Rochelle

= Rochelle's Page =


 * February 12 - 1 1/2 hours -** initial meeting
 * February 23 - 1 1/2 hours -** meeting in the MS computer lab for some rockin' instruction from Cheryl.


 * March 1** - **3 hours** - I created my own wiki page for my English 2 students to record their reading logs. I also, tweaked my Google site by reorganizing it and cleaning it up. I am thinking I should create offline pages to post information more efficiently next year.


 * March 16** - **2 hours** - Gosh! Where did 15 days go? I forgot the three online hours, so I'll do those this week. It will be cool to check out what everyone else has done. Today, I checked out Flickr to see if the site might work for our spring break photo contest. I decided it could, but it seems that I will have to invite anyone who wants to add his or her photo or leave the site open to anyone. Guess I had better determine some guidelines for how students can post their photos. Here is one of my favorite shots from my spring break travels.
 * March 17** - **1 hour** - Today I spent an hour looking at articles and reading and responding to posts on this wiki discussion.

I signed on to nettrekker.com and spent 15 minutes on the phone with a representative of the site touring the site. It looks good! The woman who walked me through the site said that our state legistature is paying for us to access the site until July 31. After that, it will be up to our school district to provide the access.
 * March 20** - **3 hours** - Meeting in the computer lab for three hours. We shared how we are using technology in the classroom. An important question: how does using technology rather than more traditional methods improve the student learning or experience. I think I'll need keep this in mind when I create assignments for online or technology.


 * April 4** - **1 hour** - Snowed in in Laramie. I'm taking the morning to work on my wiki. I have my daughter here with me, so she can show me what cool stuff I need to know. I created a page for my English 3 classes to log in and read a poem I have posted. I will direct them to do something similar to what Kathy did with her Trig. kids only with much more delightful content. They will read and follow the steps to "unlock" the poems first. Then they will post their process and findings. Finally, I will direct the class to read posts by other classmates and respond to those in discussion format.

In class today, I used my replacement laptop with the smartboard. I'm sure glad to be able to do that again. After the trainings in this PDP I have a newfound interest in my smartboard. Today I used it in three classes to model poem annotation using Robert Frost's "The Road Less Traveled."
 * April 8** - **1 1/2 hours** - Meeting in the lab for 1 1/2 hours to continue work on achieving wiki-goddessness. I am going to try to explore further the nettrekker site for more lesson ideas.


 * April 10 - 1 hour online**- I tweaked the English 3 wiki and created a wiki for Humanities to do an assignment and online discussion. I also did some more searching of the nettrekker site. I found some interesting items related to journalism. It's hard to find good, educationally sound journalism lesson ideas for high school students. I will need more time searching nettrekker to really gleen from it. I really spent lots of time online this weekend just fine-tuning the wiki and looking for tech options. The Internet can be a time sucker. I know that if I give my students a task in front of a computer with Internet access, I must provide clear guidance and expectations. It's easy to get side-tracked even on healthy information. It isn't always my concern that students will log on to their Facebook accounts. There's a lot out there to see.

I introduced the wiki discussion concept to my English 3 classes. I posted a Frost poem online and assigned the class to put to use the strategies for unlocking poetry on it. The classes then posted their findings in the discussion tab. I found that I got several good posts but a few silly or half-hearted posts. I asked a few students to try again if they didn't keep the assignment in school style. Otherwise, the assignment gave me good feedback about who can use literary terminology and who can follow the directions. Some students really want to write casually in this medium. On one hand, I got some pieces containing strong voice. On the other hand, I got some work that was on the verge of inappropriate. I see I need to firm up my directions both written and verbal. I also found out that many students didn't know about wikis. It was good to try a different medium and to have the responses on in one place.
 * Week of April 9 -17** - **In class hours for the six days - 15.**
 * My Wiki -** **http://bhhs-english.wikispaces.com/**

I introduced the wiki to my English 2 classes. This is the wiki I had created a while ago. I asked my students to record their reading logs on their pages within the English 2 tab. They used a template I had copied onto their pages. We went through the sign-up together and talked about online concerns. It should be interesting to see how this works. The students shouldn't lose their reading logs, although they are accessible to everyone and I wonder about copying. I'll assign next the class to read each other's comments and then post on the individual discussion tabs comments and questions about each other's books. In the past, I've assigned reading logs, but I haven't assigned further interaction than brief classroom sharing verbally. Again, asking students to read, comment, and discuss online in writing is good, I think for their thinking skills, clarity of meaning in writing skills, and reading comprehension skills.
 * April 17 - In class 1 hour**