Suza+Early+Adopter

Early Adopter: Inquiry & Design Challenge
Link to Learning More and Different: http://sbisdlearnsymphony.wikispaces.com/EA+Cohort+1 =**What can students use after Stratford?**= Questions to consider : 1. Technology can appeal to different kinds of learners. 2. It also allows students to create something that leaves an impression on them, which is better than memorizing and moving on. 1. Leaves a longer lasting impression on the learner. 2. Students create/hypothesize/predict as part of the learning process. 3.
 * Soft Skills My Students are Learning:**
 * **digital collaboration through Google and Edmodo**
 * **creating documents from anywhere through Google Docs**
 * **managing small groups by sharing on Google**
 * **digital citzenship**
 * Multiple Intelligences and 21st Century Thinking Guru** //**-** Howard Gardner (Professor in Cognition and Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education)//
 * In order of significance, what benefits would Gardner recognize to embedding technology in practice?
 * How might mobilizing technologies support better instruction for MI?
 * According to Gardner, what are the four most significant components of sustainable educational improvement?


 * [|Early Adopters vs. Staff Development]**

My focus this year is having my students really collaborate with each other so that they are not just all posting their answers to their book club questions, but also interact with each other. I like Sara's suggestion that the students should respond to someone else's answer to a question by agreeing or disagreeing and adding more text evidence for support and explaining their responses. This will actually be a terrific way to encourage critical thinking and lead into their literary criticism assignment in which they'll find a critical article and agree and/or disagree with the article, as well as bring in text evidence for their support.

Prototype Next Step: After students have posted their three answers on Edmodo or Google and discussed the reading with their book club members, they can then critique other students' responses in Edmodo and respond to one of those posts (as described above). My needs to reach the goal of having my students learn something useful to take to college is to give the kids the time to experiment with Google or Diigo and also to have time for me to do the same.

Destination Postcard: 

Name: Suza Sharp
 * Campus: Stratford High School
 * Grade Level(s): English III and IV AP
 * Discipline: English
 * Topic: Student reflection and design
 * My focus question is how will I know if shared reflection of assignments has benefited my students (how will they know)? If they create a shared format, such a webpage, wiki, or Edmodo, will everyone contribute to the reflection, or will students rely on others more to respond? Will their responses be influenced by others' ideas if they use a shared platform? Will students' engagement in learning be enhanced through reflection? Should a variety of platforms be used for student reflection?
 * Search for existing resources (articles, websites, blogs, videos, etc.) - post below and be sure to add them to your campus Diigo
 * Jigsaw notetaking and sharing of resources
 * Individually, design a student resource, activity type, or project to try in the classroom over the next month to test. Then, get feedback from partners.
 * Try out resource, activity type, or project during the month(s), documenting plan, process, execution and reflection and collect student work samples.
 * Focus Question: How is posting students' questions and ideas about their novel on a wikipage spontaneous enough for them to get their ideas down and is this activity meaningful and not just a gimmick? How does using a wiki for book club help them analyze elements


 * An Opportunity in Overalls**

How is your journey like that of a storyteller? Of a researcher?

Well, I try to keep my audience in mind and do what is best for them (the students). My role is also like a researcher in that I have experimented with the technology in the classroom and learned from trial and error what works and what doesn't. I also listen to my guinea pigs!

What question did you start out to find answer(s) to?


 * What tweaks, edits, modifications have you made to your focus question? What difference did using this particular platform, wiki, make? Did it matter that the reflection was on a wiki, as opposed to Edmodo, or even handwritten?
 * I think that my focus on reflection has shifted and doesn't seem to be in the forefront of my teaching as much as I thought it would be. The only difference using this platform has made is that I have interacted with wiki more than I ever have, and I used it (unsuccessfully) in my classroom. I have mentioned already that the kids found it inconvenient to post on wiki because they can't do that on an ipad or their phone, so Edmodo is better in that scenario.
 * What question(s) remain? Was this attempt really meaningful, or was it just an experiment for my purposes? I didn't feel like this attempt was meaningful, honestly, but I did want to introduce something new to the classroom and to learn myself. 2/24: Using diigo and Google Presentations in my classroom has been meaningful and steps toward fulfilling my goal of using something that my students can take with them to use in college.
 * What new questions have surfaced as a result of your exploration this far? What else could I have added to the book club project on the wiki that would have made it more appealing to my students? What other components should I haved added (link to literary criticism, required comment on another's wikipage) Good questions. I don't know that I would completely change my approach to book club next year (that was a project in the fall semester). I still like the idea of using an electronic, collaborative platform and wiki allowed my students to organize their thoughts, answer my questions, and post reflections on the same page, which is a more accessible structure than Edmodo. If students can edit their wikipage from their ipads and iphones by next fall, then I'll use this again. I do like the idea of adding links to literary criticism because the next assignment after the book club is to write a criticism of a literary criticism article about their book club book. Now, after talking to you, Sarah, I'll also revise how I approach my diigo group for them. So you said you had your students add resources to the diigo and annotate their findings, which puts more responsibility (ownership) on them. Perhaps this is my project for next time because both my seniors and my juniors research literary criticism at some point in the year... so now I want to explore using diigo more in my classroom. 2/24: I did use diigo with my classes, and it was a great collaborative tool. I just let them go with it and did not show them step-by-step what or how to do it, as my usual controlling instincts tell me to. The students figured everything out on their own and they did the work; they are the ones who learned in the process, which is what should happen.

As a researcher:

What are you measuring? The usefulness, meaningfulness of the activity to my students, as opposed to any other way of expressing onself and sharing ideas culminated over a one month period of book club.


 * What patterns are surfacing? when I asked for specific feeback about what they learned from their book club discussions, everyone had something different they learned--even if they were in the same group
 * What themes are emerging? they benefited from reading each other's perspectives
 * What does your data suggest? having access to other's ideas in writing is helpful (but it doesn't necessarily have to be on wiki)

As a learner:


 * Where have you allowed yourself to be vulnerable in this process? I've been frustrated easily by the wiki because I wanted the students to enjoy it as much as I hoped they would. I also found my attempt at using diigo was half-baked, so that is something I would like to explore more.
 * How are you allowing yourself, your professional learning to be 'seen'? By whom?
 * In what way(s) have you found the courage to be 'imperfect'? Still learning..... but I do admit to the kids what I don't know or what I don't like about a program. We have discussed the limitations and frustrations of the wiki.
 * What //a-ha!// moments, elements of a 'spiritual awakening'/"breakdown" have you experienced? What might these insights suggested to you? Even though I thought I was doing this wiki project for the book club to fulfill the Early Adopters, I realize now that I'll probably do the same approach for book club with some tweaks/additions. That is my big ah-ha. I already forgot that this was my initial project for Early Adopters, and I like that you personalize suggestions for me to use for book club.

What story is unfolding from your research?


 * I'd like to use diigo in my classroom more
 * Keep an eye out for changes to wiki--compatibility with ipad and iphone.

> Resources:
 * Activity: