always learning

Social Studies Focus

Start up Activity: Show sample posting rubric. Organize students in mixed ability pairs. Review your responses to our postings. Were they detailed enough? Did they really answer the question? How would they fit on the rubric?

Class discussion:
• Good responses – what does “affect” mean?
• Basic formatting – spacing and organizing posts
• Links – make sure to include links to articles
• Basic grammar and spelling – use MS Word to check grammar & spelling before posting

IT Focus
As a class: Go over advantages and disadvantages of certain presentations (log-in feature, pages feature, etc)

Advanced set up blogs: Individual work time
• Delete sample posting and comment
• Go over: modify/edit postings

Homework:

(1) Find a new or connected article to our sample current events posting. Post responses on your individual blog. Make sure to include the original link to your article AND a link to our post.

(2) Re-do the homework from 2 lessons ago (thinking about today’s discussion and how to improve your post): “Who is affected & how?” and post on your own blog.

As I continue to work on this project with my students, and, in the process, to develop this blog, I realize how important it will become to my life as a tech teacher. I must admit, I started writing just to see how the technology worked so I could help my students. But now that it’s gotten started I can see, first hand, the world of possibilities that blogging holds. Reading all the other blogs, books, and wiki entries about blogging was definitely interesting, but I suppose there’s nothing like doing it yourself. So here, goes… I’m claiming my blog on Technorati. Maybe I’ll get to be a part of someone’s google reader reading list! Technorati Profile

In terms of the tech side of the project, we have been pretty much figuring everthing out as we go. Thankfully blogging is mercifully simple, so it has been pretty smooth. Here’s the breakdown of what we have done so far:

Step 1: If you don’t already have an Acceptable Use Policy that includes blogging, create a permission slip (here’s ours) that gives students the permission to have their own blogs.

Step 2: Set up a “main blog” as a sample for the students and a “home-base” for all outgoing information. We have been using ours to post homework as well as lesson reviews and important news.

My advice is to think about both the URL for your blog and the presentation carefully before you share it with the class. I am now wishing that I didn’t have the URL I’m using, and I’m constantly trying to add new features to the blog (as I learn them) and have simply been lucky that my template has them all (for example: I want all of the links I post in categories, not just a jumbled mess in alphabetical order, but only some of the WMU templates allow Link Categories. Also, We wanted extra pages, at least one for our .pdf resources, but only some of the templates allow additional pages. I personally like the design of this template because it allows me to log-in directly from my URL instead of having to remember to add wp-admin.php to the end of the address, which would make it much easier for students. I also like how this template lets me edit each entry directly from the post.

Step 3: Get the core content down. We’re doing our blog about current events, so we spent our first full lesson discussing what current events are, what is an acceptable even to use for social studies, and developing class criteria for finding an appropriate current event.

Step 4: Cover the basics of the project. Once students have an idea of what current events are, get them used to the idea that they’re going to make a blog. We have a one-page project outline that gives a general overview of the whole project. We spent about a half hour discussing all the details of the project with the kids.

Step 5: Start getting used to the idea of blogging. After our first lesson, we had students respond to our blog posting (which reviewd the lesson of the day) by posting one “acceptable” current even link and one “unacceptable” current event link as a comment.

My advice is to start your students off right by explaining what the comments section is, where it is on the page, and showing them exactly where you want them to comment. For example: we had 3 different class blocks of grade 6 students responding to the same posting. What a mess! It took ages to figure out who was in which block and then we had to go through again to find who had done the homework properly. I recommend titling your post with the specific class block and showing students exactly where to respond. Once we figured this out, checking up on homework became a breeze.

A continuing problem is that the students still want to post their links in the “URL” section of the comments form. We have explained to them that they should only use that section if they have their own website, but I think they’re so excited that they know what URL means that they still copy and paste the current events article URL there. I wanted to see if I could simply take that section out of the comments box, but it appears that I can’t. I wonder if there is a different template that doesn’t have it?

