We tried a new approach to our discussions this week. Evrim suggested having students share their delicious pieces (sounds like a candy bar) in pairs and then having each pair report back to the whole class on one of the pieces. From my perspective, this approach worked very well--almost all the delicious pieces provoked thoughtful, informed discussion. Next week we will again work on beginning discussions in small groups and we will change the class furniture arrangement, as suggested in blog comments. In any case, I am pleased with our progress.Our new topic this week was technology in the teaching of writing and we focused upon ideas for pre-writing activities. Evrim introduced the group to Webspiration and we played with Webspiration's capabilities by doing a pre-writing task centered upon explaining Iowa winters to people who have never lived here. Most of the groups were writing for an international audience and several of the products demonstrated the power of using a graphic organizer to encourage and arrange pre-writing ideas. And the activity was fun!
Lei introduced the group to Hot Potatoes and did a good job of introducing all the features of this useful tool All of our resource reviews thus far have covered interesting, useful applications.
Next week we will begin our work with digital images.
I found Hot Potatoes to be a great informational session. I think I will be able to use this idea in some way when I teach math. Also, I didn't mind the discussion about our delicious piece; however, I think it would be better in groups of at least three or four.
ReplyDeleteHot Potatoes was fantastic! Great job, Lei!
ReplyDeleteI am a big fan of the pre-writing ideas we've seen so far. As a teacher of creative writing I cannot get enough of strategies/ideas that allow students to do more, brainstorm more, and generate more ammo going into a writing task. I was impressed by Webspiration's online existence with no need to download software--it's instantly accessible to students.
Webspiration was a new thing for me - I found it to be a very good resource that I might use in future for designing intricate concept maps or flowcharts that are not possible in Word or PowerPoint.
ReplyDeleteLei's presentation on Hot Potatoes was very good. I hope those who haven't heard about this software before found Lei's presentation interesting and useful, and will possibly consider using software in future.