Book Review Podcasts

I just finished working with an eighth grade Language Arts teacher and her students on creating book review podcasts. (I've blogged previously on podcasting - here and here.)

Podcasts are a great way to build students skills not only in technology, but in academic content as well. I was inspired by the poster Langwitches created in her "It's not about the tools . . . it's about the skills". It is such a powerful visual reminder that having students record a podcast is not all about the podcast skills. It is about the writing, speaking, communication, etc. skills taught and reinforced in the process. It is about allowing students to build these skills in a real-world, hands-on experience.

One thing that really struck me throughout the recording process was the growing self-awareness that the students developed about how they sounded while speaking. Common remarks during the first day of recording included: "Do I actually sound like that?" "I need to record that again because I was mumbling" "I can barely hear myself. I need to speak louder next time." The ability to hear what they just said and receive immediate feed back allowed the students to analyze their recording for quality speaking skills. Without much coaching, the students listened to and reflected on the quality of their recordings (speaking skills) and then took measures to correct or improve upon their recording.

We used Audacity to record our podcasts. Alternatives to audacity are GarageBand (for Mac users) and Myna.

Timeline
1 Period - Write book review podcast script
1 Period - Introduce Audacity and let the students play/practice
2 Periods - Record vocal portions of podcast
1 Period - Import music and a sound effect

How To
Book Review Podcast Directions
Full screen version.

Audacity Instructions
Full screen version.

Final Product

To place all the podcasts in a place for all students to have access to them, I uploaded the podcasts to a glog - quick and easy! Each class has their own glog page with their podcasts like the picture to the left.

I wish I could share the direct link for you to listen to a few, but unfortunately I cannot.





Podcasting Skills and Literacies photo used under Creative Commons license from Langwitches.

30-Minute Projects with Miss M

I have been having a fun time this year coming up with alternative ways to assess student reading for the Language Arts teachers in my school - read here and here.
While some projects may take several class periods, I was asked to provide some ideas for a quick, one-period projects. So, I tried to come up with some quick 30-minute projects/assessments for teachers who cannot always spare much classroom time.


IDEA 1 - Bookr
How To:
Bookr allows you to create a photobook/photostory. What helps to make this project so quick is that all the tools necessary are in one place.
As long as the students come prepared with a short summary, character sketch, description of favorite part, theme analysis, etc., this can easily be completed in 30 minutes.
Creating Accounts
Students do not need accounts to use Bookr.
Steps
1. Students type one sentence or phrase per page.
2. Student find a picture (using the built-in flickr photo search) to support that text.
3. When the students finish their photo books, they should e-mail them to the teacher for assessment.
Example:

or view book here Soldier X
by Don Wulffson by Miss Makatche

IDEA 2 - BLABBERIZE
How To:
As long as the students come prepared with a short summary, character sketch, description of favorite part, theme analysis, etc., this can easily be completed in 30 minutes.
The finished product is fun and quirky. As I were testing Blabberize out in school, some eighth grade students in the library at the time all wanted to give it a try. So, this one is basically kid-tested and approved.
Creating Accounts
I created one account and was able to have more than one computer creating their blabberize at the same time. I recommend having only one account per class that all students log into because this will make grading the final products much easier since they will all be available on the same account.
Steps
1. Students find a picture of an animal/person/statue (basically anything with a mouth)
I would recommend having a folder on the network available with a variety of pictures from which the students can choose. This helps in two ways: It will save time and it will ensure that the students only choose a picture that has a good mouth area to work with the blabberize concept.
2. Students place the mouth movement area on their picture
3. Students record their written piece and publish/save
Example:


IDEA 3 - GOOGLE FORM
How To: Here is the quickest assessment of the three. While the students are not creating a product, the Google Form will provide the teacher with an easy, compact way to assess students' independent reading.
Creating Accounts
Students do not need to create accounts.
Teacher will have to have (or create) a free account with Google.
Steps
1. Teachers should embed form on website or wiki or blog or provide students with link to form.
2. Students simply fill out the form and hit submit.
Example:

or view form here.

