Chapter 11 Generating and Testing Hypotheses

This last chapter explained software that the students can use to test their hypotheses and communicate their findings.

Even though I'm still trying to think of what kind of hypotheses my students could come up with in my class, the chapter did give me some general teaching practices to consider. My students do need to use technology in my classroom. As citizens in the technology age they are entitled to know how to use it and to have opportunities to use it. At the same time, when I do integrate the technology into the classroom it should be just that - an integration. As mentioned in the chapter, I don't want any lesson to be , for example, how to make a Power Point. Rather I want my lesson to be about the curriculum that includes having my students use Power Point to demonstrate what they've learned.

I appreciate the MTS Lesson Plan Template included in the Appendix. I will use it when designing my lessons to make sure I am integrating technology in a positive, productive way that enhances and facilitates the students' learning experience in my class.

Chapter 10 Homework and Practicing

In the beginning of the chapter I was reminded how important homework can be. Of course it has to be the right kind of homework - with an identified purpose and it needs to be commented on.

My favorite application in this chapter was having the students use the search in Microsoft Word. When the student finishes he should check his work with the auto summary to make sure he got his point across. And he should check grade-level rating to make sure he wrote on an appropriate level. My students usually write in Spanish so I wonder if the program will do the search or the summary in Spanish. Sometimes students use my student computers after school or during one of their study times to do work for one of their other classes. From now on I will encourage them to check the summary and grade-level rating of everything they write. I know I will be doing that with my own work.

I think my students will enjoy using www.flashcardexchange.com. They can test themselves using flashcards other people made or they can make their own flashcards. They can decide to share their flash cards or not. The site already has a lot of Spanish cards - including verbs as well as nouns.

Chapter 9 Identifying Similarities and Differences

This chapter is about software for the students to use to help them to categorize what they've learned by identifying similarities and differences.

One way of doing this is by using a Venn Diagram. My students could easily use this to show which nouns and adjectives are masculine and which are feminine and which can be used for both. They could also use it to compare cultures of the different countries that they study - comparing the studied cultures to each other or to their own culture.

I also liked the idea of using a classifying ideas template to put categorize stories that they have read. I like the idea the teacher had of the students using their own system and then showing their work to a classmate. Then each student has to figure out how the other put the stories into categories. That's a lot of comparing - the student making his own categories and justify them, and figuring out the other guy's categories.

Chapter 8 Reinforcing Effort

This chapter was about the student keeping record of his studying habits and academic outcomes.

This is a really great idea for my students. I often hear my students say they don't study because they don't notice a difference in their test scores. Or they say that when they study they actually do worse on a test. (well, for some students with testing anxiety that may be true but that's a whole other issue.) My point is I don't think my students are aware of what they are doing or not doing. One year during our advisory we did have a rubric that we went over with the students whenever we gave them their progress reports or their report cards. Many of my students would have at least one failing grade on any or both of these reports. When we would talk about what to do they would repeat that to improve they would say "take my books home and study". But they said it with zero conviction. I doubt they ever followed through, I think they were just telling me what they thought I wanted to hear. I especially like the rubric on page 157 because I don't think my students know what good studying is. Sometimes I think they think good studying means to glue themselves to a desk surrounded by stacks of books and to read for hours. Well, of course they don't want to do that. The rubric explains what good studying is and I hope my students will realize it's not that hard and it is something they can do and benefit from.

Chapter 7 Cooperative Learning

Cooperative learning is especially important for my foreign language class. The students must be able to communicate successfully in order to pass the class.

In this chapter I was most interested in the Keypals. I have worked with a company in the past that connects school children to each other via snail mail. I don't count it as a class assignment, I just ask who's interested and set them up with an account with the company. Several of my students have actually kept a bit of a correspondence with their pen pals. But how much easier an e-pal! I did look on the epals.com site. There were some projects listed already or I could collaborate with another teacher to make our own project. I will have to decide how many and which of my students I would like to have participate. Maybe this year I'll have my first period class do this. Once I get the hang of it then I'll add more. Or maybe even have a first semester group of students and then a different set of second semester students do it. There is a project that my students do on Publisher - they make a tri-fold brochure of their city. So, my students could use their city brochure or make one about their school and use that as a way of introducing themselves to the other students. I am most excited about this use of technology in my classroom.

I also was thinking about the students using the internet to consult experts about my subject. As is turns out Real Academia Espanola has a web site you can use to ask them questions. This is great, the next time one of my students has a question about why or how about something in the Spanish language I will send them to this website.

And speaking of sending the students to a certain website, I do think I will be using a shared bookmarking link. I have four student computers so it wouldn't be that big of a deal to bookmark the same site on each computer, but with a shared bookmarking site the students can add their own bookmarks. In the past I have had to move a student off a computer because it was the one the other student was working on the day before and all of his work is still on it. Many of my students don't realize how often they have the need to re-visit old work and they don't seem to save their work. But this way it's more like they're sharing a good website that they found - they're showing others their good research skills. I think they will be inclined to use this too.

Chapter 6 Summarizing and Note Taking

In order to summarize students have to decide which information is most important. My students have a particularly hard time with this. For example when summarizing an article they'll just repeat the whole article. Or they'll focus on some tiny trivial aspect of the article and consider that a summary. I do realize that evaluating what to include in a summary and what to keep out is a skill that's hard to learn.

I like what the science teacher in the book does - uses the Track Changes feature and a projector to model summarizing for the class. The auto summarize function in the word processing is helpful as well. I could see myself giving an article to my students and asking them to highlight what they consider that most important elements. Then using the projector again we could see what the auto summarize highlighted.

I also liked the Definition Frame Template from Inspiration as a note taking guide. The teacher in the chapter uses this with his class and then has the students compare and discuss their answers in pairs. That is a great idea. That way the students get to collaborate and get immediate feedback. They also might get a little different perspective on the article too.

Chapter 5 Nonlinguistic Representations

This chapter was all about the visual. I do believe that the more senses a student can use when learning something, the better he'll learn it. So including pictures for sight to my speaking the lesson is a great idea. And of course the movement involved in making a movie is great for all students, not just the kinetic learners.

I especially liked the idea of using clip art for learning vocabulary. In my foreign language class I really do want the students to see a picture and think of the word in the target language. Usually they think of something in English and then translate it. I think with the pictures it will be a lot easier for them to come up with the new word, compared to seeing the word written in English and then having to come up with the new word. I do not want to re-enforce the idea of translating, I want them to think in the target language as much and as soon as possible.

I also liked the time-sequence pattern organizers in this chapter. Of course for my literature student he could make a time line of authors and when they wrote their work. Or he could use it to illustrate the order of periods of writing styles - such as Golden Age, Renaissance and Baroque.

I also thought students could use this to keep track of their own learning. For example they first learned subject pronouns and regular present tense verb conjugations. Then they learned verbs with spelling changes, then they learned irregular verb conjugations. So by the end of the year they could use it to review and to see how much they've learned.

I also like the idea of the students making their own movie. I once had a small class that all worked together to create a movie of a short story they had read. We all brought in props and did the filming during class time. The students seemed to enjoy the project and they did a wonderful job on it.

Chapter 4 - Cues, Questions, and Advance Organizers

Chapter 4 is all about helping the students to keep their thoughts organized.

I like these software applications. Most of my students are lacking in organizational skills. I don't think they realize how much easier school and learning would be for them if they just organized themselves a little better.

A spread sheet would really help my literature student. He will be taking the AP test at the end of the year. His reading list comes from the College Board. And the list is long! He will need to be familiar with the authors and their works. I am thinking that he could make a spreadsheet with the titles, authors, genre, themes, and styles. He could manipulate it anyway he wanted to - for example group by theme and notice the authors that are grouped together. This way it will be easier for him to compare and contrast the writers and their works.

Another way I can imagine my students using a spreadsheet would be for some pre-writing brainstorming. Often my students are so much in a rush to get a writing assignment finished that they don't use much of their vocabulary. To correct this problem they could use a spreadsheet to organize the vocabulary they do know and then write their essay with those words. The spreadsheet could be set up for them to list words for different categories. For example before writing about a basketball game, they could make a list of the people involved - players, coach, officials, fans, and cheerleaders. Then they could make a list of the verbs associated with this sport - pass, dribble, score, foul, throw, and catch. Then they could make a list of other nouns of this sport - ball, court, score, scoreboard, basket, net, and buzzer. Another list could be expressions used at a game - Defense!, Way to go!, or Take the shot! After they've finished brainstorming as much vocabulary as they can think of, they'll use one word from one list to combine with a word from another list to make a complete sentence. After doing this a couple of times the students might begin to think writing is easy.

I think my beginning students can use the organizing software to help them make study guides for themselves. They could pick a theme and use Inspiration RapidFire tool to write all of the words they can think of to go with it. For example, the center circle could be "house" and then the other circles could be furniture, names of rooms, or verbs like to cook and to clean that are associated with a house. Another way of using this software would be to give them the new vocabulary for the chapter and they would have to find the connect or connects the words had to each other. They could also use the organizer to help them memorize verb conjugations and which verbs are irregular or have spelling changes.

Chapter 3 Providing Recognition

Chapter 3 starts with three generalizations about providing recognition to our students. Basically, rewards don't negatively effect intrinsic motivation, rewards need to be for some standard of performance, and abstract symbolic recognition is better than trinkets as rewards. I have definitely had experience with the last generalization. At times I will give a little trinket or candy to my students and they certainly do complain that it's not enough. I remember giving out little chocolates to show my appreciation that they had all behaved well for the substitute. They assured me that their good behavior was worth way more than a tiny chocolate. Oh well, but they did all eat their treat! So, I am glad research shows that my words of praise will help to encourage my students to do their best and the reward doesn't have to cost me a lot of money.

