Thing 7

As I'm looking through Brittany's space I notice that the organization is not very good and that someone would have to be familiar with the specific classroom to be able to follow her information. Vicki Davis' student could have organized this better. Some of the tabs seem to go to vocabulary definitions while others comment about different things (symbols, people, events) from the story. Some of the definitions and comments are not clear. The students did not use page numbers. They had listed a range of chapters like 1-5. I think this would be very difficult to use as a study guide. How could you look up what they're talking about? There is a definite lack of good grammar. As an English teacher, I find that disturbing in an English class project...

From her link on the website about a virtual study hall, I see this lists the current homework and other assignments due. Cute idea, but this obviously does not list all the classes for all students. Maybe these were the only classes her group of students had, so it's not intended as a whole-school reference site? I clicked on biology to see what kinds of information the students posted and was extremely underwhelmed. There were a few definitions, but they were compiled of run-on sentences. Reading these was like reading gibberish! So, I looked at the Spanish tab to see if that was any better. These looked like my students' notes- useless. There was a list of verb endings, but no explanation to show how to apply those endings or when to use the verb forms (situations). I can see that teachers and parents would be excited about the "collaboration" factor, but bad notetaking is still useless and a waste of time to someone who really needs help. To make it better, the kids should be told they can't just copy definitions, but they must explain in their own words and/or give a real example.

When I think of struggling students looking for help on a website, I think back to my experiences with Algebra. Yes, I could do the equations, but they made no sense to me in real life. Then, my mother went back to school and had to take Algebra. Her text was about applying Algebra to real life! An entire text with real examples of how and when to apply all those equations! I would love to see student websites set up with that goal.

So, leaving CoolCatTeacher and not feeling very good about wikis, I decided to check out the Holocaust I only checked out one student post and was pretty impressed by that. The project is told as a story where students provide some background information with maps, pictures, etc. You see where the events were happening, read about your main character and his/her family. The report references facts but in a storytelling setting (the one I read was about a Jewish family living in Poland). Then, the reader is involved by choosing what the character should do. For example, stay or try to leave the country as the Nazis approach? When you choose, you get some results of what happened (you get arrested by the Nazis, etc). This was very cute and creative! Students had to know the background facts, but they were highly creative with what they presented at a more personalized level (what the experience might have been like for real people).

Feeling better about wikis, I decided to look at this website about storywriting. Showcasing student works is a great idea! I read through several stories and was pretty impressed with the variety and quality (and it's not just one school). These are not works in progress nor are they mediocre. This seems like a place to post the best available student works. I know we're encouraged to post in our classrooms and often we don't want to leave anyone out. I'm guilty of putting some of "those papers" up on the wall, too. While examining bad papers is a learning experience, there is a reason for posting good papers- they show the goals for which students should be aiming! The best part about this is that the works are available to a wider audience than just the students who enter the classroom or pass along that hallway.

The projects shown on the chemistry website seem to mostly be an alternative to PowerPoint presentations. What is nice here is that they projects can be reviewed again and again or shared with different classes easily. I had a little more trouble accessing this site because I would pull up instructions for the project and not know where to find the students' finished works, for example. More organization is needed and I liked the first sites use of tabs.