Assessments

This week we read about assessments, in light of the digital age in which we live.  Assessments is a topic that has fueled many debates in the United States.  There are a variety of opinions on how, what, and when to assess students.  As far as I have seen, there has been very little common ground that allows different perspectives a place to be heard.  Perhaps the use of formative and summative response is a place where people can find some commonality in this technology driven age.

I think it is important to note that formative response and summative response, though different, aren’t mutually exclusive.  Both have a proper time and place in education.  After reading about formative response, it is assessment for learning that utilizes the social practices and is metacognitive by design.  I enjoyed the “Think, Write, Share” strategy the authors shared to help students through this process.  Do you have any ideas that could aid students in metacognition concerning written response?

Formative response assessments can also be used to promote self-assessment by students.  This is similar to what Dr. Beach had us do when responding to her blog this week.  We evaluated how we felt we were doing in the implementation of the six social practices. We had to vocalize our thinking. Here is an example of a group of assignments one teacher made involving the social practices.  Check it out: http://youthvoices.net/grid .  This website is full of templates to help guide these types of assessments. I also thought figure 10.1 was quite helpful to explain A Taxonomy of Reflection.

BABR talked about two kids of formative responses: static and dynamic.  Static electronic feedback include intertextual commentary.  When I began working on my masters program, I had a professor that used this type of formative response.  The professor looked line-by-line making edits to texts of rough drafts.  This was done in MS Word. Then there were marginal and end commentary.  I found this type of response to be a bit more helpful than line-by-line.  The professor could comment about wording or the point being made.  Some of these responses are predetermined and just a quick fill in for a specific type of error.   Have you ever been a part of this type of assessment? Do you think this could be an effective assessment?  Why or why not?

Dynamic formative response involves more interaction between the writer and reader.  One example of this is oral response.  There are many tools available to make this possible.  VoiceThread, Kaizena, Pirate Pad, etc.  Screencasting is an interesting tool that is fairly new to me.  This is a method of annotating, but it can be done with recorded video comments.  I teach second grade and haven’t had the opportunity to explore this tool.  Have you all explored screencasting?  What do you think? How do you think we should go about teaching students the appropriate ways to respond to peers in this setting?

Another thing mentioned regarding assessments was the use of rubrics.  Most teachers or soon to be teachers have used this tool or participated in its use.  Rubrics usually lead up to a summative assessment.  It can be based off of specific skills specified by standards or those agreed upon by students and teachers in collaboration.  What do you think the difference is between holistic rubrics and analytic rubrics? Rubistar is a great tool for teachers to create rubrics.  Have you all used this before?

Rubrics can have both positives and negatives.  Another type of summative assessment is dynamic criteria mapping.  This is assessment that is based off of student work (inductive) not broad dictated goals.  I view this as a type of individualized education plan.  The assessment is specific to the student and the opportunities or challenges that a particular student may face.   I could see this as a very complex process that requires a bunch of time.  It also seems a bit subjective to me.  Do you think this type of summative assessment has a place in the primary classroom?

The chapters and articles were full of information about assessments.  What were your favorite?  How do you see yourself applying them in the future as an educator?

Week 9- Writing in Digital Spaces

This week's readings:

Johnson: Chapter 7- Writing Online pages 99-118
BABR: Chapter 7- Co-constructing Knowledge Through Collaborative Writing pages 135-161
Yim: Cloud-Based Collaborative Writing and the Common Core Standards
Guzetti: "Nomadic Knowledge" Men Writing Zines for Content Learning
ILA: Sharing Student Writing With the World

So rather than review each of the readings I have decided that I would define some of the key words Dr. Beach discussed on her blog and make connections to digital writing.. I knew of some of these but not many. The readings this week were full of applications to be used in digital writing. All of the terms she asked about relate back to digital writing in one-way or another.

Zine- it is a small self-published form of writing. I remember learning about these when I was younger through the exploration of penny dreadfuls! Many of our students are into this kind of literacy because it is known for being fan fiction. An example of this would be pottermore online where people post digital writings of alternative Harry Potter stories or extensions. I read these myself; I’m a zine reader! Who knew!

Do you guys read fan fiction or use it in your classrooms?

I would think it would be a great way especially in older grades to get students excited about literacy.

Vlog- I was happy that I figured this one out on my own. It is a video log or journal of the happenings in one’s life. I myself only have one connection to make with it and it is from the show TrueBlood. After each episode you could get online and watch a vlog of one of the characters. It was a way of keeping it going. I could see this being fun for students during a book study or author study. The teacher or students could take turn doing a vlog of each chapter reflecting on what happened.

