One More Look

I would love for anyone that has time to read my resource and see if looks "public ready" to you. All comments appreciated-even editing!
http://digitalis.nwp.org/resource/1735

Resource is Posted

http://digitalis.nwp.org/resource/2142

I just attempted to post my resource as it stands now. I am curious about the formatting. I am going to work on the images that I want to import, but since we have our workshop tomorrow I wanted to try this out and get most of my text in.

I realize that I left out my student comments, but have about 80 of them, so I want to select a handful of the better ones to include.

Any hints on the formatting? I created this in Google Docs and tried changing the format, but had no luck. Would Pages work?

See you all tomorrow!

Kristi

Posted Project

I have posted my project, still trying to figure out how to add two video clips. Any ideas?

A Seat at the Digital Banquet

I've posted my entry at DigitalIS. See http://digitalis.nwp.org/resource/2122

Thanks.

Saturday, March 5th Meeting

Is that a workday?

Project Posted

Well, I finally figured out the book format thing, and got my project on line. I plan to embellish it some more - add pictures, maybe some video etc. Right now it's a skeleton. Please let me know what you think. I linked to three student created websites, so please let me know what you think of them, and that the links work. Thanks!!!

go to

http://digitalis.nwp.org/resource/1992

Project Posted

I have posted my project to the Digital Is site. You can find it by searching my name. It still needs a lot of work, but it's good to get some feedback while I work on it. Some of my links didn't carry over, so I have to go back and fix all those and I posted what I have yet to do. Go ahead and read it if you have time. I'm not sure if we can offer feedback to each other or not-if so, I'd appreciate it!
For me, I spent over 3 hours just deleting all the "fluff text" that was added when I copied and pasted from word. It was really frustrating and every time I fixed something, something new would mess up. So a lot of the formatting isn't the way I want it either!

skype and video conferencing inquiry

Hey all,

Here are two links to the press we have received around our inquiry project.

http://www.sunjournal.com/city/story/979228

http://www.nwp.org/cs/public/print/resource/3460

Google Docs Update

I nearly passed out last week when I went onto Google Docs to do some grading and saw the new format. I don't like it as it doesn't indicate who the student is who shared. Well, I guess it does, but I have to search around for that information whereas it used to be pretty obvious, just by looking at the title of an assignment.

My students had collaboratively worked on a second slideshow of SAT words and had come up with sentences with context clues and found or created their own images. When I went to view their shows I couldn't tell which slideshow belonged to whom. I mentioned it in my last class of the day and was showing students the new set-up when a student who rarely and only reluctantly participates raised his hand and said, "There is a way to get back to the older version, Ms. Bancroft." Then he came to my desk and demonstrated for the class how to click on the toolbar link that says, "Older Version" and voila! I could hear a collective sigh of relief throughout the class as we all saw, once again, our familiar looking files and organization! Drake is my new Period 4 hero! I love those "ah ha" moments with individual students!

My students have started "Blogging the Holocaust" using my Website: http://msbancroft.weebly.com/ so I'm taking a couple of weeks to organize my Google Docs files as they submit their responses to prompts regarding our study of the Holocaust. I'm thinking that another year it would make sense to have a folder for each student in a folder for their class, rather than having a class folder and within that folders for each assignment. I have organized my Honors Challenge student folder this way and it is easier to check on individual progress.

During this weekend my friend and colleague, Richard Byrne, posted this link on his Free Tech for Teachers website:

http://www.freetech4teachers.com/2011/02/learn-advanced-uses-of-forms-in-google.html

I have only used Google Forms once or twice, so I hope to try this self-grading feature sometime in the near future.

Digital resource...thus far...

Hi Everyone,

I have posted what I have so far of my digital resource on my blog. If you have a couple of minutes, please post any and all (somewhat kind but honest) feedback.

The first section is "done" (yes, now I sound like my students). It's obviously not done, but it's at least written. The last part is just the outline and some notes about what will come later.

Thank you in advance for the help!

Kaili

Really cool digital is entry

I found this really cool video composition on the digital is site - go to http://digitalis.nwp.org/resource/675 - if that doesn't work, search for

Illuminated text: a student exemplar

January Authors

Hello all,

I checked the calendar this morning, and yup, it is already the beginning of January! My students are writing up a storm; wild and blustery, but writing nonetheless. While the range of mastery is wide, the one constant recently is the motivation caused by our inquiry project. Seth and I have literally jumped into this project with a "yee hah" and a prayer, troubleshooting as we go, solving a variety of SKYPE snafus that have to do with audio and/or video, flurries of emails, blog barriers as simple as how the heck do you post and label, and the occasional frantic cell phone call at 10:18 a.m. while students all over the classroom yell into their mikes: "Can you hear me?"

