Wednesday, June 29^th, 2016

Day Five

Hosts:  Patricia Valley, Chris Newcomb

8:30-9:00

Breakfast

9:00-9:15

Opening Moment; Questions/Announcements

Chris offered us two choices of Opening Moments.

1     We could watch Taylor Mali perform his poem, “What Do Teachers Make?” 

2    He could share a few commercials and one of his one-minute stories.

Since most of us had seen the piece by Taylor Mali previously, he went with option number 2. He shared two commercials (“Two people stuck on an Escalator” and “A Toyota ad featuring the Loch Ness Monster”).  He also told a one-minute story called the “Bag of Happiness”.  After each piece he asked us to take a moment to write a few notes as to how we might use this in our own lives or with students.  Any who wanted to were encouraged to share with the rest of us some of their thoughts.

Questions/Announcements

            There weren’t any questions.  Brigid mentioned that if anyone wanted help using the various platforms with which to produce his/her portfolio she would be glad to offer one-on-one coaching.

9:15-10:00

Writing Time

            We had free writing time ‘til 10:00AM. Everyone seemed quite engaged in their work.

10:00-11:15

Book Discussion: The Writer’s Life Category

Lorry Stillman

Lorry provided each of us four post-it notes and an activity sheet:

Each of us was then given a specific element of literature.  We were asked to rewrite one of our post-its using the literary element.

Bobby asked Lorry if she’d be willing to share the “elements of literature” with us. Lorry said she would do that.

11:15 - 12:00

Writing Outside Workshop

Brigid announced that due to the inclement weather today we would postpone the outside writing exercise to our Fall classes and would use this time for: 

Writing Groups- what would you like help with in your revising process.

12:00-1:00 

LUNCH W/ MENTORS

1:00 - 2:30

Technology Workshop w/ Tim Hebda

Teaches 3-5^th at Waynflete  been teaching 18 years

Tim is the “Tech guy”

            Did a few warm-up exercises

     (summer camp: handshake, dance move, battle cry)

Write for 5 minutes based on these exercises

   Digital Writing –

“It’s not the digital of digital writing that matters.  It’s the writing.” Bud Hunt

He asked "What is digital writing?"

      blogging, docs, google, twitter, snapchat, vlogging, meme, chat rooms, texting, podcasts, zines, e portfolios, emails, clickbait . . .

He introduced several web based sites that are great for writing classes"

"SAMR"

S- Substitution  (flash cards are now electronic)

A  Augmentation- direct substitute but with

     enhanced or functional improvements

 M- Modification

R- Redefinition creation of new tasks previously

      inconceivable)

"TodaysMeet"

A site you can use like postits, but it’s digital and live. Also, it’s open as long as you want, so kids can go back to it at another time.  Tim uses it for notes on books. 

Socrative

Another web tool- like kahoot but also offers a lot more.

Letsrecap

Webstie- A Video tool for kids to share their ideas without writing.

Blogging

You can add text, images, audio, video, etc.

Other digital sites: Café, Puppet Pals, Explain Everything, iMovie, Recite, Paper53, Haiku Deck, Touchcart, Storehouse,

2:30-3:00

Foolin’ Around with Tech

we had about 1/2 hour to explore some of the sites or to work on revision our writing

3:00-3:45

Inquiry Workshop w/ Lorrie

Lorrie shared a variety of Action Research Topics with us.

Make sure it’s a burning issue for you.  You must feel passionate about it.

Collect data- whatever amount you need.  Informal surveys, keep a log, student work, test scores, exit slips.

Data analysis and determination-

   Did the strategy help?  Did student learning improve?  What do students think?

You must integrate data from the classroom in this report.  However, this is just a ‘dip’ into action research- (I believe what Lorrie said this meant is: it’s not an in-depth college research project.) 

Examples

a) Flipping

Simulation of a lesson with out flipping

Simulation with flipping

What worked what didn’t

b) Brainstorming

samples of pre and post intervention writing

She discussed presentation style- getting audience involved, engaged, turn data into a story.  (Tell what happened, even if it was a disaster.)  Use iMovie, Keynote . . .

How long should it be?  You have to give a 45 min presentation- but the paper you turn in should be between 2 pages to 9.

4:00

Closing Moment

Patricia shared a video of Billy Collins reading his poem: The Lanyard