Digital story- I think we all know what a digital story is and I believe Cathy has commented before that she has made them with her students. I just really wanted to point out a tool they discussed in johnsons reading about ZooBurst (www.zooburst.com). You can get an account for free and create 3D pop-up books that are interactive! You can use it on the iPad too.

Digital anchor charts-

Cathy- you have mentioned before that you use Evernote, a digital anchor chart. Do your students prefer this to traditional anchor charts?

Mentor texts- The readings discussed that you should always model and use good mentor texts in both traditional and digital writing. Ralph Fletcher stated: “I think mentor texts are any texts that you can learn from. And every writer, no matter how skilled you are or how beginning you are, encounters and reads something that can lift and inform and infuse their own writing.”

What are your typical mentor text go-to examples that you use? Can you think of a way to convert them into digital formats?

Cloud computing- Is just a storage device of digital texts or anything else you keep on the computer. I use icloud for my personal things, but prefer DROPBOX for my professional things so that I can easily share with others.

What do you guys use for professional storage?

Purpose- While we all know what purpose is in relation to any form of writing I think it is important to remember to be mindful in sharing this idea with our students.

For what kind of activity do you think it would be better to have students collaborate on a wiki and for what kind should they collaborate on a blog?  Why?

Which of these ideas that you read about would you like to try with students? which have your tried?

I think that whether or not to use a blog or wiki depends on the goal you are trying to achieve and the class of students you have. Here is a table that explains how they differ.

Wiki vs. Blog

Wiki	Blog
Multiple Authors	Usually a single author. Sometimes can have multiple contributors
Pages ·       Edited ·       Changed ·       Added	Chronological Content ·       Posts/Entries ·       Comments on Posts ·       Responses to Comments
Edited by a group or team	Author posts, user comments
Knowledge Sharing	Opinion Sharing
Links to other Wiki pages	Links to outside
Grows rapidly, at all hours of the day	Grows slowly, one post at a time
Articles constantly change and are continuously updated	Each post becomes stale over time
Discussions can take place on pages or in the discussion forum	Discussions take place in the comments of a post, typically approved by blogger.
Many-to-many communication	One-to-many content

New Literacies- creativity 

I couldn't find much on creativity because it is so intertwined into all the domains of new literacies. let me know if you find any else in wiki about it!

Look up your topic or look up New Literacies on Wikipedia.  What did you find?  How accurate was it? How  do you know?

Week 8- Inquiry: Research and critical thinking part 2

This week in BARB, we read about networking and connecting through note-taking, social bookmarking and social media. Before reading this chapter I took notes primarily in my notebooks, and occasionally on my laptop and in my iPhone notepad if I did not have my notebook and writing materials with me. What a great read it was for me to know of all these new avenues that are available for students to not only take notes using technology but also saving websites by bookmarking and then sharing them via different social bookmarking tools. Before discussing the bookmarking tools I want to say a few things about the note-taking tools.

BARB mentions that “Rather than just taking notes verbatim, in taking notes students need to reformulate or translate the text in their own words so that they are integrating the information and ideas according to their own prior knowledge.” This is something that I truly believe in. Note-taking in my opinion, is a gateway for students of all ages to formulate given information into their own condense easy to understand synopsis. I also believe that note-taking makes students listen more intently and might even provide them with a feeling of accomplishment, especially for older students. With digital tools that can assist with note-taking I think students have no reason now not to take notes. Even though there are some challenges that come with note-taking students have more options, for example taking notes using the handwritten “sketch” strategy, or the audio dictation strategy. It’s really good to know that in today’s technologically advanced society students have choices even when it comes to taking and sharing notes. How do you feel about digital note-taking? Do you think it can affect research and critical thinking? How?

In addition, BARB also gave information on sharing notes via social bookmarking. What a great idea this is!  Social bookmarking allows students to collect and store websites and other links and then share them with their peers so they can critique them and also “for collaboratively constructing knowledge about certain topics.” The annotation “Diggo” showed to be a very interesting curator tool and could be used under a free or paid account.

Moreover, the use of social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and Google Plus were also discussed. How do you feel about using any of these sites, or any of the others mentioned, in your classroom? If you would use them what would you use them for? These sites can prove to be an issue, either a plus or negative for some administrators, teachers and parents alike. However, other social networking sites that could work inside the classroom could be Edmodo, Ning, and Schoology among others. In addition to students being able to engage in online collaborative inquiry through these social networking sites students can also benefit from the many affordances it can offer, one of which include searchability.

Initially, the IRA article listed ways in which teachers could work with their students so that critical literacies are the end result. It went on to discuss how critical literacies looked in the classroom and the story that unfolded in this article involved a second grade class that could not go on the annual (second grade field) trip to the aquarium because of insufficient funds.