Through it all, the students have embraced each other as they build this unlikely community of writers: hesitate 3rd graders who have an assortment of writing challenges including phonetic spelling and the proverbial "I'm all done", and AP English students who are working hard to draw the stories out of these young writers.

You can find our work at: aronsonauthors.blogspot.com

When you click on the student author's names you'll see a variety of writing they've done to date: personal narratives, and non fiction pieces with a focus on the Winter Solstice. You'll be able to read the Ap English students "praise and polish", and then in red text, the 3rd grade author's attempt at revision using their writing partners feedback.

A few comments overheard while the students were SKYPING:

"I just read the story about your little sister. I absolutely love how you went from talking about memories from the past with all of the dialogue (talking), to the future. That flowed really nice."

"Mr. Mitchell, I'm so proud of my partner!" ( She was impressed by her kiddo's revisions (Caleb) and felt so happy to be part of that growth.

" If I could have said one more thing to my Uncle before he died I would have said "I love you."

"I think that you could help the reader understand more about how you feel about your dog by mentioning what you like to do with your dog."

"My writing partner (Cassie) has a great laugh".

"I think you should try combining sentences because you have a lot of short sentences clumped together. For example, instead of saying “She lives with our fish, Swimy. He has a lot of energy.” You could say, “She lives with our fish, Swimy, and he has a lot of energy.” The sentences flow better that way, so try combing some more like that."

"I’m sorry your gram died, but maybe you could describe what she was like before she died."

Pretty amazing stuff, don't you think? Up next, realistic fiction and then onto In Pictures and in Words: an Illustration Study.

See you all in February! MICHELE

How to Copy and Paste Text from Word

I wrote several pages of text for my resource and was able to begin creating it, but...I am not able to load my text so it is in the correct format. I have tried all the options: 1) Copied and pasted in the text box. 2) Copied, pasted, then chose disable rich text. 3) Copied and pasted into the "paste from word" box. 4) Copied and pasted into the "paste from word" box, then chose disable rich text.
None of these will make my text go from left to right-I get a line with one word, then the next line might have 5, so on and so forth.
Any help would be great so I don't have to retype all of my text.
I also tried to load an imovie. It says it has to be in a format other than what I have (.m4v). I don't know how to change to the format they want. My movie is also more than 50 MB, is there a way to compress it? Thanks for helping!

Happy New Year - an update

Happy New Year, everyone. I have been busy on Google Docs, but have not written much lately from my notes. I've had a very nice vacation which included family events during Christmas and a milestone birthday for me on the 30th - I turned 50! My 17-year-old son. Logan, got to ride Sunday River's Zip Line on the 27th and after my birthday lunch my dad took him on a plane ride in an antique plane. Dad and my brother are both pilots as their company does a lot of bridge and dam work. On New Year's Eve I celebrated my 50 years with a gal pal whose birthday was the day before mine. We had a great party at my house, along with many family and friends.

But there is sadness, too. A student, Andria Damon, who suffered from Muscular Dystrophy, passed away on the 27th. Andria taught me a lot about not judging a book by its cover. When I first met her I thought, "I can't possibly know how to teach this child." She had been home schooled for two years, was wheel-chair bound and not even able to go to the bathroom by herself. She was in constant pain, fed through a tube, and the smallest cough was excruciating for her, so she missed a lot of school. Still, she was very social, loved to read, and especially loved her history course. While at home with a tutor, she completed more work than my ever present healthy students.

We have been studying mythology and while at home sick for a time she read nearly the entire book that we use, Heroes, Monsters and Gods of Greek Mythology. Just last week, before vacation, she wheeled over to me and showed me that she was reading The Lightning Thief, the first book in the Percy Jackson series, a sort of modern day mythology, for her personal weekly requirement. She had a sharp wit and it amazed me to watch her type on her Netbook by making use of her long fingernails and the eraser end of a pencil. She never said, "I can't" and wanted desperately to be like others. She even admitted to playing with Barbie dolls, not because she was immature, but because they made her think about what her life might have been like. Andi had dreams of one day getting her license and later living on her own. We knew that her dreams would not be possible, but somehow, if she had survived, I think she might have achieved those goals.

