Use, Abuse or Lose

Last week I was fortunate enough to meet with a group of innovative HS English teachers during a job-a-like session at ASB Un-Plugged 2010. We spent one hour discussing the ways we integrate technology and web 2.0 tools in our classrooms. I titled this post "Use, Abuse, or Lose" because that is my mantra at ISB when I share and collaborate with my peers. I honestly could care less if my colleagues use, abuse or lose the stuff I send them.  But if somehow by sharing, I can save them 1-2 hours of work so that they can read to their own children, share a romantic dinner with their spouse, or give them 30 minutes to do whatever they please, then my job is done.  So here is a list of things I have used, abused and a few I have lost in my experience as a high school English teacher. Take a minute and see if anything can inspire or relieve you of our never ending duty of creating meaningful teaching moments in our classrooms.

I house all my ePortfolios on www.netvibes.com/teachwatts. Everything is streamed into one account and I manage/read all of my students' work on one site. Check it out if you have a minute. I love it.  Their work comes to me and my life can now manage approximately 100 student blogs without falling too far behind with my grading.

I use Word Press for my students' ePortfolios.  Although they are still a work in progress, it allows my students a lot of freedom and ownership of their work.  Since I teach at an International School, I see their ePortfolio as a transportable gift.  As third culture kids, sometimes my students are given less than a week to relocate to a new country or school.  Word Press allows them the freedom to bring their ePortfolio with them without it being housed by our Moodle site.

Voice Thread: I have posted different passages from "The Odyssey" on VoiceThread and allowed my students to comment/write what they have found in each passage. Worked amazingly well for my ESL students and the ones that need more time to process their thoughts before making them public. This would work really well with a unit on poetry as well.

Digital Storytelling: I LOVE http://www.xtranormal.com/. So easy, if my 8 year old son can do it, so can my 10th graders.

Independent Reading: I use shelfari and have each of my students update what they are reading, friend me, and place the shelfari widget on their eporfolio. An easy way to make suggestions on novels.  I used to use a Ning but found that after my students had completed my class, their conversations stopped.  Shelfari keeps them going and there is an easy widget to add onto their ePortfolios/blogs to showcase what they are reading.

Oral Commentaries for IB: Take a look at audacity.

FanFiction: OK, this site rocks.  Students can add their own twists and turns to any story (popular, classics, plays, short stories, etc) and read what others are writing as well.

Turnitin.com: This site checks for plagiarism and now you attach a rubric and post comments and grades on the site.  All of my students use turnitin.com to submit their work.

Twitter: OK, I admit it took me awhile to "get" Twitter and there are times when I can't stay up with everything that is going on, but the number one device that made me love twitter- my TweetDeck.  If you download TweetDeck onto your browser, you can plug in hash tags for all of the conversations that are happening on twitter that you care about (some hash tags I follow: #eportfolios, #edtech, #asbup2010, @safety, #edchat).  My professional development comes to me.  Another way to use it is to watch a popular subject as it unfolds in the news.  For instance I typed in #salinger on the day Salinger passed away.  My Grade 10 English students could see the profound effect this author had on the lives of people all around the world by the minute.  We were only half way through the book and my students couldn't wait to finish the novel to see if Salinger would have as profound of an effect on them as he did for all of his fans around the world.  It helped me prove my case that Holden is just as relevant today as he was almost 60 years ago.

That's what I can think of for now.  As I think of more things I have used, abused, or lost, I will send them your way.  I promise.  Please feel free to comment on what works for you!