2+Jan+10+MHTC+Session+2+Log

Wiki Initiation: - All group members joined the wiki site (|http://hvwp0910contentstudygroup.wikispaces.com) created to document our study group work. - Each member created their own page. - Members were asked to put their content work that has been or will be presented to the group on their wiki page. Jack’s work is on the page. Janine, Eric, and Laura need to put the work they presented on their pages. The goal is to have future presenters have their work on the page when they present. Where we have been: - We looked at the log of the last meeting and in particular the work presented by Eric and Laura. Participants then looked at the reading strategies – four domains we discussed from our book talk and tried to name the strategies we saw in Eric’s and Laura’s work. - Each member wrote their reflections on naming the strategies on their own wiki page. New Work: - Jack presented his work on Book Talks that he uses for middle school English. - This talk developed as a response to school use of accelerated reader which he felt drove students to read, but not in a balanced manner. Through the book talks, he hopes to build community. The work is based on Nancy Atwell book “Reading Zone”. - Process: o Students pick a book they want to talk about. o There is a template for Book Talks which Jack placed in goggle docs. There is one for power point presentations and for pod casts. o We listened to some of the student book talks done as pod casts. Pod casts allow other students to listen to reviews when trying to decide upon a book themselves. o His goal is to move into multimedia, digital stories for book talks and he would like to add voice threads. - Jack’s desire is to keep pushing the technology so that more social interaction can occur. He is wary, however, of pushing technology too fast. If this occurs the tool will become an inhibitor instead of facilitator. - His school is very technology orientated. Every two weeks out of four weeks, all students have computers on their desks so can do a lot of technical interaction. - What did we notice: o The technology adds a safety benefit for students. It provides a layer for shy students between them and their audience that doesn’t exist in face to face discussions. They have time to think about what they will say before just blurting it out (Neil). o<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> The presentation shows a true scaffolding of the technology and writing (Trace). o<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> The technology provides the ability to have a metacognitive discussion about the discussion since everything is captured and can be relooked. It also captures student’s curiosity of using new technology so they will do the reading – new purpose for reading and participating (Janine) o<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> The book talk provides an authentic audience – so students are driven not to be boring. The scaffolding helps students create an interesting talk (Laura). o<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> It would be interesting to tape students while they are writing to see what they are thinking as they develop a book talk. (Jack). o<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> Try adding video to book talk so they can add video sections to their talk. (Neil) o<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> The book talk connects to our reading about the metacognitive and social aspect of reading very well (Trace). o<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> A good question is how to evaluate the talk. How much should the choice of format – talk, podcast, video, impact the grade or should the student’s understanding of the use of the format only be important. The idea of starting with a plain book talk then moving it into technology shows great scaffolding to teach 21st century skills. (Ellen, Neil, Sarah) o<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> Student participating in this technology book talk will enter High school with a good stable of technology tools. (Neil) o<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> Good layering of literacy ELA and technology – 21st Century skills (Trace, Neil) o<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> Using a central place for student work allows students to view many models of the technique. These are also authentic examples rather than teacher generated ones (Janine) o<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> Google docs for school allow use of videos without going through UTube. Templates on goggle docs and folder shares create the perfect venue for scaffolding collaborative writing (Jack, Trace, Laura, Ellen, Janine) o<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> Book shares push students to take control of their reading and academic learning. The technology creates a store house of examples for students to collaboratively study.(Trace) o<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> Book talks foster the building of personal and social foundations as students look at each other’s work. It also allows the teaching of new media literacies. Templates are a great start point to learn how to respond to DBQ’.(Neil) o<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> The book talk fosters accountability. Students must share their work so they have to have read the book themselves. This is harder than an accelerated leader because they can’t just answer some questions – great life skills (Sarah) o<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> The amount of choice the talk provides is so powerful – provides many ways to let students shine and there will be positive peer pressure because presenting to more than just the instructor (Ellen) o<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> Goggle docs is a powerful collaborative tool and helps give greater purpose to book reviews. The pod casts transforms the report into a tool to help other students with their book selection (Nicole) o<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> Students want a bigger audience for their reviews so this is a great technique to do it. Using Goggle docs and wiki spaces together provide a link between students and their work. On the wiki you could list reviews by genre. The wiki opens student reviewers to a larger audience - to the entire school. The downside is that the wiki doesn’t thread. (Laura) o<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> This method of book talk could end a big problem with book reports and sustained silent reads. Others could not do the report for the kids. This model provides lots of formats and choice but by tying it in with reading, and focusing on reporting how they read rather than book content, students would have to do their own reports. Just need to find a place in the review that incorporates metacognitive thought about how they are reading (Kristen). Next Steps: ·<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> We decided that PDS would be the permanent meeting spot for our meetings due to its central location and the access to wireless internet. ·<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> For the next meeting Feb 5, we will discuss Chapter 5 of the reading and Sally/Ellen, and Lisa will present their literacy work. ·<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> We rescheduled the 3/5/10 meeting to 3/12 due to a Content Area Conference in New Oreleans and scheduled a final meeting 4/9/10 to discuss what we have learned about content area literacy and how to share these findings with a larger audience along with discussing the how to carry on work in this area.