Last week she completed an essay on Google Docs for me on the hero archetype and how it was evident in the myths that we have read about - Theseus, Perseus and Orpheus. I went over it using the comment and editing tools and she submitted her revision just before vacation. I've spent more time in reading and responding to the other essays from her classmates, but I keep thinking of Andria, who has become a hero to me.

Monday is going to be a different kind of day as my colleagues and I face her classmates, share the news and reactions, and then attend her funeral. I wrote this on her online remembrance page:

Andi, You were an amazing young woman, a modern day hero who faced many challenges bravely. As your teacher, it was I who learned from you. You will be very much missed by your Team 1 teachers and classmates. Orpheus is playing a special song for you on this hero's journey. Say hello to Eurydice for us in the Isles of the Blessed and may you later gain Elysium!
Ms. Bancroft

I will print out all of the documents that Andi has created on Google Docs and share them, with all the revisions, with her family.

More on my inquiry project soon and I look forward to seeing all of you in February.

Kristi

I did a quick survey of my students. Got responses from about 75% of my students. Of those students 18% are not allowed to take their laptops home. When asking about internet access outside of school 69% have high-speed and another 3% have dial-up. 12% go somewhere other than home to use the internet, like a relatives, neighbor's, or library. I also asked what they had for computer access aside from the MLTI laptop. 82% have a computer at home they can use. 5% go elsewhere and 13% have no computer access without the laptop.

So I guess Susan's estimates are not far off. I teach in a rural district, but we are not far from Bangor or the Waterville/Augusta. We have quite a cross-section as far as income and educational level go.

I posted this response as a response to Susan's post. I wasn't sure if people would see it there, so I'm reposting it here.

WICKED Cool Website

Look at this great website for teenage writers, just reviewed by the New York Times!

(Article: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/06/books/06figment.html?_r=2&ref=education)

“Figment.com will be unveiled on Monday as an experiment in online literature, a free platform for young people to read and write fiction, both on their computers and on their cellphones. Users are invited to write novels, short stories and poems, collaborate with other writers and give and receive feedback on the work posted on the site.”

http://figment.com/


How COOL IS THIS?!?!??!?!

I am so excited, I can’t even tell you. I would have died for a site like this when I was in middle school and writing my post nuclear devastated world novels. Ha.

I feel like this is just what we need, too! To get our kids motivated OUTSIDE of school to write.

Turning Google Doc forms into charts, graphs, etc

Hi all,

I know I saw this questions a while back; in interest of time, I thought I'd just create a new post.

Google Doc forms (surveys) can be turned into graphs and charts very easily. When you open the spreadsheet with responses on it, go to "FORMS" then down to "SUMMARY OF RESPONSES". A variety of charts, etc come up.

Hope this helps the person who had the question and anyone else who was curious!

My Google Docs update

ok, so I have been out flat with this bad back and it is not getting better very fast. Sitting hurts, standing hurts, and getting off the toilet is hell!! However, I am plugging away here. I have done pretty well with using some portions of Google docs while others still floor me. I cannot figure out how to organize my files, which drives me crazy. I tried making folders but somehow, something I am doing is not working right. Can't figure it out. I would love to have a folder for each student rather than 1000 writing pieces that I can't sort...ah, yes, sort. Is there a way to FIND things? I haven't figured out that yet either.

I think the editing part works well, but I struggle with figuring out what happens after I edit. Do they get a notice that I worked on it so they know to check? I can't figure that out either. They say to me, "Oh I didn't know" and I am not sure if they are just not paying attention, blowing me off or totally confused. Hmmm...

I like the revision history part a lot; that is great to have. Sometimes I wish there was a way to look at two docs at the same time. Is there? Oh man, I still feel like I am on a steep learning curve. Rosemarie

Saturday in SWH

Sitting here, dry but not overly warm, I have been pondering the aspects of equity I encounter among students at my school. It occurs to me that one of the issues I stumble against is my own blindness of assumptions. It inspires the same criticism we have heard in terms of race, gender, and economics: If you are on the winning side (white, male, and rich) you can't see the obstacles others, who aren't you, face. Here are some of the assumptions about students I need to remind myself just ain't so:

• They are kids; they know how computers work.

• There is a spell checker on the word processor; they'll use it.

• They are on Facebook all the time.

• They have access to the internet.

