback that I was not previously aware of was that if a couple people want to write on the same page at the same time some people lose their input, as only one person can edit at a time. When we would be in a setting where all students would be on at the same time in any given class, this could be a nightmare. For now I am planning on focusing on getting the blogs up and running. The main reason that I wanted to explore the wikis was for on-line book club discussions. I will keep wikis in mind as I approach the first book club. However, I might decide that blogging meets our on-line discussions well enough. If Blogger had threaded comments, it would be an even easier decision for me to just go with the blogs.

Boothbay Literacy Retreat - New Technology Resources

One of the benefits of the Boothbay Literacy Retreat was Sara Kajder's technology sessions. Two of the tools that she showed us that I am most excited about are Storybird and ZooBurst. Both are means to create digital books, providing art work as a scaffold. I am excited to integrate them in to my writing workshop; I can imagine students really enjoying them.

Here is a quick example of a project that I did using Storybird. I look forward to exploring with it more in the future:

This I Believe... A Brief Snapshot of Some Literacy Beliefs on Storybird

Boothbay Readings - Get Smarter

Last night after I finished reading and reflecting on "Is Google Making Us Stupid?" I opened up the next article "Get Smarter" by Jamais Cascio. I couldn't help laughing when I read this sentence in the introduction, "Is Google actually making us smarter?" I could tell right away that this article had many points to contrast "Is Google Making Us Stupid?" Te article was even mentioned.

Cascio focused more on the long-term vision that we will figure out how to filter all the information that we can receive because of technology in order to maximize the benefit of access to knowledge. He goes on to say, "Google isn't the problem; it's the beginning of a solution."

I am more inclined to agree with Cascio. The Internet and all the tools it provides have tremendous potential for the way that it is changing the knowledge we receive. It is up to us to be concientious users to use it toward our benefit and to accomplish our goals, which varies widely - sometimes to seek knowledge, other times for entertainment, for social networking... I am continually in awe when I see the advances with technology and think about how rapidly they change. It will be exciting to see how these tools continue to improve and grow and how they will continue to help us be more efficient, while maintaining our ability to think deeply.

Boothbay Readings - Is Google Making Us Stupid?

Yesterday while on the plane I started to read Daniel Pink's Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us because it is required reading for the Heinemann Boothbay Literacy retreat. I am really enjoying it and will be posting my initial thoughts on the book soon. I hadn't checked one of my email accounts while traveling, but this afternoon I realized that a couple of articles that will be available at the retreat were emailed in advance for those who wanted to read them.

The first article was "Is Google Making Us Stupid?" by Nicholas Carr. Here's my reaction to the article. It will be interesting to see if my thinking changes at all with the discussions that will surround the article at the retreat and to see others' thoughts. One of the first quotes that caught my attention was Carr's comment, "The deep reading that used to come naturally has become a struggle." I can't relate to this. Despite the amount of time I spend on the Internet, I still enjoy reading widely and avidly. Yes, I agree, time spent on the Internet is time away from reading even more traditional texts. Often time flies by and I look at the clock thinking I can't be wasting that much time on-line, feeling like I haven't accomplished much. However, when I am on-line I am often blogging and checking in on other blogs. If anything, being able to share my love of reading with other bloggers has fueled my passion for reading.

Along the same lines, Carr also said, "And what the Net seems to be doing is chipping away my capacity for concentration and contemplation. My mind now expects to take in information the way the Net distributes it: in a swiftly moving stream of particles. Once I was a scuba diver in the sea of words. Now I zip along the surface like a guy on a Jet Ski." Again, I can't connect to this. The Internet has provided me with access to awareness of educational texts/reading for pleasure that I might not hear about otherwise. I am reading more than ever, digging deeper than ever, contemplating more than ever, fueled by other educator blogs and information about educational texts. The Internet has played and will continue to play an essential role in my professional development.

However, there is potential for Internet to take over a lot. I resisted getting a cell phone for a long time because I could not justify the extra expense, and I didn't necessarily want to be on all the time. Now that I will be commuting more for my doctoral program, my husband and I decided it was time to take the jump and each get a cell phone. When looking at plans, we did not get a data plan. I don't want to be "plugged in" all the time because I already hop on the Internet enough. Having a data plan would ensure that I would be spending less time focusing on my girls because it would be so convenient to quickly check my on-line accounts/favorite blogs.

What do you think, has the Internet interfeared with your ability to read deeply?