Stopwatch photo used under Creative Commons license from http://www.flickr.com/photos/77436208@N00/2737425814/.

Character Traits with Wordle

I have been working with one of my eighth grade language arts teachers to create book projects 2.0 style. Since I've been on a Wordle kick lately, I thought I would come up with a book project using Wordle.

I had recently given my mom, a French teacher, the idea of using Wordle to have her students work with adjectives. Her students created word clouds of French adjectives describing themselves using Wordle. So, I thought, why not transfer that idea to characters in a book.

The students chose one character from their book on which to focus. They then filled out the worksheet embedded below to determine the character traits they would include.

Character Traits

View more documents from Miss Makatche.

Using Wordle Advanced (see previous post), students created their Character Trait word clouds.


Finally, the students will present their Character Trait word clouds to their classmates. They used the worksheet with the reasons/examples demonstrating why the character presents a trait to develop their oral presentation.

Cloudy in the Library

To continue our goal to build a culture of reading at the middle school, I decided to enlist the help of Wordle. I wanted to come up with a way for students to share with their classmates what books they have been reading. Wordle popped into my mind as a way to allow students to create fun "lists" of what they have read - aka "book clouds". Students have been hanging their newly created "book clouds" throughout the library.

TIPS

Creating Lists

Have students create a list in a Word document. This will prevent and solve any problems that arise from students running out of time or having technical difficulties with Wordle.

Create a numerical scale for them to stay within when creating their lists. I had students assign their names as 100. The maximum number they could assign a book title was 60 and the minimum number was 20. This prevented any titles from being too large and competing with their name or from being so small they could not be seen. I recommended that the students use the numbers as a rating system for how they liked the book - the more they liked it, the higher the number.

Encourage them to create a fairly lengthy list. I printed out their circulation logs to help them remember some titles they read. I recommend at least 25 titles.

Example List:
MISS MAKATCHE READS:100
Hunger Games:55
Fablehaven:50
Someone Named Eva:44
Soldier X:23
Sisters of the Sword:38
Jeremy Fink and the Meaning of Life:26


Using Wordle Advanced

Pasting the list into Wordle Advanced allows you to keep book titles together.

Wordle - Advanced Tools via kwout

Personalizing

Students can continue to hit the RANDOMIZE button until they find a configuration that they like.

The students can tweak the color, font, and layout by using the toolbar at the top of their word cloud.

EXAMPLE


Cloud photo used under Creative Commons license from http://www.flickr.com/photos/35375520@N07/3680331543/.

Rethinking Vocabulary

Merriam-Webster defines "drudgery" as "dull, irksome, uninspiring or menial labor". As students are working on homework in the library, I tend to hear, "Miss M, can you help me/us?" While often it is technology related or project related, many times they need help with their vocabulary homework. I have sat down with many students to help them through their vocabulary workbook . . . talk about uninspiring.

I wonder if a different approach would be more inspiring and interactive to students, and therefore more effective. So, I began to build an alternative (or additional) approach to vocabulary to share with my Language Arts teachers. I wanted the options to be practical, completable in one class period, and introduce and/or reinforce the vocabulary for the week.


1. Wordia - have student pick a word from the list and create a short video wordia-style

• Have students sit/stand in front of camera with little to no props and explain the word by defining it, telling what it means to them, and giving an example of how to use the word

2. WordAhead - have students create their own narrated definition and example sentence with a visual

• Instead of having one picture playing the entire explanation (as is done in wordahead) I would have students use a comic generator
• Try Pixton, Bitstrips, or GoAnimate

3. Weboword - have students create their own stick-figure representations of their word

• This could be done on good old paper and scanned, in Paint, or try ArtPad or SketchPad

4. Shahi - have students create their own visual dictionary

• To find pictures try compfight, morguefile, 4FreePhotos, and behold
• How you choose to have the students create and share their visual dictionary - PowerPoint, online presentation apps, MovieMaker, Word document, Wikispaces, Photostory, Animoto, Big Huge Labs

All of these sites themselves could be used to introduce students to their vocabulary. However, the number of words available on these sites is very limited. I think their true strength lies in providing an example of what students could produce by working with their vocab words.

