During our professional development today, I posted a few tweets with the hashtag #learningcube. My thinking was along the lines of "I want to be able to refer back to this later when I'm writing my blog post on this workshop." So I'm sitting here 2 1/2 hours later thinking about the iPad and the tweet by @zemote who said that the iPad + Edmodo is going to be super-cool. Also crossing my mind was the fact that @chadsansing uses iPod Touch technology when our kids chat on Fridays. Finally, in this blender of thought, I think of the #edchat backchannel and the #ncte backchannel and how webinars have conversation happening in a sidebar during the presentation. All of this is swirling around in my head and somehow my read alouds get caught up in the swirl and what I end up with is this:
I want to use Edmodo as a backchannel for mini-lessons and read alouds. I don't quite have 1:1 except in my 2nd hour class, but two students running on the same username isn't a big deal.
I was thinking specifically about read alouds, and helping students monitor their thoughts while they're reading, or initially, being read to. They would be able to see this both on the screen in front of them and on the big screen at the front of the room. After the read aloud, we'll look at the channel together and debrief about how they're making meaning, what kinds of questioning and predictions they're coming up with and how they can use these strategies in their independent reading.
I also happen to have a SMARTboard and a second projector. During mini-lessons, to foster engagement, students could take polls, ask questions and make comments that would be projected onto the SMARTboard and discussed during the presentation, much like what is done during webinars.
For the moment, though, I think I'm going to start with read alouds.
Thoughts before implementation?
3 comments:
I hope all your students are very fluent. It is very difficult to follow oral language and take notes or formulate questions at the same time. In terms of language development this is one of the more difficult tasks. (thought I'd mention that) I would worry that kids will be listening for a bit, and then so absorbed in writing questions or figuring out the interface that they will stop listening, or miss big chunks. Maybe pause after each section and give them time to write, reflect, post questions.
Ca makes am excellent point. I've toyed around with having backchannel discussions with my 7th graders, but decided that the multitasking would be too much. An alternative might be to have the accomplished readers engage in the backchannel discussion (without it being projected), and then treat this as a way to review the reading (and proper reading strategies) once the read-aloud is over.
That being said, I'd really like to try the backchannel discussion with my students the next time we watch a film in class. My students can barely keep quiet during movies, so this would provide an educational outlet for their attention issues.
Bravo for considering something so innovative! I love using Edmodo any chance that I get!
Go for it. I think social reading is the best next step we can take in reading at school. Definitely pause to allow time to post & reflect with the projector showing the big conversation as it unfolds. Think about chunks of text as if they were YouTube videos: let's watch together, then trade texts and watch the next one.
Great idea. Looking forward to hearing about how it goes :)
Best,
C
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