Laurie+C

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 * Laurie Carmack's Final Project **

Hello! I have shared a few of my Google Docs' documents and presentations with you. I began using Google Presentations in my higher level learning support classes to help them explore their weekly vocabulary. On October 1, 2010, we began our Independent Reading Project. My high level learning support classes are blogging about their books all throughout this month. These groups are also collaborating using Google Docs, and they are creating comics using ToonDoo and Comic Life.

THE STUDENTS I teach learning support English at Warwick High School. Currently our learning support English programs are leveled high, middle, and low. The following projects have been completed by my high level students. These students are reading on a 6-7th grade reading level. They are reluctant readers and writers. The majority of them struggle with work ethic and effort. These students choose not to do their work for one of the following reason; they lack parental involvement or they do not see the value in it. I follow the general education English curriculum, however, it is modified, adapted, and completed at a slower pace.

BLOOM'S TAXONOMY : The following lessons allow students to explore the entire hierarchy of Bloom's taxonomy.
 * **Remembering** **:** can the student recall or remember the information? |||| define, duplicate, list, memorize, recall, repeat, reproduce state ||
 * **Understanding:** can the student explain ideas or concepts? |||| classify, describe, discuss, explain, identify, locate, recognize, report, select, translate, paraphrase ||
 * **Applying** : can the student use the information in a new way? |||| choose, demonstrate, dramatize, employ, illustrate, interpret, operate, schedule, sketch, solve, use, write. ||
 * **Analyzing** : can the student distinguish between the different parts? |||| appraise, compare, contrast, criticize, differentiate, discriminate, distinguish, examine, experiment, question, test. ||
 * **Evaluating** : can the student justify a stand or decision? |||| appraise, argue, defend, judge, select, support, value, evaluate ||
 * **Creating** : can the student create new product or point of view? |||| assemble, construct, create, design, develop, formulate, write. ||

Google Presentations for Weekly Vocabulary I am using Vocabu-Lit (see below pdf for more information) this year for my high level learning support English classes. Each lesson introduces 10 words a week. My students are struggling with this because these words are unfamiliar to them, and they have to learn and study them. They struggle using these words in context. In addition to their weekly vocabulary exercises, the students are each creating two slides within our class Google Presentation. They have requirements, and are encouraged to explore the web to learn about their words and how they are being used. media type="custom" key="7144875" width="90" height="90"media type="custom" key="7144869" width="90" height="90" media type="custom" key="7284327" width="90" height="90" **PA STATE STANDARDS** Reading Independently 1.1 Standard - 1.1.9.B: Use context clues, knowledge of root words, and word origins as well as reference sources to decode and understand new words.  Standard - 1.1.9.C: Use vocabulary across all academic content areas that demonstrates knowledge of literal and figurative meanings of words, nuances, or connotations of words, and word origins.

**ISTE: NETS for Students** Demonstrate creativity and innovation Communicate and collaborate Conduct research and use information Think critically, solve problems, and make decisions Use technology effectively and productively

**ISTE: NETS for Teachers**

PREPARATION This was my first time using Google Presentations. Fred Griffiths helped me set up my first presentations. I created the first few slides to include the requirements, rubric, and web resources. I am creating two of the vocabulary slides each week (for now). It is a nice way for me to show the students what they can do, and some of the resources to do it with. The students seemed to catch on to the concept rather easily, however, I am still hopeful that they put more effort into them. I keep stressing that they are making a study guide for each lesson that they will be able to access all year. I feel these will be very helpful come midterms and finals.

REFLECTION Each slide is worth a maximum of 15 points, plus the opportunity to get two extra credit points on each (see slide 2-3). It truly is a simple project, and some of my students are not taking advantage of it. They do not strive to get the bonus points, and some of them are not getting them done. My goal is to have the students accurately complete two slides of their own, and then collaborate with a partner to complete an additional one. I will be adding additional requirements as we progress from week to week. They get some class time, and have from Monday through Wednesday evening at 7:00pm to complete them. Every Thursday we show the presentation as part of our review. I have the students teach us the their words using the slides. I'm hoping this part encourages them to try harder on the project. If they forgot to include something, they have to come up with it for the class presentation. I realize that I have more experience than my students in some regard, and I know that completing two slides takes about fifteen minutes. I feel there is no excuse for not having them done. Some of the excuses I have heard are; "I don't have time to do homework.", "I don't study.", and every so often they say, "Our words are harder this year, I don't know most of them and don't know how to use it in a sentence..." My response to them is, "You are here to learn, not to get words and information you already know. You would be bored and complaining if you had vocabulary that you already knew. Search your word on the web and see how it is used, or use your book and the examples that are there for you." I use these to grade their presentations each week.