Books Lists Made Fun

I always love finding new ways to promote reading with my students. So, I have slowly been adding to my web2.0 repetoire of book and reading websites.
22books is one of my new favorites. 22books allows you to create book embeddable book lists. The site is very easy to use and plans on offering more features in the near future (ability to share lists, blog lists, etc.)

List Ideas
1. summer reading lists
2. author book lists
3. genre book lists
4. new books in the library
5. books I would like to read
6. books similar to ______________ .
7. books that make use of

Classroom Ideas
1. If students project is to create a wikipage for a school project, have them embed a list on a wiki with books that go along with the topic of the page
2. Have students create lists of books that display a specific literature element
3. Let students create list of books that caught their attention after book talking
4. Let students just have fun with it!

Examples:
In the future they plan on providing users with the opportunity to blog their lists. So, for now, here a direct link to the list I created for students who have read all the books from the Twilight series and are looking for similar reads. If you would like to see an embedded version of the list, you can see it here on my wikispace.

Poetry in Pictures

What is poetry, but pictures made of words. So, when I found a website that married the two, I was thrilled. I have already shown one of my fifth grade teachers PicLits and she will be using it during her poetry unit. It is very easy to use, which makes quick (even spur-of-the-moment) implementation possible.

One of the qualities I love about PicLits, is that (while preferable) you do not need to create an account to use it. When I see web applications like that, I cheer, because I know using it with students will be so much easier.

Also, PicLits includes a Learn It section that provides lesson ideas for using PicLits in the classroom. They are best suited for high school students, but could be modified for use by younger students.

There are two methods: the drag-and-drop and the freestyle. Drag-and-drop is exactly like magnetic poetry. However, the words provided you are tailored to the picture that you have chosen. I think this is fun, however, I see more potential in the classroom for the freestyle method. By choosing freestyle, students can type in whatever they want to say.

Examples:

See the full PicLit at PicLits.com


See the full PicLit at PicLits.com

Classroom Ideas:
1. matching a student-created poem with a powerful picture
2. using pictures for inspiration to creative writing or writing poems
3. writing sentences that include vocabulary words or grammar concepts and choosing pictures that best express the meaning of the word and/or sentences
4. teaching students about nouns, adjectives, adverbs, verbs (a possible alternative to mad-libs)

Photo by http://www.flickr.com/photos/surrealmuse/4757004/

One for the Language Arts Teachers

This week I happened to be introduced to two new sites that are so perfect for language arts and english teachers as they deal directly with spelling and vocabulary. Now, if I remember my middle school and high school days correctly, I would have been glad for anything innovative (and dare I say) fun that could have been done for these two tedious topics. So, I would like to introduce wordia and spellingcity to you.

Wordia - This was a popular one in the blogs this week, so I thought I needed to check it out for myself. My conclusion is wordia + vocabulary = good times!

Example: Here is an example from the site. I have not created one for myself . . . yet.

Classroom Ideas:

1. This could be used by teachers to create an interactive vocab list. Put up a list of links to the URLs of vocab words. Students can use these to help them study and internalize the meanings.

2. Assign each student a word from the list and have them create their own videos to upload and share to the class.


SpellingCity - In three steps you can create a fun and interactive way for your students to study their spelling words. Step 1 - As a teacher, you can register for a free account. Step 2 - Begin by create spelling lists (which will be saved until you delete them). Step 3 - Place a link on your website so students can easily access your list(s). It truly is as easy as that!

Example: Here is an example I created for Thanksgiving spelling words.

Classroom Ideas: This one is pretty straight forward - just begin creating lists for students to use! With each list, students can be taught the words, play games to practice, and take tests to check their knowledge.

Photo by http://www.flickr.com/photos/marcgutierrez/352732175/