I'm off to read the other article. I will post about it tomorrow.

I'm in Awe

I always love it when I stumble across pure genius! This evening I was going back to see the rest of the comments on a discussion that Stacey Shubitz started on Two Writing Teachers about technology. John Spencer, one of the teachers who left a comment, mentioned the blog that his students contribute to. Because of the title, Social Voice, I just had to check it out.

What I found was a plethora of mentor texts for my students' blogs for next year. Not only are the students writing about multiple real issues that hold importance in their lives, they are also posting in a wide variety of formats. I love the mixture of art and text, as well as the podcasting and Google Docs presentations.

It is evident that these students are aware of current social issues. They are from Arizona, and many of their posts mention the current immigration conflicts. Here are a couple of posts that captured my attention, although there were many, many more that I could have listed: Education is the Answer and A Letter to America.

Seeing sites like these make me excited to be an educator. Even though I still have a little over a month and a half of summer vacation, it makes me wish for the school year to be here so that I can share their work.

I applaud John Spencer and his students for their great work, and I thank them for the way that I just know they will be inspiring my 6th through 8th graders in the fall.

iWrite

Reading iWrite: Using Blogs, Wikis, and Digital Stories in the English Classroom by Dana J. Wilber was a perfect book to read so close to leaving for the Boothbay Literacy Retreat and as I start my doctoral program planning on focusing my research on blogging and literacy.

According to the Heinemann website, the retreat guiding questions are: What does it mean to be literate in the 21st century? Is technology fundamentally changing the way we think? The way we read and write? What tech tools can I use when I don't have access to that much technology?

The book addressed a lot of these same concepts. Wilber discussed a lot about the technologies that students use outside of school that are not always validated in school as worth while literacies. Multiple times she  brought up the concept that while we do not necessarily need to incorporate all of these literacies in school, it is beneficial for teachers to be aware of them. She said, "Not everything they do belongs in the classroom. But it makes sense for us, as teachers, to know about these technologies since they occupy so much of our students' lives and because they are a big part of the ways in which students read and write today" (XI). With the same conversation she talked frequently about the importance of teaching students to think about audience and purpose when navigating all of the new technologies. I loved this concept because ever since I took a course while on exchange at the University of Rhode Island my junior year of college about different dialects of language I was hooked on the topic. Much of my senior projects revolved around language registers and dialects. The way that she advocated for guiding students in understanding audience and purpose reminded me of discussions revolving around valuing students dialects but supporting them in learning which register to use depending on the circumstances for long term success. It was easy to agree wholeheartedly.

Throughout the book there was an emphasis on life-long literacy skills. In addition, she talked a lot about the advantages of blogging with students. I was excited because it validated many of the hunches that I had while blogging with my students this year and the reasoning behind why I want my 8th graders to have their own blogs next year. She brought up areas such as motivation, authentic writing, choice, the role of comments, and regular practice.

I already feel very confident as a blogger, so there was not as much new information for me in the blogging sections. However, it was nice to have my ideas validated and there were some new considerations that the book prompted. I want to incorporate wikis next year. Troy Hicks gave me some wiki suggestions, and I need to experiment with them this summer. Wilber brought up some interesting ideas and thoughts surrounding wikis, so now I feel even more prepared to begin my venture into that medium. My experiences with digital stories have also been limited, so those were other great sections.

For those who want to read more about literacy and technology, this book is a great companion for Troy Hicks' The Digital Writing Workshop that I loved so much back in December.

Boothbay Literacy Retreat Update

Today I just saw that the tentative agenda for the Boothbay Literacy Retreat was updated, and I am very excited about a couple of things. As if the line-up of presenters and guests wasn't already amazing enough, now Erin Gruwell and Penny Kittle will both be there as well. I have mentioned that I am a fan of the Freedom Writers story before. I had the opportunity to meet three of the original Freedom Writers at a summer institute, and one of my colleagues at my previous school was a Freedom Writers teacher and wrote one of the entries in Teaching Hope. Being able to see Erin Gruwell speak will be inspiring, I am sure. This spring I did several posts reflecting on Penny Kittle's book Write Beside Them. I can hardly meet to see her in person!

The one disappointment was that it looks like Nancie Atwell will no longer be there. Nonetheless, I can tell it is going to be an amazing experience. I will be heading over to the east coast in exactly two weeks.

