Escritura (Writing Process)

Been struggling all year with writing in my Spanish 5 class.  How do I get kids to write without compromising themselves or second guessing their linguistic abilities?  Without cheating?  What is cheating?  Do we decide together?  Do I tell them?  Do I require drafts?  Only assign writing in class on paper?

I have toyed with all those things and just today, I think it is finally going well.  Last Friday before break they wrote collaborative one-act plays about two sides of the same person.  (Based on She and Ella in Coser y Cantar by Dolores Prida).  They were all in a circle and in groups of three, each group had two minutes with they play, then they had to pass it on and work on another.  I think in 45 minutes we wrote 4 plays, as a class.  They were a little irreverent (okay-- a lot irreverent, but it was the last day before vacation), but it was fun, and funny, and we were all working together and most of us were writing. 

Then today they started work on their individual projects.  Same idea:  a one act play with two charachters representing two sides of one person.  We made a rubric together then they each began work on a google doc.  They had to invite another spanish speaker (someone in the class or elsewhere) and me.  So while the wrote, I looked over their progress and sent them little notes in the chat feature, or made some collaborative edits and could see their progress as they were writing. 

Another feature we have added is that all words that they look up, or use a translator to find, need to be in red, and then they have to put a definition of the word, in Spanish, at the end of their work.  This seems to be going well too and then we can use the lists as learning opportunities for the rest of the students when we do the peer reviews.  That will be next week.  Then they will perform their plays.  I wonder if they will let me video them?!

Close your computers, sometimes.

I have been re-reading The Last Child in the Woods by Richard Louv. Also I have been thinking about my work which aims to infuse technology (as one line of strategy) into classes to enhance student learning.

Kids need to be connected to nature.

Kids need to/ love to communicate/share/learn/ collaborate using technology.

These two things don't have to be mutually exclusive. As a teacher and a parent, I don't have to pick a side. I believe that they are both important and I believe that we need to embrace both as we educate ourselves and our children. Gone are the days when pale tech-geeks hide in the basement shadows. You can (and I do) love tech and love the outdoors and being "unplugged". The school where I work is a 1:1 school but in the middle school, for summer school, kids don't take computers home. That is part logistical issue and part a decision to give kids a summer. That is not to say that most of the students are not on their personal computers at home, but I think it is a bold and good thing for a school to say (in so many words), "Be a kid this summer, leave your laptop at school."

But when you are in school does this become a different question? What are the implications of choosing to be "pro" or "anti" laptops when it comes to your instruction and your classroom? I was reading a great blog post by @capohanka about her reaction (as an adult learner) to being told to leave her computer at home for a day-long workshop. She was "snarky"; I get that. This year as a graduate student I was also told to close my computer and denied wireless access in some classes. We are ADULTS! If you can't keep us engaged, then you need to re-think your instruction. Wait, shouldn't that be the same thing with students of any age? And shouldn't teachers, of all levels, recognize that people learn in all sorts of ways and need to have access to the tools that best support their learning. And by agreeing to that, you are not saying that kids should look at computer screens 12 hours a day, you are saying that you are willing to support an optimal learning environment for each individual student.

Okay, I am going to head to the beach.

Life as a CRT: What is in a name?

This summer I am working in the middle school as a Curriculum Resource Teacher. It is a perfect transition position from a year of graduate school because I get to explore some bigger picture questions and help teachers make adjustments and improvements in their individual classes. At school, this position was previously called Technology Resource Teacher and was implemented as the school's 1:1 program was rolling out starting in 4th grade. Since then, people realized that focusing a position like this on technology communicates a sense that technology is something apart from the everyday work of teachers and an add-on, and not something that is embedded into our classrooms courses. So the name shifted to CRTs, from TRTs.

The title shifted, but the role remains focused on technology. CRT's assist with laptop roll out and network and hardware (computers, smartboards, projection systems) troubleshooting questions. So much so that more than once when teachers have seen one of us approaching a class, they quickly say " Oh, the computers are all fine, thank you!"

Thus, the question that remains is: how to you shift perception of the role of a group within a faculty? Is it enough to change the name of a position? How do you make shifting roles transparent and understood in a school (particularly a large k-12 school)?