CASL/CECA 2022 Conferences Takeaways

The CASL CECA 2022 Conference is organized by the Boards of Directors of the Connecticut Educators’ Computer Association and the Connecticut Association of School Librarians. This year’s conference recognizes and celebrates the confluence of educational technology and the preparation of our students for the future with a focus on literacy, social emotional learning, and 21st Center Skills. CASL CECA gathers technology integration specialists, library/media professionals, educators from all walks of life, and IT support personnel who share their ideas, news, expertise, products and productions.   The conference provides a wide variety of professional development and activities in the form of: presentations, hands-on workshops, round-table discussions, speakers, exhibitors, and our annual recognition awards.

Here are 5 key take aways from this rich conference:

1. Social Emotional Learning is front and center. Valerie DiLorenzo presented on “Libraries, Literature, and the Counseling Connection.” With her students, DiLorenzo created engaging, eye-catching posters to grab students’ attention and get them to want to read high interest books that tie in with neuro diverse, social/emotional, and/or mental health topics. She showed participants how to provide satellite “libraries” throughout your school community (physical and virtual) that connect students with potential life-saving and/or life-altering literature. Teq presented 3D printing with Tinkercad and lesson ideas for Social and EmotionalLearning (SEL) where students can create models that represent their emotions.

2. New Literacy is Essential. One of the biggest challenges facing our students today is how to navigate in a world of misinformation. Creation of a news media literacy curriculum in collaboration with Social Studies and English teachers is a way to enhance students digital citizenship and critical reading/thinking skills. Newslit.org and Checkology provide curriculum for educators to utilize with their students.

3. Passion Projects are Still Relevant. Personal Interest Projects PIPs are opportunities for students to explore something THEY are interested in and practice key skills like creativity, collaboration, critical thinking, and problem solving. Students and teachers rave about these projects because they allow students to de-stress, utilize maker space and interact in the library. Using a scaffolded curriculum that supports students through the phases of designing, doing and sharing their projects Westport HS Librarians shared how these PIPs are opportunities for students to meet up, learn about different cultures, and ideas through their making and time together.

4. Go beyond Essays and PowerPoint’s for students to showcase their learning. Are you tired of students submitting GoogleSlideshows and Powerpoint presentations anytime you assign a project? Different options for student-guided projects such as BookCreator, NearPod, Google Earth, and more choices allow students voice and agency to take center stage in the classrooms. I presented about hyperdocs at the conference and shared multiple examples to help educators consider hyperdocs for more personalized teaching time and less lectures also providing multimodal learning opportunities and lots of choice.

5. Educators and Librarians working together is vital. Now that we have updated the library standards you will see how critical information literacy is for everyone. Explore the standards, familiarize yourself with the standards and you might already see how you are addressing these standards with your students because there is overlap between disciplines.

Distance Learning Book Clubs

As we continue to move forward with remote learning I am planning a World War 2 reading unit for the upcoming month. Thinking about how to get books into my students hands and continue to encourage them to read and reflect is my objective. I have reorganized my teaching to support all the learners in my classroom remotely and virtually.

The reading unit is grounded in choice. Students choose which book they want to read about WW2. To build background knowledge students are immersed in multimodal text sets reading and viewing nonfiction articles primary sources, photographs, videos, and movies about the time period.

To make sure that we get books in every student’s hands, my special education teacher and I will be reading aloud from one of the book every day on Google Meet for a live read aloud and also recording the read alouds for students to access on Google Classroom. The school librarian has made available many of these books as Ebooks for students to borrow the books and a handful of students will purchase their own books on Kindles, paper copies, or audio books.

As students are reading the different texts they will respond in writing, discussion on  Flipgrid, and collaborating on Google Jamboards – collaborative whiteboards students can edit and add observations and insights – thanks to @tarahtesmer for the insights.

Each week students will focus their reading on a particular topic or theme to help develop thinking and theories about their reading. For example, the first week of reading students will focus on characterization:

On a Google Doc, write a letter to the protagonist in your book in which you describe explain why you admire or do not admire the protagonist. 

In your letter, be sure to describe the characteristics of the protagonist in response to the war. Identify whether they are an upstander, bystander, ally or target. 

Be sure to include throughout your letter four (4) textual citations (including page numbers) that contain noteworthy information to support your reasoning. I provide students with a template to help get started and an exemplar to aim for.

Also, as students read deeper into their books I hope students will make connections between the hatred, bias, and violence that spread during WW2 and the hatred that has been on the rise around the world today. Students will research the rise of hate groups today.  After completing a Venn Diagram, students write a one page (double spaced, 12 point font) reflection that parallels to the events that took place around the world during WW2 in Europe and America after Pearl Harbor – as presented in your book and the rise of hate today. Students will use key information and direct textual evidence to address what social conditions would be necessary for hate groups to grow today. What they believe would be the most likely basis of another world war: pride, nationalism, fear, racism, economic interests, or religious intolerance? Here are two links to kick start research: 

NY Times Article “Over 1,000 Hate Groups Are Now Active in United States” 

Southern Poverty Law Center Hate Map

Throughout the current educational climate of distance and remote learning my goal is to continue to help students develop rich literacy lives, promote critical thinking, and make connections.

What are you working on with your students to do the same? Share the reading units you are working on during remote learning in the comments section on this blog and also we always want to know the strategies and tools you are getting the most at to support literacy learning.

 

#ISTE18 EdTech Start Ups: The Ones to Watch

One of the gems of the ISTE Annual Conference is the EdTech Start Up Pavilion. This year many of the companies in this group were literacy based with free tools teachers can access now. Here are five of my favorites:

Go Go Brain is an interactive online platform that strengthens seven critical meta-cognition skills: 1. Listening, 2. Following Directions, 3. Self-Control, 4. Focus and Attention, 6. Working Memory, and 7. Visual-Spatial Reasoning. The website offers games for young people to play to build these skills and flex their brain muscles. As I was playing the games, I thought that this might be great for adults too. For the 2018-2019 school year, GoGo Brain is offering complimentary memberships where parents and teachers can enroll for free by visiting the website and use the code: GoGo2018.

Mind Right offers personalized, live coaching over text message for teens who want to talk, judgment free. The company was started by two women who met at Stanford’s joint MBA/MA in Education program. Inspired by personal and familial histories with trauma, Ashley Edwards and Alina Liao have been working to reduce the stigma around mental health in communities of color and ensure every child has access to mental health support.  With the growing amount of mental health and anxiety that young people may be feeling today and maybe unable or afraid to talk, Mind Right offers young people guidance from a team of coaches that can help navigate the challenges we face every day – both positive and negative.

826 Digital is a new website for educators with writing curriculum tools including activities, lesson, and student writing. This is a creative writing platforms with Sparks, or flexible and focused skill building activities, as well as ready to use, topic based lesson plans and mini units to help teach process and revision. Some examples include Rewriting the Zombie Apocalypse and Teach a pirate how to eat a peanut and butter jelly sandwich. All of the lessons and projects are Common Core aligned. There are resources to teach persuasive, expository, narrative, poetry, and STEM writing. I cannot wait to use some of these writing prompts with my middle school students.

For media literacy, Weird Enough Productions is launching their own comic based media literacy curriculum. With an eye on representation, their mission is to “combat media misrepresentation through original content and media literacy education.” Subscribe on their website now to get early access to their media literacy curriculum.

I am so excited for Words Liive, a 21st Century education technology that has developed the Culturally Responsive Pedagogy needed to meet the instructional demands for today’s classrooms. Today’s youth needs to see themselves in their education to aspire to perform in school. They’ve created a patented platform that integrates song lyrics into students’ reading assignments. Founded in 2013 by artist and educator, Sage Salvo, Words Liive is a music-based literacy program that helps teachers and students connect classic canon with contemporary popular music today. Words Liive integrates song lyrics into students’ reading assignments via “Real-Time” and On-demand Culturally Responsive digital platform. Currently in Beta form, you can preview the texts, find lesson plans, and utilize the available assessments. Check it out!

 

 

The Four Hour Teacher: 10X Student & Teacher Output

When you look at your daily or weekly lessons, what are you filling up your time with in your classroom?

This is a question that I ask myself often to help strengthen student learning and reflect on my own teaching practices. My intentions in my classroom are to teach what is important, limit and eliminate wasteful worksheets or information to help my students succeed and learn in deep ways.

Before I address how teachers can do the same in their own classrooms, I want to talk about why and what prompted this vision for teaching.

I am a HUGE fan of Tim Ferriss, author of The Four Hour Work Week, The Four Hour Body, and The Four Hour Chef. The concept behind his books and podcasts are to strip down information to the essentials tools and knowledge in order to optimize output ten fold.  Ferriss is an entrepreneur, writer, and teacher. In fact, he has said he always thought that he would be a ninth grade English teacher. His books are like cliff notes to mastering cooking, weight loss, and managing time. His podcasts are interviews with amazing entrepreneurs that taps into their own successes, mindset, and rituals that got them to where they are.

Work versus busy work. Efficiency. Filtering the “signal from the noise.” These are the ideas that I transfer into my teaching and classroom to accelerate learning. It’s about searching out what works in education and literacy learning to dedicate my class time to developing students’ reading, writing, speaking, listening, and viewing skills. This means “engaging students in the best learning opportunities” (Frey, Lapp, Hattie, 2016). In my own classroom these learning opportunities include: Genius Hour, Interactive Reading Notebooks, Gamification, Articles of the Week, Reading and Writing Workshop. These are the approaches and tools that help me meet the variety of learners in my classroom. At the same time, I hone in on the purpose, context, and timing of the practices students are engaged in my classroom on a daily basis.

What does that look like in my classroom? Here is the calendar I created  last week for the first semester of school (20 weeks). The calendar outlines the units of study I will dive into with my students along with the skills and topics I teach in order to provide students the opportunities to build on and improve their abilities as readers and writers.

Want more on Tim Ferriss?  Here are three of my favorite podcasts he has done that offer insight into this mindset and philosophy on learning.

1. Tim Ferriss featured on Freakonomics
2. Tim Ferriss interviews Malcolm Gladwell
3. How to Think Like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos

Transforming Writer’s Lives With Digital Tools #ILA16

Later this week I will be heading to Boston for the International Literacy Association Annual Conference in Boston, MA. I am excited to be presenting with two of my esteemed colleagues: poet, Laura Purdie Salas and blogger and literacy consultant, Carol Varsalona.

Our hands on workshop will present a series of creative and collaborative activities  integrating art and technology with literacy. More than a dozen digital tools and resources will be featured to examine, explore, and share, including Google Docs, word clouds, KidBlog, photo-editing tools: PicMonkey, Canva, PicLits, and Wonderopolis so educators can model and integrate these resources into their instruction. Our objective is that participants will engage in conversations about the effect of digital literacy on classroom instructional practices and literacy learning to encourage teachers to build classrooms that promote choice and voice.

Here are sketch notes I created highlighting the tools and literacy strategies we will cover during our presentation.

As technology continues to expand the way students and teachers engage in literacy, teachers need to embrace the role of digital media in the classroom to foster a culture of creativity and innovation. There are dozens of tech tools that help young people build literacy skills and simultaneously allow students to become writers, poets, and digitally literate meaning makers. Literacy 2.0 brings to the forefront digital tech tools that enhance learning and literacy in the digital age where students are content creators and critical thinkers.

Shifting teachers’ thinking about writing from a traditional sense to next generation literacy instruction utilizing digital toolkits, electronic devices, and digital platforms will allow students to become meaning makers where voice, choice, and perspective are honored.

How will you deepen your understanding of literacy development through Literacy 2.0? 

Here are some tools we will address in our workshop.

Want to know more? I have included the slides to our presentation for more insight and digital literacy tools.

More to follow about literacy learning at #ILA16 in the next post.

Reading and Writing Workshop is Relevant in the Digital Age

When I first began teaching in New York City many years ago, I utilized the reading and writing workshop during the 90 minute literacy blocks I taught daily. Today, I still welcome the reading and writing workshop into my middle school English classroom, although my schedule limits class time to 40 minute periods. I offer gradual release into the reading and writing workshop as we dive into book clubs, independent reading, and whole class novels throughout the school year. My students maintain reader’s notebooks and write about about the texts they read as well as the topics that are important to them.