Speaking of Heinemann, the last couple of days I read iWrite and Reading Ladders while I was at my mom and dad's house. Watch for my thoughts on the books in the next few days.

Those Digital Natives

About a week ago I was visiting my sister in law and her family. My oldest nephew who is finishing up his fifth grade year was frequently at the computer, provoking his mom to tell him over and over to get off the computer and threatening to change the password.The morning I left his dad was asking me about how to change the password and was going to have me show him once my nephew went to school. However, the boys convinced their dad to take them to school instead of riding the bus, so I had left before he got back home.

Today when I was coincidentally taking a break from reading iWrite, which talks a lot about technology and the influence on everyday life, I checked my email. There were two Facebook messages, one telling me my nephew wanted to friend me and the second a message from him that said, "hey aunt amanda its me jaime i just started facebook." It was all I could do to keep myself from rolling with laughter. Looks like computer access is alive and well for this digital native!

Adolescents and Digital Literacies

Because I am interested in technology and literacy, I was very excited when I heard about Sara Kajder's new book Adolescents and Digital Literacies: Learning Alongside Our Students. Not only did I recently read the book, but I also participated in two of the three on-line discussion groups hosted by NCTE and loved the opportunity to talk about digital literacies with others in the field. While I was sad to miss the last session, I was glad that it and the first two are available on NCTE's Ning.

In the beginning of the book Kajder explains the purpose of it, "This book is less about 'translating' these new technology terms (which will be outdated and obsolete before this book appears in print) and more about how we work as English teachers to navigate a changing landscape--and how we lead our students to do the same. [...] It isn't about the tools. It is about reading, writing, communicating, and pedagogy" (3). A recurring theme throughout the book was examining the types of literacies that students do outside of school, and reexamining the type of literacies that we, as English teachers, value (10).

The book begins with a copy of NCTE's Adolescent Literacy brief, and Kajder links back to the brief often throughout the book. Each chapter of the book begins with quote(s) about technology, and there were so many that I loved. For example, I could not help but smile when I read Alan Kay's quote, "Technology is only technology for people who are born before it was invented" (13). In addition, there are many examples from different classrooms about integrating different technologies into classrooms. I appreciated that the classrooms were from diverse backgrounds with different levels of access to technology.

Once again, this is one more reason to be excited for Heinemann's Boothbay Literacy Retreat! My final thought (for now about the book) is an excerpt that I underlined and starred with the comment, "excellent point" in the margin. Kajder's comment embodies why I integrating technology is so fascinating and vital, "what keeps me firmly rooted in valuing and learning new literacy practices is that I want all of my students to be literate in the dominant media of their time" (37).

Classroom Blogs Update Post

My latest reflections on integrating a classroom blog this year, which also includes my thinking around technology and literacy in general, is now on Stenhouse's blog. You can see the post here.

I would love to hear your favorite technology integrations, as well as your thoughts on technology and literacy.

Can't Hardly Wait!

Kylene Beers, Robert Probst, Nancie Atwell, Sara Kajder, Linda Rief, and Chris Crutcher all at one literacy and technology retreat!? Oh, and did I mention it is offered through one of my all time favorite publishers, Heinemann? I could hardly contain my excitement just thinking about the possibility of going to the Boothbay Literacy Retreat, but today as I clicked through my web registration it is hard to believe that I will actually get to go.

All the pieces are coming together. As if the conference wasn't enough to be excited about, I will fly into Boston to spend a couple of days with my sister who has been living in Massachusetts for the last three years while her husband did his medical residency there. Then she will take me to the retreat in Maine and pick me up. Next, it will be time for her and her family to drive cross country to move back to the Pacific Northwest. On the way we will be able to see another one of our sisters in Iowa, as well as our 1 year old niece that we have only been able to see one other time! I have never had a chance to drive cross country either.

There is so much to look forward to. The only downside is that I, of course, will miss my girls and husband. I think I will be gone about two weeks total. My mom just reminded me that a couple of summers ago I helped out with an institute for two weeks in the summer, and I survived being away from my family. I will, however, make sure to spend a lot of time with the girls before going on my trip.

It is still hard to believe that I actually get to go. I will make sure to have writer's notebooks with me to document my experiences. I am certain the experience will inspire many WN entries that I can later share with my students. I will definitely be posting a lot about this experience.

*Note: Even though I do not have reviews/comments on my blog about each of the literacy leaders who will be at the retreat, I have books from each one (Sara Kajder's new book is the latest addition to my professional development library, and I will be posting about it soon). I have loved every single one. It is great to recognize all the names and have a reason to be excited for each one.

Kindle?

It was not too long ago that I started thinking more about Kindles and other electronic readers sparked by a post at The Reading Zone. My sister told me that her brother in law got a Kindle and it has been perfect for his college coursework. Instead of lugging around a heavy bag full of books, he just has his Kindle as almost every book he needed was available in a Kindle edition. I checked on Amazon to see how many of the books from my current college writing class were listed, and they were all there except one that had just been released that month. Before buying books for my classes this summer I am going to weigh out to see if it seems like a good idea to go with the Kindle.

As far as middle grades/YA books, I was in agreement with Sarah from The Reading Zone when she mentioned in her post, "While I don't think I want an e-reader for my children's/YA books (because I like to donate them to classroom libraries after reading them), I might like a Nook for my adult reads, magazines, and newspapers."

However, a post by Ruth at Two Writing Teachers got my mind buzzing with possibilities. She talked about how one of her students absolutely loved reading a book on an iTouch using the free Kindle App. I had noticed the Kindle App, but to be honest, I was curious but not too excited because I thought the text might be too small. Her student's response  sparked me to explore more before disregarding it.

Soon my students will each have access to an iTouch, and they will be able to take them home. I thought the Kindle App could have a huge impact on my classroom library, but I was pondering the following:

*I would buy Kindle versions if students would be able to have access to them on their own iTouches. I know that they would probably not be able to have them open at the same time, but it would be great if the books were accessible on a variety of devices, just as the Apps are. If so, that could be pretty amazing, and it would solve the problem of having great books disappear for those that were on the Kindle editions.

*Along the same lines, if it is set up to where students can log in to the Amazon account and have access to the books, I wonder about security with credit cards linked to Amazon accounts.

*Once the book is downloaded, I wonder if students have to be in our school with wireless access to view it.

*How will my students respond to the iTouch Kindle App format? I am willing to pilot it out with some of the books.

I emailed Amazon to see if I could get some answers. Yesterday I was shocked when an Amazon representative called me rather than responding via email. He said that for now my students would be able to log on to access my Kindle store and download books I buy; however, this would give them access to my account tied to my credit card. Also, it is not set up to be a library checkout system, so there is a limit of five downloads per book (or whatever publishers set as a limit). When we were talking, I forgot to ask the wireless question. For now, I don't think it is a very viable option because of the 5 download limit and credit card concerns, but I will be watching because I won't be surprised if this does become available in the future.

There is always something fun and new to ponder with technology.

Idea Generation

"There is no Idea Dump, no Story Central, no Island of the Buried Bestsellers; good story ideas seem to come quite literally from nowhere, sailing at you right out of the empty sky: two previously unrelated ideas come together to make something new under the sun. Your job isn't to find these ideas but to recognize them when they show up." -Stephen King in On Writing

This was one of my favorite lines while reading On Writing in my recent writing course. Recently I made the realization that this concept works so well when considered as it relates to teaching as well. A perfect example came up while reflecting on one of the weekends of the class.

One of the genres we studied was poetry. Our professor led us in a cinquain writing with feathers. Part of the exploration to gather ideas was a partner game where each pair had a feather. On alternating turns, one person blew the feather and the other person tried to catch it in different ways. After discussing the tone of the cinquains and writing our own rough drafts we had some time in between sessions to think about the presentation of our cinquains and any final changes we wanted to make.

The day before the class session where we were going to have a Poetry Slam and present our cinquains to the class, at my school we had a staff development day that included teaching each other what some of us learned at ITSC, a recent technology conference. Some of my co-workers were going to share what they had learned about Photo Story. While we were traveling, they were bubbling over with excitement about what they learned at their session. Even though I was glad that they found something they knew would be relevant to their classrooms, I thought to myself that I probably would not incorporate it in mine since I was planning on focusing on other integrations, such as blogging and iTouches (once we receive them for our students). Nonetheless, I had fun learning to use the super easy program.

Fast forward one day, and as I was sitting in our class' Poetry Slam it hit me that it just might be amazing to have students do cinquains and then share them via Photo Story. Just as King had said, "two previously unrelated ideas [came] together to make something new under the sun" for me. I loved the results, and I will post more about the actual outcome tomorrow. 

As a funny coincidence, after I came up with my idea I emailed one of the 2/3 teachers who had presented Photo Story to us that I was excited to try out my first Photo Story project, but I did not tell her anything about what I was doing. At our next teacher's meeting she said that she was going to do something with poetry, and I said that I was too. However, we did not go into any details. After we both completed our projects I was looking at hers and noticed her class did cloud cinquains because they have been studying weather. I guess that just goes to show that the idea of "previously unrelated" all depends on the perspective of the individual. Nonetheless, it was fun to see how the idea worked for 2/3, as well as 6/7 grades. 

The Socially Networked Classroom

Any book focusing on technology integration catches my attention lately, so I bought The Socially Networked Classroom: Teaching in the New Media Age, when I heard about it via EC Ning book clubs. Although I did not have the book in time to read it for the actual book club, I plan on going back through the discussions. Another aspect that caught my attention with the book is that the forward is by Kylene Beers, someone who inspires a lot of respect.

This weekend at the start of my spring break I decided to finally get to reading the book. The layout was interesting grouped like coffee sizes: short, tall, grande, and venti, with a bonus chapter at the end titled refill. I always enjoy seeing creativity with titles and headings, so it was fun to see how he came up with that idea. The book progresses from classrooms that have very limited access to technology (short) to a high level of access (venti). Yet, he focuses on regardless of the size (or amount of technology available), the coffee on the inside is still the same. 

I liked that he had this attitude to encourage technology integration at different levels depending on individual contexts. Because I am already started on integrating a larger amount of technology in my classroom, the beginning chapters were not as helpful, but I still like the idea as a resource to meet the needs of educators where ever they are at in the process all in one book. 

My favorite component of the book was that it had a lot of lesson ideas including rubrics. Although I have already been integrating some of the ideas, such as on-line book discussions, they were still helpful because it was an opportunity to reflect on how other teachers are setting them up and assessing them. 

As Kist mentions, one of the biggest concerns with integrating more technology is making sure that students are safe. I appreciated that he brought this topic up various times with comments on how other teachers are addressing this in their classrooms. 

The book also got me thinking of having students do electronic portfolios, rather than traditional paper versions. Next year my co-worker with be teaching the official technology class, and I talked to her about how keyboarding would be one of the most beneficial skills for the students to become more proficient at for long term success. I am excited that they will  have a stronger base, which will facilitate everything I want to do in my room with writing. I will experiment with electronic portfolios via wikis. I just posted about how Troy Hicks inspired me to branch out into the world of wikis, so this is one more consideration I will think about as I explore. 

I am thrilled that I see more technology books popping up all the time, as well as websites, such as EC Ning and blogs that provide access to other teachers exploring with technology.

Technology Advice from Troy Hicks

With the advance of technology, one of the most exciting aspects for me is that it is easier to get in contact with authors and other teachers to share ideas. I most enjoy books where the author writes in a conversational tone as if they are talking with their colleagues. These authors feel like mentors because of their tone.

As I have been experimenting with technology more than ever and plan to have technology and literacy be the emphasis of my doctoral research, Troy Hicks, author of The Digital Writing Workshop is one of those authors that I consider a mentor. I recently emailed him for advice on the best platform to use in order to meet the goals of how I want to use technology in my classroom. I explained that I wanted to find something that would fit the following:
*Allow students to begin their own blogs in a private setting for free (Parents were more comfortable with their students starting out their personal blogs in an environment only open to our students and their families.)
*Have a threaded comments feature, especially for book club discussions, for free
*A platform where it is easy to upload audio files

The following is an excerpt of his response to me:

The tool that I choose for my own teaching is a wiki. In particular, I use Wikispaces almost exclusively and would suggest that you give it a try. Here are two that you might want to look at for my pre-service methods course as well as our writing project:

    * http://eng315.wikispaces.com

    * http://chippewariverwp.wikispaces.com

First, with the idea of threaded discussions, you can create pages on the wiki and use the "discussion" tab for students to begin threads. The way that Wikispaces threads the discussions is not quite the same as you are probably accustomed to in a blog or discussion forum, but I think that you and your students will adjust to it quickly. 

