Quality Blogging & Commenting Audit Meme

As a follow up to the series Stepping it Up: Learning About Blogs FOR your Students, I would like to crowdsource more samples of blog posts and comments for teachers to practice recognizing, evaluating and assessing various levels of quality work.

A meme might be a good way to get the ball rolling.

Wikipedia defines a Meme as:

A meme  is “an idea, behavior or style that spreads from person to person within a culture.” A meme acts as a unit for carrying cultural ideas, symbols or practices, which can be transmitted from one mind to another through writing, speech, gestures, rituals or other imitable phenomena. Supporters of the concept regard memes as cultural analogues to genes in that they self-replicate, mutate and respond to selective pressures.

Quality Blogging and Commenting Audit Meme

In order to gather more audit samples from a large variety of age groups and authors, I challenge you to publish a blog post with a post or comment audit.

1. Select a blog post or blog comment to audit (Professional or Student)
2. Take a screenshot or copy and past the post or comment into your blog post (be sensitive whether you want to reveal any names or references)
3. Include or link to the rubric you use to assess the quality of post or comment
4. Audit the post or comment by describing your train of thought regarding the level of quality you would assess your chosen post or comment
5. Suggest how you would coach the author of audited post or comment to improve
6. Tag (at least) three educators and challenge them to audit a post or comment
7. Leave a comment with the link to your audit post on Langwitches

If you have not been tagged, please feel free to jump in, write and link your own audit blog post.

I am tagging Andrea Hernandez, Maggie Hos-McGrane, Nancy von Wahlde, Edna Sackson, Linda Yollis, Kathleen Morris, Kim Cofino

Looking forward to their quality blogging audits

Transliteracy- QR Codes and Art

Transliteracy is defined on Wikipedia as

The ability to read, write and interact across a range of platforms, tools and media from signing and orality through handwriting, print, TV, radio and film, to digital social networks. The modern meaning of the term combines literacy with the prefix trans-, which means “across; through”, so a transliterate person is one who is literate across multiple media.

Ryan Nadel, in an interview on Spotlight on Digital Media and Learning, defines transliteracy even further:

“The most fundamental notion of transliteracy is the ability to adapt. It’s creating a literacy and fluidity between mediums that’s not tied to space or modality.”

I agree with Ryan: Transliteracy is closely related to “fluency“:

• the ability to know when to use one media over another
• the ability to move effortlessly between media
• the ability to comprehend, build upon, and remix different kind of media
• the ability to relate, communicate and connect via multiple forms of media
• moving between media feels: intuitive, unconscious and smooth

Let me share a transliterate learning opportunity with you that I created (Art, iPads, QR codes, Language Arts and Digital Storytelling)  in collaboration with our Art teacher, Mrs. Gutterman and the 4th grade classroom teacher, Mrs. Teitelbaum?

During Art class, fourth graders adapted Vincent van Gogh’s chairs and placed things on and  around them that were important to them.

In Language Arts, students wrote a script, explaining their choices of what they drew and why it was important to them.

We all gathered in the library to record their script as an audio file on the iPad. We used the AudioMemos app (free) to record. Students then emailed the wav file to me.

1. I then converted the .wav files to mp3 files with Garageband, since I did not know if all mobile devices would play .wav files easily.
2. These files were then uploaded via FTP to our school’s server
3. I inserted the URL of each mp3 file into http://goo.gl
4. Clicked on “Details” to get to the generated QR code
5. Saved the QR codes as an image file

I inserted the images into a page and then printed the QR codes out for the Art teacher to attach them to the original art work.

Now anyone with a QR scanner on their Smartphone, iTouch or iPad walking by the art work, can scan and listen to the student artist’s audio reflection. The next step was to create a poster to catch the attention of the visitors and parents walking by and give a short explanation of what to do with the QR code

Assessment of Learning via Skype

Skyping with students is great! They are learning…There is no doubt in my mind…!

Skyping Hub- Learning Hub

• I know…I see motivation in their eyes… I feel excitement in the air…I hear them say: “How cool”, “That was awesome” or “When are we skyping again?”.
• I  know… all about the different skills students are exposed to and are practicing while skyping.
• I know… that I am helping them learn differently than from a textbook.
• I know… that I am preparing them for a work environment where they are expected to collaborate with colleagues and teams who do not live in the same country, nor continent and operate in a different time zone.
• I know… that I am exposing them to a world, people and cultures beyond their horizon.
• I know… that I am broadening their perspectives, tolerance and  for someone who is different

…but… what about formal assessment and documentation of this kind of learning.

I enjoy helping other teachers get excited and comfortable using Skype as a tool to connect with other classrooms or experts around the world. I want to make it explicit, once again, that it is NOT about the tool, but about the skills and the learning.

In order to streamline the process of converting a Skype Call into a Learning Call and to make it more visual, I created the following images and handouts. Please feel free to use them in your own classroom.

You can download all of them as a pdf file here.

Credit for middle image “experience” by tombodor

A Skype call should never be done in isolation. We should not treat a video conference any different than a field trip. The actual experience should be framed by pre-activities that activate prior knowledge and post-activites that give students the opportunity to reflect, create and connect these new experiences.

Pre-Activities include:

• Familiarize with geographic location, language, culture, age group, etc.
• KWL Chart
• Information Literacy (locate)
• Google Earth (distance)
• Google Maps (Street view)
• Formulate questions
• Distribute job responsibilities for actual video conference experience

Pre-Activities Job Description:

Have students prepare for a call by filling out the handout below. You can easily ask them to formulate and share questions on your classroom blog as well.

Depending on the geographic location, have students “orientate” themselves to WHERE they will be connecting to by answering the following questions.

During the Call Activities include:

• Interview
• Q & A
• Image & Video recording
• Blog (summarize)
• Backchannel
• Data Collection
• Present
• Share

During Skype Call Job Description:

I have written several times about engaging students during a Skype call by given them specific jobs and responsibilities. You can listen to my 5th graders explaining each job a little more.

Once the Skype call has ended, it is important to help your students debrief and reflect on their experience. As their teacher you will want to assess in one shape or form the learning that occurred. Is skyping making a difference in their learning? Have they learned something that could not have been taught via a textbook? What was the engagement and motivational level of your students?

Here are some ideas on how to help your students reflect on their Skype experience and help you assess their learning. Give students choices on how to debrief by offering or alternating using different media.

Post-Call Activities include:

• Informal assessment: debrief right after the Skype call. Have students talk about what just happened. Read the backchannel log out loud and collaboratively add anything that was not documented.
• Information Literacy (evaluate, analyze, categorize data collected)
• Create documentary (video clip) from video clips taken during the Skype call
• Create Photo Slideshow of images taken during the Skype call
• Write reflective blog posts
• (Paper & Pencil) Journal entries: Give students prompts
• Create a Video recording from your debriefing session
• Audio podcasting
• Embed images and video into blog post
• Share with parents (informal at home) or host a parent presentation session at school
• Present to larger audience (entire school, community, conference)

Post-Activities Job Description:

Take a  peek into a debriefing session after a Skype Call from a third grade class.

What are some of the activities you do to frame a video conference experience for your students? How do you document and assess the learning taking place with video conferencing?

IMPORTANT!

It is important that we start documenting and assessing student learning (formally and informally) from 21st Century tools.  Most assessments are not designed to take new forms of learning into consideration. The more data and documentation we have, the more we can move towards a new kind of “testing and assessing“.

Please contribute by asking your students to take the following survey about their learning via Skype. Once you have had your students take the survey, please e-mail me , so I can share the results with you.

Please disseminate the link to the survey in your own PLN by blogging or tweeting about it.