Wave to the Teacher

One of the challenges with introducing computers into the classroom has been the technological divide. Many students have access to computers and indeed communicate, network and research online. Others however, may not have computers in their homes or may live in remote areas where internet access is an issue.

This limited access to computers may also create a divide in technology knowledge. Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, has promised to turn this issue around by supplying computers to every student as part of his Digital Education Revolution.

There will be more problems to consider than simply access to computers and broadband. Classroom management is one aspect of teaching that will need to be adapted to suit a technological classroom. Social isolation, access to teacher and keeping on-task are some issues to cover. 

The issue of social isolation in the classroom when working on computers could be easily overcome by creating a classroom network for collaborative projects and class discussion. 

There are many good communicative tools which allow you to form groups, share work and importantly, exclude non-group members (outside friends, strangers, etc). One such tool that promises to combine the features of social networking, email, wikis and online meeting functions is Google Wave.

I have been fortunate enough to be able to trial this tool and have been impressed by the possible application in education. Students can edit each other's work and see where each member has contributed. 

If a student has been absent for a collaborative project, they can replay an embedded video which will show the progress step by step.

Teachers will also be able to communicate with students during the process and observe for off-task behaviour. That is, assuming Kevin Rudd's free lap-top plan will extend to include the teacher.

Fantasy Class

This is actually taken straight from my creative writing blog, but I felt it was relevant to our studies of literacy and writing, so, I'm stealing from myself (it's okay, I gave myself permission).


Took NaNoWriMo into the classroom today.

In my presentation to teachers of English (that's what we call Literature Studies in Australia) today, I suggested incorporating NaNoWriMo Young Writers Program as a class project. In Australia it is exam time, so I would do this with the year 7-9 class.

This project would be a perfect way to finish off a unit outline on creativie writing. I would not put too much emphasis on word count and would ask for a minimum of 5,000 words (with no maximum). Sounds too short to publish? No. I'd gather the stories together, once we've edited and polished, and print them in an anthology.

As a way of tying the stories together, I suggest writing in one genre - I choose Fantasy. This is welcomed by most students because it gives them a lot of freedom and includes magic or supernatural elements. For our class project I suggested we use a common world for our stories to take place.

The class brainstorms ideas for all the type of characters that could possibly be found in fantasy stories and all the elements found in fantasy worlds (such as dragons and castles). Kids will have loads of ideas for this.

I would then have the class collaborate in creating a map of the world - where will everything be located? And we could name our characters. Students can write about any character they want and create their own story set in that land.

Put your students into small work groups of about four. During November, the students can have time in their groups to bounce ideas off each other and after November they can critique and help edit each others work. 
Shared editing is a great way for kids to learn grammar.

After November, once the stories are edited, they can be published together in an anthology of Fantasy tales and sold at school for fundraising (the kids can even become part of the marketing process).
Thank you NaNoWriMo for inspiring me with my favorite lesson plan so far!

Working With Distractions

Yesterday I sat myself down with the intention of catching up on all approaching uni assignments.

Didn't happen.

Instead I found out about a yearly event for writers called NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month - all thought it is now quite international). The idea is that every November, writers around the globe set out to complete at least 50,000 words for a novel with a one month deadline. I signed up and got back to the assigments.

No I didn't.

I was like a kid with a new toy. Instead I started searching for a nice solid plot to see me through the month without blocks. I blogged about it in my writing blog: Wagging Tales. Then I decided my blog needed a facelift and spent about 4 hours playing with it.

Today I must absolutely finish at least one assignment: a presentation for my English class where I have to give a ten minute lesson on one topic. I went through my lesson plans and tried to pick something, anything, but I was too distracted. Now I think I have the solution.

I'm going to give a lesson on taking on the NaNoWriMo Young Writers challenge. The tools are laid out on the website and my students can choose their own wordcount goal (probably 10,000 words for highschoolers).

Sometimes it's better to stop fighting the distractions and just make them part of the lesson.

PS - still don't have that plot, I'm looking for a good old myth to adapt - what's your favorite?

Burnout

I received much satisfaction and enjoyment from my prac teaching placement at the Drama department of Canberra College. I miss the kids and the classes and the staffroom discussions. So, why couldn't I blog about it before now?

Burn out. I came home Friday afternoon still buzzing with excitement from my last day. I sat down with my family, and then it happened: my body crashed. My muscles shook and I felt giddy. I went to bed.

Now being someone who rises between 5am and 6am every morning it surprised me that I didn't wake until midday, and even then I only slugged around the house and returned to the dark comfort of my doona. I felt as if I was recovering from running a ten mile marathon. My body and my mind had been so hyped up for the 5week placement that once I stopped, I hit that runner's 'brick wall'. I needed down time.

2 days later I felt better. But it made me think that as teachers we really need to know how to unwind during our 'off' time. Your body reacts to stress in a defensive way. Even if it was you that sought out that fast pace, short deadline, high workload job, your body and mind need to recharge from time to time.

Next time I run a marathon like that, remind me to stretch first.

Get kids out of school

Just returned from Drama Camp. Wow.

Taking kids away on camp is not just a reward for them, although it is a reward. It is not just about bonding, although they do bond. It can be about reaching a higher level of focus.

In my usual day of classes I will deal with disruptions to the lesson such as kids coming 5, 10 and even 20 minutes late to class, for no good reason. Once in class the kids all spend 5 minutes trying to catch up with each other's latest news. Some students will be unresponsive (of course that has nothing to do with the content) because they fought with their boyfriend/girlfriend/best friend, they forgot about an assignment due in the next lesson for a different class, or in today's case; because their dog just got put down (I will cut a little slack in that sad, sad incident).

Drama camp is an opportunity to move away from all outside influences. On this particular camp there were no phones (no reception so the kids couldn't cheat).

The kids had plenty of time to play, chill, tell camp stories, but when it was time to work they simply got together, focused and got the job done.

If you want kids to focus on school work, sometimes you have to get them away from school.

Slow Down

Experimental Theatre: we have been looking at Meyerhold and will shortly move onto Growtowski. The concept of this style of theatre, being extremely physical and less emotional, is difficult for young actors who desire melodrama in their performances. Yesterday we studied Youtube clips on Meyerhold workshops and then attemptempted some of the moves. 

Discussions are my favourite tool in the classroom. If encouraged, students open up and share their opinions, beliefs and feelings toward the topic. By talking it through, students reach an inner understanding of what we are trying to achieve. Yesterday's discussion was intense. We talked on the relationship between governing power and the arts (referring to the Russian revolution and Meyerhold's taboo style resulting in his arrest and execution).

Not wanting to make my student's feel exhausted and confused about their favourite subject (Drama), today I intend to reward them with a workshop. We will begin with a relaxation exercise (yoga and meditation) and move onto a warm up exercise.  Following that, I have a great game lined up which relates to our topic, but is also 'way fun'!

As a writer I have learned that you must change the pace of your narrative; long text is followed by something short and snappy. This is to give your reader a rest. We can apply this to our lessons as well, providing a natural changing rhythm so the students get a chance to breathe.

All is forgiven.

My invisible class came home. Had almost full attendance for drama class on realism, much better than my last 1-student-only class.

For this lesson we watched the end of the film The Crucible (we will be reading the Arthur Miller Play). What I gained from this experience, is finding that a film lesson can be extremely effective if you prepare it properly (there's more to it than just rewinding the tape).

We started with a discussion, recapping what has happened so far in the narrative, what we have noticed about the characters and subplots. A lot of this was done by myself and my 1 attended-when-no-one-else-did student as the others had missed the middle section of the film.

I suggested the students look for more than the surface narrative (in this case, a fear of witches and the devil) to see what other agendas and subplots are driving the characters and narrative.

We talked about how the church could take land from the owners once they were hung, and increase their own wealth, how one girl wanted her lover's wife hung, and how one man saw an opportunity to buy up cheap land if all his neighbours were executed for witchcraft. Mass hysteria grew, no one was safe. We compared this to current social situations, such as war in Iraq, the US involvement and the possibility of oil being an underlying agenda.

After watching the film, we continued our discussion. The students were quite engaged and contributed greatly - this was a pleasant surprise for me in contrast to previous lethargy.

This all comes back to our study of making content meaningful to the students and explaining clearly what we want them to get out of the content.

Direction; it's not just for Drama.