Second, with the idea of a blog, each student can create his or her own page and "post" new "blog" entries to it, either on the page itself or as links from that page to new pages. Again, like the discussion thread on the wiki, this is not as robust as a model as what you are used to with Edublogs or Blogger, but I think that you need to focus on the purpose of the writing here and not the tool. In this case, students can keep all of their own work centralized and you can have lists of students that link to their pages so as to keep things organized. Also, you can set up RSS for changes to wiki pages, so you can have some of the functionality of a blog in the sense that you can keep on top of the changes. 

Third, with the idea of podcasting, you can upload audio files to the Wikispace or, better yet (to save space) upload them on your school server and then link them. They then show up on the wiki page and you can play them from there or download them. It isn't as elegant as having a streaming service, although there may be solutions for that which I am not familiar with. Also, the nice thing about Wikispaces is that embedding widgets in pages is super easy, so if you do have other forms of multimedia that you want to use, it is simple enough to do. 

Finally, in terms of privacy, you can make a Wikispace completely private with their free K-12 hosting plan. You can make it so only members can see things on the wiki and make changes, and I think that you could set up accounts for parents if they were interested in seeing what was going on, too. 

So, I am a big wiki advocate; honestly, I don't know how I would teach writing without using a wiki. 

Up to this point I do not have any experience with wikis, but I am excited to experiment. After running into problems getting all my 6th and 7th graders set up with Google Accounts, which would have led to creating blogs on Blogger, because of the requirement to be thirteen, I decided to only have 8th graders blog with Blogger. Having a wiki seems like it will be a perfect solution to still infuse a higher level of technology in my 6th and 7th grade reading and writing workshop. It will also scaffold their abilities to eventually have their own blog as 8th graders. I am planning on familiarizing myself with wikis over the summer in order to incorporate it into my classroom next year.

Google Docs - transparency

I had heard a lot of positive comments about Google Docs, but I had never really had a chance to explore. This summer I had signed up for a session on the app at a summer institute, but then I got sick and was unable to attend. This semester while taking my writing class, I decided to explore a bit on my own. Just as I had hoped, it is going to be a great tool to make my writing process more transparent for my students.

Before it always felt superficial when I would try to write out a rough draft and then model revisions and a published copy. The problem was, as many resources explain, the writing process is not a lock-step sequence. When I am writing naturally, I am revising all the time, not just when I get to the end of my first draft.

The real excitement came when I had typed for a while on the first draft that I was working on in a Google Doc and decided to hit save in order to show changes later. However, I realized that I didn't have to stop at various points along the draft, but rather the application automatically tracks ever single revision. When I got to the end of my first draft I already had around 50 revisions tracked. There is an option to click on any two revision numbers and compare.

I was ecstatic. Now I can more accurately show my students what I do as a writer. That alone was enough to get me excited about Google Docs, but there is still so much more to the tool. The tech at our school put in a request for the education edition of Google Docs right after I asked him to, so next week I am expecting to have my students' accounts up and running. Then I will be able to explore a bit with the powers of utilizing Google Docs for student collaboration and peer revision.

iTouch/Google Docs Collecting Data

Once again an idea hit me on how to be even more efficient with the data that I collect while conferring with readers. Earlier this week I mentioned I was at a technology conference and exploring on the new iTouch that my director bought for teachers at our school in order to familiarize ourselves with them before we roll them out for 1-to-1 student use. The possibilities will be endless, including a powerful way to combine Google Docs forms with the iTouch.

At a Google Docs presentation the presenter showed us how to quickly and easily create forms and how they show up in a Google Docs spreadsheet. Right away my teaching partner and I created a form to track discipline. Now we will have one, central location for to track student behavior and infractions. In addition, other staff members will also be able to input tracking information. We always share with our students that they should, "Do what is right even when nobody is watching." Utilizing Google Docs forms will make it even easier for them to feel a sense of accountability of meeting up to our high behavior expectations.

Next, I realized that Google Docs forms would also be an excellent tool for conferring. I created a form for reading conferences. I am still deciding how much I will use it, but I will use it for sure for quick check ins. For example, a recent focus lesson revolved around questioning. Given a similar situation, I would create a quick form to mark off students' present level of ability to apply the strategy to their reading. It will automatically be in a spreadsheet and I will be able to provide sufficient support in a more timely manner, as opposed to needing to collect, sort, and make decisions the old way.

The iTouch will be so convenient when I am doing quick conferences and only documenting specific information in a form that does not require me to type out a longer reflection. When I want to be able to type out a longer response I will still utilize a laptop.

So many possibilities. So much to get excited about...