It took us 3 one and a half hour lessons to go through all of these steps with the kids. By the end of those 3 lessons, students were comfortable posting homework in the correct comments section, re-reading other students’ comments, and sharing their websites with sample articles in pairs.

Our next task is to set up student blogs at learnerblogs.org.

Social Studies Focus

Start up Activity: Review sample blog, read all linked articles & determine how the requirements were met for the blog posting.

Steps:
1. Take out current events blog 2006 assignment sheet
2. read requirements for initial posting
3. open blog (mkis6.edublogs.org)
4. read sample events posting
5. read article: Israeli Raid Worries UN
6. read all linked websites
7. EXTRA: determine how we used the requirements to create our posting using only the article as information

Review blog as a class, asking what they learned and pointing out all features of the blog.

IT Focus

Set up Blog
• Set up individual blogs for students (at learnerblogs.org)
• Have student open e-mail before setting up account to make sure e-mail address works.

Instructions
• Go to learnerblogs.org
• Username: firstname or firstname6
• Blog title: Kim’s Social Studies Blog
• Enter e-mail
• Change password
• Set up blog design
• Record student blog addresses

HW: Post your FIRST BLOG! Answer the question: What have you learned about current events so far this year?

It has occured to me (thanks to the intervention of my Tech Coordinator) that I haven’t yet described exactly how Peggy and I are going about structuring this project. There has been significant back end planning that I have glossed over here on the blog. In this (and future) post(s), I’m going to try to be more focused on exactly how we’ve managed to get everything going. At this point, I’ve become so used to figuring everything out for myself (being an IT teacher in an international school setting often means I come in to a school with nothing set-up and have to start from scratch each time I move), that I haven’t even thought about organizing this blog into a more practical discussion. Here goes:

The reason I’m even doing this wonderful blogging project with Peggy is because I have been given 40% release time from my teaching load to integrate technology into the middle school curriculum. What this means is that instead of teaching 5 out of a total of 8 blocks, I now teach 3 discrete IT classes and have those 2 blocks left over for integration. The goal is to fully integrate IT into the sixth grade social studies curriculum so that we will not have discrete IT lessons in sixth grade next year. Next year’s focus would be 7th grade, and the following year, 8th grade. It is amazing to have so much more time with the students and to have some real core content to work with. I have always struggled with discrete IT classes because I hate the fact that I have no real “reason” to make webpages, or videos or presentations. We always end up having tons of fun, but brining IT into the core curriculum just makes so much more sense to me.

In addition to having 40% release time, our principal was able to work a major miracle: Peggy and I actually have a common planning block. This means we have 1 and a half hours every other day to plan together! We have actually physically met and worked every single planning block that we’ve had all year so far. In addition to that planning time, I’ve spent all the rest of my free time (and evenings) trying to work out how we can do this project. I guess that’s:

Tip #1: Ensure that you have enough common planning time to prep before the project starts.

Peggy is very enthusiastic and pretty much willing to try anything, so my initial suggestion was to start blogging. I have been reading so much about blogging that I couldn’t wait to just get started. So, the idea for the current events blog was born. I suppose that’s:

Tip #2: Make sure that everyone involved is enthusiastic about the project and open minded about where it might go. (You can’t expect to reach all teachers the first time around, just try to get the enthusiastic ones on board!)

Once we had our project idea down, we started to begin to think of the nitty gritty. For one, Peggy had done current events extensively in her past social studies classes, so she had a general idea of what she wanted to do. We took a look through her old resources and simply modified her paper-based current events reports into a web-based format. The joy of taking a paper-based project and transforming it to an online format is the extensive opportunity to utilize the interconnectivity of the internet. Once we realized how much we could really do with blogs, we added a whole bunch of cool extras. Students will be incorporating full citations, an image of the event, a map of the location of the event, plus active links to definitions or descriptions of any word they don’t use every day. Both Peggy and I see this as an effective way to get the students to think more deeply about their events. The project doesn’t stop at simply describing the event and answering some questions. They must go farther, use their knowledge of the event and their technical skills to find representative images and to really understand all the words they encounter. I would say that’s:

Tip #3: Take advantage of the internet. Allow students to really utilize all the resources they can find to delve even deeper into their chosen topic.