I agree with the other blogger who said that using technology such as Publisher and Print Shop to create some kind of certificate of recognition is a "no brainer".

I like the idea of posting the students' work on the web for them to comment on each others' work. But I imagine getting some not so useful comments on both end of the spectrum. I've gotten some obnoxious comments on a get well card the class was signing for a follow classmate - I don't want to imagine how they'd tear each others' work apart. And I know I have plenty of students on the opposite end of things - wanting everybody to get an A because "he worked hard on that" even if the work obviously hasn't met any of the criteria that is was supposed to. Having said that, it is still very important for the students to comment on each others' work and for each student to hear what his peers think about his work. Maybe a good way around my concerns would be to collect comments through a data collection tool that only offers multiple choice options. Or make sure I read the comments before they're posted so I can filter out the offensive ones.

At first the idea of sending an audio message through the e-mail just seemed like stretching the need to include communication software in this chapter. But the more I thought about it the more I actually liked the idea of having an audio recording to use as a kind of praise. I could picture myself using the sound of a cheering crowd when someone gives a right answer. Only my thing would be more like a David Letterman sound effect, or even like Craig Ferguson's talking robot. (ok, too much late night television) I could have four or five expressions like - Great Job! or That's Right! -along with the cheering crowd, of course - and whenever one was appropriate I would just press a button and the whole class would hear it. Who knows, maybe it's too silly, maybe it only works if you're staying up past your bedtime.

Chapter 2 - Providing Feedback

Chapter 2 is about using technology to give students feedback on their work. I enjoyed this chapter.

I especially liked the idea of using the word processing application to add comments to the students' writings. I must confess that I did not realize I had this capability on my software. I will definitely use this for my independent study student this coming year. He will be studying literature and writing plenty of essays for me. He will have a computer in my room, I'll just have to get him a gaggle e-mail account if he doesn't have one already. I will enjoy using this tool - most of the time there is not enough space for me to write my comments on the student papers. Also my handwriting can get a little sloppy so my student should appreciate this tool as well, so he will truly be able to read my comments now. I am excited about this. However, I do not anticipate using this on a large scale. I imagine the logistics of getting all of my students to a computer with an e-mail (or some kind of removable storage device) would just be too complicated at this point. I will use it with my literature student this year. I expect to increase usage after honing my skills on it.

I like the classroom response system, too. The authors are a little defensive about using multiple choice questions. They remind us that we can use multiple-choice questions to evaluate all levels of skills on Bloom's taxonomy. I had to laugh when I read that because I so totally agree with them. I mean really, a good question is a good question. I know that there is at least one of these at my school - I think it belongs to the social studies department. I do have a couple of concerns though. What should my pace be when I'm using this? I want to make sure everybody answers in a timely matter, but at the same time not cause anxiety either. Initially I was thinking that the students would be seeing the questions for the first time whenever I use this software. That made me think about wait time and there's no way everybody in the class is going to get an answer in the same three first seconds of seeing the question. And I imaged some of the students simply shouting out the answers to their friends across the room, which wouldn't do me any good as an evaluation tool. But then I read something Nancy wrote about using it to check homework. Now, that makes sense, the students could have a paper in front of them with their answers already filled out. They would simply use the software to submit their work so it would be graded quickly. I can easily see myself using this software, just as long as I can wrestle it out of the other department.

The grading software for essays intrigues me. But I don't know how much I would trust it. Perhaps the software would look for certain key words or phrases and organizational words and structure. We would have to make sure the software was clued into the vocabulary of the subject area. I wonder if the software exists in Spanish.

I like the idea of using Web resources for online quizzes and games. Again the book takes time to remind us that a good game can be educational as well as entertaining - preaching to the choir! I am thankful that the district was able to purchase Rosetta Stone for my students to use - special thanks to my Assistant Principal for this. Since I have four student computers in my classroom my students rotate in and out of them depending on the day. My students need to spend a certain amount of time on the program each grading period but they do work at their own pace. I would like to add online quizzes for my students to do. I have looked for some, but so far I haven't been able to find good ones that are free. I do have my students doing some of these things with the software and on-line activities from the textbook company. The students do seem pretty engaged and concentrated while they're doing these activities.

I like the idea of a classroom blog. Many of my students are surfing the web at their houses so why not read and comment on the class's blog in the meanwhile. Or of course they could read the blog using one of the computers in class. But it does sound like a lot of monitoring. I would require them to use their real names in their postings, hoping no one goes in under a classmate's name.

I also like the video conference software as a classroom tool. My class is a language class and my students do need to experience authentic use of the target language. I would like to look into this more.