Below are a few ideas and technology tools that I utilize in my Reading and Writing Workshop to help deepen my students’ comprehension, maintain accountable talk, and build writing portfolios.

Reader’s Notebooks Still Matter – Even in the digital age where many teachers have moved into Google Classroom, I use interactive reader’s notebooks — Yes, a marble composition notebook. Inside the notebook students maintain data about their reading life (Reading Timeline, information about themselves as readers, and their reading goals), interactive foldables on what they are learning, including mini-lessons and read alouds. The notebook also contains graphic organizers, sketch notes, and written reflections that highlight student’s application of independent reading in written form. The notebook is a space for students to process information and reflect on their reading.

Face to Face Conversations are just as important as Digital Collaboration – Students need to practice talking to one another face to face, read body language, and cues. Verbal communication is a necessary skill both in and out of school. Students need to get in the habit of meeting with partners and small groups to interact face to face and share their thinking about the texts.

Digital Collaboration is Beneficial – Students can collaborate digitally on a wikipage, blog,  or Google Doc to help them capture their thinking about reading and highlight the conversations and accountable talk that is happening about text. Students can use digital applications to record the conversations using tools like @Recapthat or @Vine to showcase insights, questions, and new thinking.

Google Classroom as a Digital Writing Portfolio – Students can utilize Google Docs to create a portfolio of their writing about their reading. When we ask students to write long or write literary essays about their reading, it can be showcased online and shared with QR Codes or even create a digital Flip Book of student’s best writing.

Flip The Reader’s and Writing Workshop – After reading Dana Johansen and Sonja Cherry-Paul’s Flip Your Writing Workshop: A Blended Learning Approach (2016) I gained so many ideas to to create digital lessons that allow students to work at their own pace and target instruction to small groups and individuals. Creating a digital library of online lessons modeling writing strategies and setting reading goals help to free up more time for individualized instruction.

Here are a few trustworthy tech tools for Accountable Talk in Book Clubs and Reading Partnerships:

Backchannels:

Twitter

Vine

Today’s Meet

Socrative

Reflection Tools:

Recapthat (iPad and Laptops Only)

Polleverywhere – Utilize the new word cloud feature

Voicethread

Padlet

Do Ink

Collaborate Ideas in Written Format:

Google Docs

Wikis

Participate Learning

Blogs

 

 

 

Literacy 2.0 – Genius Hour Digital Inspirations

My friend and colleague, Carol Varsalona, author of the blog Beyond Literacy Link has collected numerous photographs and poems from published writers and teachers which she calls “digital inspirations.” These digital inspirations are artistic expressions and short poems that showcase both images and words. All of the inspirations written by Varsalona herself, and an expanding community of writers, are cataloged online in thematic galleries on her blog.

For a Genius Hour assignment, I asked my students to create a digital inspiration highlighting their Genius Hour project this spring. These digital inspirations became an advertisement of sorts to inform and inspire others of their work this semester. Below is a slideshow of their work. The inspirations highlight the array of passion projects and the creativity among my students.

As technology continues to expand the ways students and teachers engage in literacy, teachers need to embrace the role of digital media in the classroom to foster a culture of creativity and innovation.  Literacy 2.0 brings to the forefront digital tech tools that enhance learning and literacy in the digital age where students are content creators and critical thinkers.

Passion is a powerful agent of change (Lucy Calkin) in a student-centered classroom. As Fisher and Frey have noted in their article, “Collaborative Conversations,” instructional leaders should focus attention on the Common Core Learning Standard Anchor Standard 1 for Speaking and Listening that asks that we prepare for and participate in collaborations with diverse partners, building on each others’ ideas and expressing their own clearly and persuasively. Adherence to the ELA Anchor Standard 1 for Listening and Speaking is essential to move educators from the sage on the stage to a more reflective practitioner, facilitator, and instructional coach who aims to create engaged, risk-taking classroom environments where passion exists and writers thrive.

The ideas presented above stem from a workshop Carol Varsalona, poet extraordinaire,  Laura Purdie Salas, and myself will be presenting at ILA 2016 in Boston, MA this upcoming July titled Transforming Lives Through Literacy 2.0.