Once we had decided the minimum requirements for the blog posting (which you can find on our resources page) we decided an even more exciting feature of using weblogs instead of paper was the opportunity for discussion (in the form of comments). So we planned a whole section on how to comment to another student’s posting and set up a rotation of students so that they wouldn’t all leave the commenting part to the end. Ah-ha, I’ve discovered:

Tip #4: Having to write a current events posting every single lesson would be a bit much for sixth graders, so we’ve organized a rotating schedule. Every lesson 1 student will present. Since we have 3 lessons per week, 3 students will present each week. During that same week, 3 students will be required to post a comment to one of the presentations (whichever one they choose). This gives the students some choice, but it spaces out the work (and the grading).

Once we had organized the social studies aspects of the blog project, we moved on to the technical parts, which I will go over in my next post.

Social Studies Focus

Start up Activity: Review articles posted for homework. Justify your choices to a partner.
Clarify what is acceptable and what is unacceptable using a chart with criteria listing created by the class.

As a class:
Go over Assignment Sheet

HW: Choose an article posted by another student and describe why it is appropriate. Post as a comment to our blog.

IT Focus

Discuss Responsible Blogging
• Discuss dangers of blogging
• Understand acceptable use policy
• Distribute permission slip

Peggy and I had our first integrated lesson on Friday. It was excellent! The kids were so receptive and excited about blogging. At the very last minute we decided to test out the comments feature on our blog by having the students research one “acceptable” current events article and one “unacceptable” article and post their results as a comment. I’ve been checking the blog all weekend to see what the kids post. I love the idea that we can communicate even after class is over. I especially love the idea that we are not wasting paper by printing out all these articles and that the students can utilize the blog in class next lesson to share what they learned about researching current events.

However, I definitely have to figure out a more secure method for turning in homework, because I don’t like the idea of just letting anyone comment on our blog without being registered. I remember reading something on Landrum’s Bits and Bytes about how to utilize the edublogs/learnerblogs community more effectively. Hopefully that will work for us too! I realize that the more I learn about new technology the more I need to learn. I definitely enjoy testing out new tools with my students and I know that it takes actual experience with these tools for me to really learn how to use them.

Next up: the students will create their own blogs on learnerblogs.org. They are going to love that!

Social Studies Focus:

Intro to Current Events
• What are current events- define
• What are appropriate events

Appropriate news story topics include:
Politics: (assassinations, elections, treaties), including terrorism; historical discoveries/new information; science & technology; education, law,

SOME social/cultural issues {issues that will make HISTORY} (religion, the Arts, human accomplishments, large-scale disasters).

Inappropriate news story topics include: fires; mass killings/murders; kidnappings; airplane/car crashes; sports; celebrities, movies, gossip

• How can you describe these events
• How can you find the key points in an article
• Distribute task sheets and rubrics

HW: Post a comment on our blog with one “appropriate” article and one “unappropriate” article.

IT Focus:

Introduction to Working on the Network
• Make folders
• Introduce drop boxes
• Organize files
• Set up log-in for new students

Peggy and I have been working non-stop for the past week gearing up to start the first sixth grade social studies / IT integration project of the year. I’m a firm believer in the principle that an excellent project is all in the planning. Since this is the first time I’ve ever done anything quite like this, I hope we planned enough… At the very least we have our joint website up and running at Social Studies Meets Information Technology We are starting with the first class tomorrow and I’m anxious to see what they already know about blogging. I’m pretty excited, so hopefully I will pass that enthusiasm on to them!

I’m starting this blog as inspiration for my grade 6 students that will soon be blogging about current events. As usual, we will be learning together since this is my first blog. Hopefully it will soon become second nature for me (and them!).