Great for US History/Government Teachers
By Mike Hasley | August 6, 2008
It’s free and includes discussion forums, fun games and activities, and hundreds of current and historic videos from NBC News. Take a tour!
Topics: Instruction, Social Studies, Technology, Writing | No Comments »
The Girl Effect
By Mike Hasley | July 30, 2008
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Sounds like a good student club.
Topics: Discussion, Thoughts | No Comments »
Better Writing With Web 2.0
By Mike Hasley | July 30, 2008
There are two guiding principles to good writing: practice and reflection. This writing plan aims to use these guiding principles to help students become better writers while using technology and collaboration. The final goal is to have each students create their own papers that are well researched and ready to stand the test of peer review.
Step One: Google Documents
Google Documents provides one of the best resources for online productivity and collaborative ability.
- Have each of your students create an account with Google at: http://tinyurl.com/8mn3y (if you’re stuck typing out the URL, or go to google.com and click on “sign in” found in the upper right corner and then on the next page, you’ll see “create an account now” on the bottom right.
- Make sure they use names you will recognize
- Do this early so that each student can log into Google without any problems on the day you are ready to do this activity.
Step Two: Collaboration Teams
Students will work in teams and write weekly on a joint paper using Google Documents. Each week, they will complete a certain role until everyone has done it 3 - 5 times.
- Teach the basics of essay writing (see resources)
- Create teams of 3-5 (no more, no less). Try to keep it the same for everyone, though this won’t always be possible.
- The number of people in the group determines the number of essays in the paper and the length of the paper; e.g., 4 people mean they will write 4 paragraphs.
Differentiation: Student Editors.
You could begin your class with a pre-writing test to see if you already have students you believe possess good writing skills. If you do have these students, they can be your editors for the papers that are being written.
Step Three: Essay Writing
For the first few essays, students will focus on a single writing strategy (an Intro for example) and timelines will need to be kept so that the student who writes the Introduction in a timely manner for those who will write the body and conclusion.
- Essay 1 (four people): Student 1 does the Introduction with 2 thesis points, Student 2 does body 1 from thesis point 1, Student 3 does body 2 from thesis point 2, Student 4 writes the conclusion.
- Essay 2: everyone rotates and this continues until everyone has fulfilled a role.
- Students will add other team members as collaborators to the paper (the Introduction role will do the inviting). Also, the students should make sure to invite their teacher as a collaborator, also.
- Students will complete a rubric form before turning the paper into the teacher.
Step Four: Research Phase
Two things will occur simultaneously in Step Four: continued collaborative writing and research.
After students are familiar with the writing process, they will be partnered up with one other student to complete two research based papers (at least 5 paragraphs long). This does not have to be with someone in their class; since, anyone in the world with an e-mail address could be the collaborative writer. You may want to find collaboration partners from 2 different schools in your county.
- Students will alternate writing the Introductory paragraph
- Students will use a rubric to complete the paper before turning it in
Research
To help facilitate each student’s own understanding of quality research, students will adopt a Wikipedia article to monitor. This page can be class related or based on individual interest. Either way, the teacher should ensure that the page is popular enough to warrant monitoring (there are weekly edits). The teacher can even randomly add facts to see if the student fact checks it.
- Students create an account with Wikipedia and are assigned a topic
- Students watch the edit page, and with any new edit, they will fact check it or check for bias and spelling/grammar. By watching for mistakes, they will better understand the reliability of Wikipedia
Step Five: Individual Writing
At some point, student should be successfully writing their own fully researched papers. Students can still use Google Docs however if they want a peer review (of their choice) but should still include the teacher. This paper will be turned in for a grade, but also uploaded to Google Knol for public viewing.
By now, the students should understand thesis writing, supportive facts, relevant research, and how to monitor a wikipage. Their own article will help motivate the student to become a lifelong learner as they will see people attempting to edit their paper or leave comments.
Resources:
Topics: 21st Century Skills, Best Practices, Knol, Writing | No Comments »
Watch Out Wikipedia
By Mike Hasley | July 24, 2008
Ever heard of a knol?
Not the grassy knoll.
A knol, according to Google is a unit of knowledge. It’s this: Knol.
Knol is Google’s attempt to compete with Wikipedia. After all, google nearly anything and Wikipedia almost always comes up first in the search. So, they must want part of that action, too.
There’s a major difference though, one that will interest teachers, is that articles (knols) are written by one person and the only people who can edit a knol is someone who logs into know with their Google account. Furthermore, editing isn’t instant. The original author must approve the edits.
Another feature is that a topic can be done more than once. So, five articles on Theodore Roosevelt can exist. Readers rate the articles, the best one rises to the top.
This should be seen as a teacher’s dream come true! Imagine, teaching the writing process to students and then they submit their research to an authentic, real world audience. Yes, teachers are authentic, but whose comment will a student listen to more, their teacher’s or a strangers?
This will create ownership for students and their writing. This can be published work that they present to colleges or even the work place.
I don’t know if this will ever surpass Wikipedia, but it’s definitely a tool that teachers should start using.
Topics: 21st Century Skills, Google, Knol, Technology, Wiki, Writing | 2 Comments »