• They have a school issued computer.

• They know how to keyboard.

• Their computers all work at the same speed.

• Their computers won't break.

• They know the difference between casual and professional email.

• That alarming tag line after their signature is one they chose for themselves.

• They know how to follow directions.

• They are going to save their work for later use and reference.

• They are able to mimic me in parallel as I do something while displaying it on the overhead.

• What the media portrays as the savvy 5 year old able to make a wonderful powerpoint with her wonderful IBM / Microsoft Cloud setup is nearly a fairy tale.

Our school is working in a trimester system, so we get new students every 11-12 weeks. We've just started a new round of classes. I have polled both my old and new students about access to the internet. About 20% say they have none at all. They are unable to get to a library (remember going to a library to study with pals – or was that just Disney?) to access the internet, nor are they able to steal band width from neighbors. With a well organized thumb drive, or remembering to download needed files before leaving school, this shouldn't matter; but it does. This doesn't include students who a) still haven't been issued a loptop; b) have broken their laptop and are without a loaner; c) have parents who can't / won't sign the agreement form. Some of these students behave brashly “What are you going to do about me? You can't just post that essay. I'll never be able to read it.” “Well, your going to have to accept my paper hand written.” So I find myself printing off copies and fighting with students about the need to do revisions.

Isaac, for a variety of reasons, had no laptop and was hand writing a comparison essay. He had pretty much omitted anything in the line of illustrations of the points he was trying to make and I said that he really needed to add those. He pulled out a giant eraser and began to erase what he had written. I gacked, and offered him the opportunity to go down to the library to type there. “No, I'll just erase it and start over.” “Well, if you're going to start over anyway, why not keep this copy and start a new draft?” “That would be a lot of work.” More work than erasing it and redoing all the paragraphs? I pointed out that was one reason to make use of the computer so he wouldn't have to re-write his essay multiple times. Thus enters another of my own prejudices – I remember, with loathing, having to retype, or worse re-write, papers through multiple drafts, cutting them apart and pasting them on new paper so I could add paragraphs to a 3^rd of 4^th draft. I thought about sharing that with Isaac, but cringed that he would perceive me as one of those walking-through-blizzards-uphill-both-ways adults.

This doesn't even touch the hardware differences, even among school issued computers. MLTI computers are not set up to be gracefully mum when they don't have a network connection, regularly stopping everything to poll the neighborhood for a link. Software is, bizarrely, not installed correctly on some computers, or files have become corrupted. Batteries die even when plugged in and shut everything down. Sarah and Brandan each had computers that would spontaneously shut down. Sarah's problem was her email program and Brandan's a dicey battery. The swap bank of batteries that is supposed to reside in the library hasn't been set up.

So, where am I going now? I am going to find out from MLTI what they perceive is the percent of student homes that has no internet connectivity. I wonder if you could do a straw poll of your students to give me an idea if my 20% is real or off kilter. There is a series of articles in the New York Times on computers and brains that I'm working through for myself and with my Non-Fiction and AP Language classes. I'm also using the “Your child left behind” article from the recent Atlantic Monthly. I'll have some student reactions to those as well as my own reflections.

Saturday at Maple Hill Farm

I'm writing this while sitting here at the conference, so the day has is not over yet, however, it feels like a good time to reflect. I feel like the workshop space provided me with a really critical jump start. Teaching is exhausting, but coming here today has spurned me with a much need injection of motivation, and so like a hamster, I somehow managed to get into my wheel and keep spinning even on a Saturday. I hope this doesn't seem like a negative analogy - I really do feel a renewed sense of purpose and vigor. Being a relatively new teacher (third year on the job) I still feel like I am always reacting in my class room - not thinking ahead (beyond a vague notion of where we're going) more than a day or so. Today has given me a much clearer idea of what I need to do to complete and publish this project, and it has also given me a much clearer way to see ahead and plan this educational experience for my students.

Specifically, today I learned how to create an online survey using google docs forms, and also how to analyze the data. I plan to have my students respond to the survey before and after the project to see if we can get a clearer picture as to how effective this project is.

I also made an outline for each page of my "book" for the digital Is website and began fomenting my thoughts for the writing piece of each page.

I also developed ideas for video clips to create for each page - I would like to augment the survey with video interviews of students while we do the project - to hear their voices on digital writing and their reflections on the "process" of the project, and I would also like to include video created by students - not sure what the content will be yet for these...

So...it was a good day!