Throughout January and February, I have helped coordinate an online book club for the Arkansas Reading Association (yes, you are invited!), and, this past week, from Content-Area Writing That Rocks and Works by Rebecca Harper (who meets with us live on Facebook! Yes, cool!), I have modified and incorporated a couple of her strategies described in her book. Fun!
Discussion Dialogue
Instead of my choosing an article of the week, I asked each student to find a "valid and reliable" source, to write a post, ending it with open-ended questions to encourage an intentional discussion with the five other bloggers who will be his/her audience. They seemed to appreciate choosing their own articles. (Assignment here.)
Next week, during blog time, each will read and comment on the five blogs below his/her name on the class blog list, checking in again from time to time to continue the discussion and to respond to questions. This, too, they seem to be excited about! Yay!
Twitter Chatter
For this assignment, I created a table four columns wide with 8-10 rows on a Google Doc. Through Google Classroom, each received an editable copy of the doc. I paired the students. The first student in the pair was in charge of sharing his/her doc with the pairee and initiating the discussion, which preceded down the column and then moved to the next column during which I gave them about five minutes to chat...with no talking allowed across the room between the paired students.
As one senior football player described, "This is fun."
Over the next couple of weeks, each pair will continue their Twitter Chatter, further encouraging discussion about To Kill a Mockingbird (sophomores) and The Crucible (seniors). Yes!
Please share! What tech tools are you using to better convey the skills and knowledge you want your students to master? I would love to hear from you!
No comments:
Post a Comment