Welcome to those of you from CEATCA today! Thank you for coming to our presentation and for your great comments and feedback.
If you have any questions about what we presented today, please do not hesitate to contact me for more information! mrsleschert@gmail.com
Friday, March 9, 2012
Thursday, March 8, 2012
QR Codes
You may have noticed these funny 'barcode' type symbols cropping up everywhere - from real estate ads to application forms to our shirts!
These are called QR codes (Quick-response Codes) - and they're quite easy to make and fun to use! Basically, a QR code stores a variety of information.
How to make one:
These are called QR codes (Quick-response Codes) - and they're quite easy to make and fun to use! Basically, a QR code stores a variety of information.
How to make one:
Poll Everywhere
Tired of students using their cellphones for texting? Give them a specific use and keep them occupied with some pre-planned or off-the-cuff surveys! With a free account, you can receive up to 40 responses for one question.
Some of the ways I use this in my classroom:
- Grad song & theme selection!
- Bell Task
- Pre-learning activity
- Check for understanding
- Exit slip
- Brainstorming session (with moderation - does cost $) - but what about staff meetings?
- Take the brainstorming a step further - convert to a Wordle!
Would you use this website in your classroom? (poll)
Possible uses within your classroom (brainstorming)
H/T: Free Technology for Teachers (a favourite resource!)
YouTube Channels for English Teachers
- Maya Angelou
- Jane Austen
- Princess Di (what about when teaching "Candle in the Wind" to students who don't know who she was?)
The History of English (Playlist from Open U)
"Shakespeare"
"Internet English"
- Digital Storytelling Project (making writing authentic)
- Poem Read by Derek Walcott (1992 winner, poet)
Rick Mercer Report (not just for the Social teacher - teaching SATIRE!)
- Anonymous - Warning to Vic Toews (fantastic allusion!)
- New Board Game
Vancouver Poetry SLAM (make sure to preview content BEFORE using)
- Shoolie - Video Games - especially for those students who think poetry is just about love!
- I frequently use YouTube clips in my classroom - these channels provide useful and related clips that I might not otherwise find
Vocabahead & Toasted Cheese
Students need tremendous support in developing their vocabulary - here is a website a colleague has been using to create handouts from to provide her ELA 30-1s with a "glossary" of words:
Sample Handout for Taming of the Shrew
I frequently pair vocabulary words with creative writing - my students complain for a bit, but very quickly get the hang of it and become very proud of their pieces and even want to share them aloud. When I'm stuck for creative writing prompts, I turn to Toasted Cheese Daily Writing Prompts.
Ways I use this in my classroom:
Sample Handout for Taming of the Shrew
I frequently pair vocabulary words with creative writing - my students complain for a bit, but very quickly get the hang of it and become very proud of their pieces and even want to share them aloud. When I'm stuck for creative writing prompts, I turn to Toasted Cheese Daily Writing Prompts.
Ways I use this in my classroom:
- provide students with a list of words each week and then create a weekly game/quiz situation for the words (something fun for Fridays?)
- after students have accumulated a list of words (either from handouts, or ones from short stories), I have them pick the words they "struggle" with (I choose a number - usually around 15) and then they use them in their writing prompts; this helps in differentiating their writing and learning very easily
Non-fiction Reading
Kelly Gallagher's Article of the Week
"Part of the reason my students have such a hard time reading is because they bring little prior knowledge and background to the written page. They can decode the words, but the words remain meaningless without a foundation of knowledge.Some of the ways I have used this tool in my classroom:
To help build my students’ prior knowledge, I assign them an "Article of the Week" every Monday morning. By the end of the school year I want them to have read 35 to 40 articles about what is going on in the world. It is not enough to simply teach my students to recognize theme in a given novel; if my students are to become literate, they must broaden their reading experiences into real-world text."
- teaching grade 9s to summarize/paraphrase for their research essays
- providing current non-fiction pieces to my students
- teaching my students about precis writing
Stettler's Significant Objects
Concept
A few years ago I heard about the "Significant Objects Project" from Brenda Dyck here at Teachers' Convention - I decided I wanted to give it a try!
Their website gives the background:
Our Project (the "Reader's Digest version")
I built a simple blog for our project: Stettler's Significant Objects while students collected their objects and began writing their stories. This was a true "draft" process. Once their stories were 'polished', we published them to the website.
The next step was to publish them to our eBay seller's account, to experiment and see if people would find new value in the items because of their stories. Students sold copies of their stories along with the objects. Students could choose to keep 50% of their profit, or donate it to charity along with the other 50%.
Overall, I had 100% participation from two classes of ELA 20-1 students. It was truly amazing and a "real-life" opportunity for them!
Their website gives the background:
"Significant Objects, a literary and anthropological experiment whose first two phases ran from July 2009 through October 2010, demonstrated that the effect of narrative on any given object’s subjective value can be measured objectively. The project auctioned off thrift-store objects via eBay; for item descriptions, short stories purpose-written by over 200 contributing writers, including Meg Cabot,William Gibson, Ben Greenman, Sheila Heti, Neil LaBute, Jonathan Lethem, Tom McCarthy, Lydia Millet, Jenny Offill, Bruce Sterling, Scarlett Thomas, and Colson Whitehead, were substituted. The objects, purchased for $1.25 apiece on average, sold for nearly $8,000.00 in total. (Proceeds were distributed to the contributors, and to nonprofit creative writing organizations.) The project’s organizers, Rob Walker and Joshua Glenn, are currently working on the third phase: a collection of stories, which will be published by Fantagraphics in April 2012. Phase four will be announced at that time. Enjoy the stories here, and stay tuned!"After contacting the project co-founders, they gave us the go-ahead to try it out ourselves! And so we began....
Our Project (the "Reader's Digest version")
I built a simple blog for our project: Stettler's Significant Objects while students collected their objects and began writing their stories. This was a true "draft" process. Once their stories were 'polished', we published them to the website.
The next step was to publish them to our eBay seller's account, to experiment and see if people would find new value in the items because of their stories. Students sold copies of their stories along with the objects. Students could choose to keep 50% of their profit, or donate it to charity along with the other 50%.
Overall, I had 100% participation from two classes of ELA 20-1 students. It was truly amazing and a "real-life" opportunity for them!
ELA 20-1 Competencies that match with this project (see attached)
Probably the best connection is: " take ownership of text creation, by selecting or crafting a topic, concept or idea that is personally meaningful and engaging" (ELA 20-1, 4.1.3 a) - and this project most definitely achieved this!
Stettler's Significant Objects Book
As a memento for students, they will each receive a copy of a book of all of the stories from this project. It includes the accolades of the project co-founders as well some of the other support and comments we received.
ELAC Conference 2012
This session wouldn't be complete without a plug for ELAC's Conference - the best ELA PD out there!
Wednesday, March 7, 2012
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