10+Apr+10+MHTC+Session+6+Log

The Saturday seminar invited a lot more voices into our content area discussion. We each set out to see how the work presented today either expanded the concepts we discussed or introduced new ones. Katelin Grande and Steve Masson opened with a discussion on Creating an Online Writing Community. They shared how they used a wiki to collaboratively write between two High Schools (Highland and Rhinebeck HS)Their work is documented on crossriverpoetryexchange.wikispaces.com · They discussed the use of a hermetic poem. The poem itself is open to all content areas because of its format: 10 lines or less, open to multiple interpretations, images of nature, creates a mood; not necessarily narrative. Participants wrote their own hermetic poem. · Research Questions for Content teachers: o How does poetry help understand content and specifically hermetic poetry as the format? o How does writing in a community impact content learning – in particular an online community involving members outside the school and classroom? o How does writing to an authentic audience (for this activity students were pared with students from different schools and each partner wrote to each other)? o How does online writing impact content learning? Learning in 21st century requires being able to communicate and discuss on line. This provides opportunity to do so. Katelin and Steve set up a code of ethics that was developed by the two classes for online communication. Although students are communicating on line, they did so socially. This writing is not the same as face book, and they discussed how this form of writing has different protocols. The following are the protocols they developed. These are also posted as a link on their wiki as wiki workshop guidelines. 1. I will be kind and supportive of my fellow poets. 2. I will only post relevant questions, responses, topics and links. 3. I will respect the opinions of others, even if I do not agree with them. 4. I will protect my personal information and identity when online. 5. I will proofread my posts and additions before saving them. 6. I will try my best to answer questions or provide insight into the questions posted by my peers. 7. I will follow the wiki feedback model. 8. I will contribute to the discussion and not criticize the thoughts and opinions of others. 9. I will post poetry that is "personal" but not "private". 10. I will not use gratuitous or inappropriate language. 11. I will not post on or edit other people's pages. o How would you evaluate the content learning from this activity – Bloom’s taxonomy and community. § The discussion spoke of looking for inclusion of feedback in writing (responding to the community not just ignore it). § We looked at student work and found the quality of comments were both personal and informative. · Laura and Janine presented on Collaborative Content Writing. The emphasis was in using the wiki to write collaboratively. Janine approached wiki as a means of inviting more voices into the science classroom. How to allow students to share their learning with each other. Also the wiki allowed a means of having students write together so that the boredom of grading many labs as a means of assessment was eliminated. Questions generated and things noted included: o How are the students assessed on learning all the areas and not just the one assigned? o How to you access growing knowledge after the first year and they are editing work. o Allowing students to read each other posts makes the verbal discussion richer. o Posting rather than calling out requires all students to comment rather than just sit back and gives those who need time to process the time to do that and still be heard. o Laura’s work of linking pages of the wiki created an excellent avenue to provide student feedback and have the students see the relevance of their writing in terms of a team effort. Next Steps: - This was our last meeting. Our team, based on the last meeting and conversations from this one, would greatly like to continue the study group next year using a new text and perhaps focus on the questions raised at this meeting and the last.
 * SESSION # **: 6 (April 10, 2010)
 * Reflections: **
 * New Work: **