Word Press Independent Book Project Blogs All of my learning support English classes started their independent reading project on October 1st. They are blogging using Warwick's blog server, Word Press. My high level students are the only groups blogging, however, I am realizing that my low groups will be able to do this for future assignments. After using Google Presentations for our weekly vocabulary project, most of my high students are going to use this for their visual representation and presentation. They are really finding Google Docs to be quite convenient. media type="custom" key="7212787" width="108" height="108" media type="custom" key="7212791" width="108" height="108" **PA STATE STANDARDS** Reading, Analyzing, and Interpreting Literature; Fiction and Non-Fiction 1.3 Standard - 1.3.9.B: Analyze the characteristics of poetry, prose, drama, novels, short stories, essays, and other basic genres, explaining the appropriateness of the form chosen by an author for a specific purpose.  Standard - 1.3.9.B: Analyze the use and effectiveness of literary elements used by one or more authors, including characterization,  setting, plot, theme, point of view, tone, mood, and style.

**ISTE: NETS for Students** Demonstrate creativity and innovation Communicate and collaborate Conduct research and use information Think critically, solve problems, and make decisions Use technology effectively and productively

**ISTE: NETS for Teachers**

= = = = = = PREPARATION Teaching reading to reluctant readers is a challenge. I really wanted to make this entire project fun, easy, and convenient. Each of the students are required to blog four separate entries on a specific literary element. Those are outlined in the above document. In addition, they will post ten image blogs that must contain a media link to a video or image, and a brief description as to why the image is essential to their story. I tried to express to my students that blogging is going to be much easier for them to do, rather than making an actual scrap book about their books. I'm not sure they believe anything that involves reading and writing to be easy.

Fred Griffiths was essential in making this project happen. He set up the blog spaces for me, and I am the only administrator. I set the back drop for each page, and posted the first two blogs on each. One was an example of what to do for the image blogs, and the other outlined their requirements.

PROBLEMS: I had a few problems with adding my students to their blogs. Part of it was my fault. Fred showed me how to add my students, and I did. I practiced logging in as the students, using their student ID's and passwords...and I couldn't log in. I emailed Fred, and he was at a meeting not at the high school. I started to panic: I wanted to show the kids how to log in and use Word Press on this day.

I found Doreen and Nancy, and they tried to help me figure out what was wrong. No luck. I went back to my class thinking I was going to have to do explain the blogs on another day. A knock at my door, and in walks Doreen. "I could not figure out what was wrong, so I tried logging in as a student using their first name and password, and it worked!" I was so relieved, and made the quick adjustment to the document, Book Blogging Instructions (see above widget). My students were able to log on successfully!

Their is a hierarchy to blogging that starts at the top with administrator, then editor, author, contributor, and finally subscriber. Fred suggested keeping the students at the bottom of the food chain, in which I completely agreed. However, during my class demo, I soon realized that my project requirements will not be possible with keeping them as subscribers. "Hold on" I said, "I am going to see if this changes anything." I quickly changed them all to contributors. This gave them more options, however, when I went to show them how to add media, they did not have that ability. I now had to make them authors, which would give them the option to publish their blogs without me being able to read them first. Luckily, I have two classes with good kids. They are just saving their blogs and then I go in and publish them. It is working out quite well now!

media type="custom" key="7213477" width="35" height="35" media type="custom" key="7213527" width="35" height="35"

REFLECTION Just thimedia type="custom" key="7213727" align="left"s week, I had a student come into class with a smile on his face. "I think I figured out the blogging thing" he told me, "It's actually quite fun." Other than review games, I have not had a student tell me that something in English class was fun...let alone a writing activity. Later that class period, another student said, "Hey, this is kinda fun." Hearing this from two students that are reluctant readers and writers was astounding. In thinking about it though, blogging is just Word in another format. Maybe it's the collaboration or the fact that they know administrators, parents, and peers can all see what they are doing. Whatever it is, I am happy they are content in blogging. On the flip side, I am noticing a lot of grammatical errors. Luckily, I do have small class sizes in the two groups that are blogging, but I am having a hard time helping them edit their own writing. I don't want to take the "fun" away from this, by having them submit their blogs to me via Word before pasting it into the blog. Any suggestions would be appreciated. Next semester, we will be doing another independent reading project. I am hoping that my mentor teacher's high English class will join our blog site. I would like to just make one blog site for all of the high groups and add a new requirement; commenting. I plan to have them comment on one of each peer's blogs for this project too. During our presentations, they will have to leave comments. Next time, I am going to have them comment during the blogging process, and hope that the students will encourage each other to blog, so that they can comment. Also, getting peer, teacher, and administrator comments, may motivate them to edit their writing. Mrs. Weller does my observations, and was in my class on a day that we did a collaborative Google Doc. She loved it! I showed her our blogs, and she thought that was great as well. I think it would be awesome to have administration comment on the students blogs. It would really help develop relationships and create motivation. Mrs. Weller did agree to do this during the week of October 25th, so I am looking forward to that. The only problem I can see with having a large group blog site will be monitoring it. If the students must remain authors to blog correctly, then we will really have to monitor what is published. I would like to use blogging more, but at the same time, I don't want to make it as common place as Word. I'm hoping to explore using Edmodo for our class reading projects.

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