As a result of this being of utmost importance to them they asked questions. As the writers mentioned in this article they “believe that critical literacies ought to stem from the interests of students” which we saw happening after they inquired about and made their own podcasts to bring awareness to their project about how unfair things were and the fact that they wanted to raise money so that they could go to the aquarium. As a result of using multiliteracies in their critical literacy they were able to make awareness of their situation on a large scale and in the end were able to go on their field trip.  Through inquiry the students were able to engage in an activity that is not seen much today in the classroom, podcasting. As a critical literacy teacher how do you work with your students in order that they too may engage in critical literacies?

Last, like the IRA article, the article by Woods and Jocius, Beyond, Fun and Games Using and iPad as a Tool for Critical Responses discussed how students used digital technology to talk about social issues. Three apps in which students used in this article were the Storybook Maker, Croak.it and the podcast app Fotobabble. With these apps two students were able to bring the social issues of bullying and race to light, just like the social issue of fairness was brought to light in IRA. These tools allowed for critical responses as the students shared their own personal feelings towards the subjects. All in all, students were able to use technology to create spaces where they made their voices heard as critical literacies were explored and critical responses were possible. 

Week 7

Week 7

Hey group- I am not Angela!  :)  I sent an email about picking up some of the blog dates she was assigned to do.  I took this one.  Krystie and Tabitha you can fight over the other one!!  :)

As we responded to the blog this week about inquiry,  I found myself with a nagging question I keep asking.  How do I meet the standards required of me as a teacher in the classroom in the areas of curriculum, standards, and assessments and tie all of that into inquiry?  I don’t have the answer to that question, but I do know that inquiry is often the most natural way for kids to learn. Inquiry begins by asking a questions.  Johnson said, “It seems that a fundamental shift lies in the understanding that studying academic content is a means of developing competencies rather than than the goal- in seeing students as learners as opposed to knowers. In other words, students must be problem posers as well as problem solvers, and problem posing begins with asking questions.” (pg. 119) Johnson views inquiry not as method but a process of questioning and wondering leading to the discovery of new knowledge through collaboration.  This knowledge should then influence how the classroom is managed. How would you answer the question above?

The SEARCH framework mentioned in Johnson ch. 8 seems to be an effective way to go about implementing the process of inquiry.  Students need to first pose a question.  Next, they need to use search strategies.  Then, they need to analyze the results they find.  They then need to read critically and synthesize the information read and cite sources.  Lastly, they need to evaluate how effective the search was.  Have you ever used an IRT for asking wondering questions? I have modeled it in my classroom, but don’t know if I have ever taught a lesson on it.

I enjoyed all of the search tools and tricks that BABR offered to assist students in the SEARCH framework process and noted that the process is recursive. This reinforced to me the importance of instruction in informational literacies.  Students have to be taught the skills to do effective searches using boolean phrases, using the appropriate search engine, and learning what is safe in terms of searches.  Leu noted that there is a new reading gap in online reading for lower socioeconomic students  as compared to others.  This is another reason why we as teachers need to take time to help students learn how to use online tools.  How do you think this process would look in the regular education classroom?

I realized after reading BABR, that I wished I purchased the digital version.  I wanted to click on many of the links and read more.  When I was reading these two chapters, I didn’t have my computer with me.  This is another instructional moment that we could teach to students.  Sometimes digital text prove more useful that the print text depending on the purpose of the read.  One search engine that I think could be beneficial to us as college students is google scholar.  Have you all ever used Google Scholar?  What did you think about it?  I have used other academic databases like the OU library or ERIC. How do you think you would set-up instruction for search engines in the elementary or early childhood classroom given your backgrounds in education?   

A tool that I know I could use, as well as the students we teach, is the use of curation tools.  I have used a few of these in the past but didn’t have a term to associate with them. Recently, I set up an account with Symbaloo, and aggregation dashboard.  I haven’t had the chance to use it much yet.  I think this will help limit some of the distraction to the students in my class when looking for certain information.  Pinterest is an example of another curation tool.  I waste a lot of time on this! HA! When in Pinterest, I often have to look past all of the other posts and distraction to discover what I am searching for.  This type of skill has to be taught to students.  Students not only have to synthesize their search information but also synthesize multimodal information.  Then they have to learn how to present this information in meaningful ways to their audience. Do you use curation tools in your daily life?  How do you think you might use them in the classroom?

I felt like there was a lot of information given this week.  If I overlooked something that you felt was important, please let me know.  Please explain why you felt like it was important to the topic.