Video: Thank you soccer volunteers

Here is my video. I made this potentially for our soccer banquet but now I'm not so sure. Originally I had thought to make a general thank you video for those who have helped throughout the season Then, our team ended up going to state and some of those pictures haven't been included in the video someone else has made about the team for the bauquet. So, I might tweak this some more after I see how we do in state (the first game is Friday Oct. 29 by the way). So, it had been a while since I have made a MovieMaker movie and I'd forgotten a lot, so I spent some extra time on this to refresh my memory. I like many things about MovieMaker but some I still find frustrating. I find the audio frustrating. Also, to use audio, most itunes are MP4 whereas MovieMaker requires MP3, so you have to be willing to go through that hassle - which I am not always patientenough to do - so my music selection is sometimes simply based on what works at the time. Movie making has been the most difficult switch for me - to go from iMovie to MovieMaker. But I'm learning.

Online role play

I'm commenting on our class online roleplay experience.  Rick directed us to create a personnae and then argue the debate topic "public schools are failing American students and therefore should be dismantled."  We came up with the topic as a class - it was kind of a conglomeration of possible topics we listed.  We then listed possible roles.  I took the role of a "home school coop founder" and argued pro - yes, public schools should be dismantled.  I thought my role should be educated so I gave her a college degree but after that I wanted her experience to be pretty minimal - taking great pride in her own coop experience because that was really the only experience she had to draw upon.   But I didn't want her to be a complete hick. This person thought of themselves as rational and educated.  I then had my role play put up research backed opinions.  The research I tried to add was only to support her pro-position that public schools have failed American students and homeschool is terrific.  So I tried to argue that homeschool crosses economic levels and that homeschool students consistently perform better on tests and in general make better citizens. I found some pretty supportive data on the site for National Center for Education Statistics.  I also pointed out that most homeschoolers choose to homeschool for either religious or moral reasons. 

I think the roles that had the most power and sway were those that expressed more provocative opinions.  The opinions they expressed begged to be addressed and/or refuted.  Their strategy seemed to be to employ the most stereotyped roleplay possible and make strongly opinionated statements (whether backed by research or not).  I think my roleplay personality tried too hard to find the middle ground and not offend anyone.  I hadn't wanted her to be a rabid homeschooler, because I wanted her to be respected, but perhaps that would have been more successful.  I think those role plays that expressed strong opinions earned respect. 

My role was different than my personal beliefs.  I have never been homeschooled nor have I practiced homeschool.  I'm not sure my role play personality even convinced myself in the debate.  I'm glad we live in a society that allows the freedom for all options.  I thought one topic that came up that was difficult to refute was that of educating the underpriviledged.  In my homeschool role I had a difficult time argueing against that reality.

I thought the whole experience was fun and a great  learning opportunity for me.  In our post debate discussion/chat we talked about various ways to use this in the classroom.  I like the idea of combining it with a novel study and debate topic.  One example I like is that of the class that read the novel Montana 1948 and then used it as a launching pad to debate the topic of using American Indians as mascot figures for sports teams.  I like the idea of allowing students the opportunity to create a personality.  I think this requires some creativity and originality.  However, if the goal of the debate is to gain a greater understanding of the novel, then adopting the role of one of the characters might be more appropriate.  I think the post debate discussion and a response follow-up like this blog is equally important.  It helps the student process the experience and determine what they learned.  I see this role play online debate as a fabulous use of technology.

A start on wikis

Now that I've had a little more time to process the idea of a wiki and experiment a little, I think I finally understand and appreciate the tool they are.  I can definitely see the organizational value of a wiki.  For my own undestanding, I kind of had to think of a wiki as a tree map on it's side.  Or another visual image is a file cabinet with larger categories, then folders within those categories, and papers in the folders.  Once I had a visual image and began to organize my own ideas, I understood the educational value.  What a fantastic tool to allow collaboration.  First of all, for use in a classroom, they make sense because each student would be using/learning the same format.  I think they would be a very useful collaboration tool for other organizational strategies - groups, clubs, etc., but perhaps not everyone would be fully engaged with the collaborative nature of them. In other words, I think it would be a lot of fun, and very practical, for organizing recipes or family history with friends or family, but not all my friends or family would readily embrace learning to use a wiki. So for a classroom, I especially see them as a useful tool for building a collection - whatever that collection is.

For example, in a literature classroom, students could contribute definitions for vocabulary, they could research and contribute to a variety of aspects of the literature being studied - and that's part of the beauty of the wiki - it leaves room for a lot of choice in terms of what direction both the teacher and student want to go.  For example, I am developing http://www.waysmooth.pbworks.com/, a wiki about my Junior Great Books novels.  In one of these, The Door in the Wall, we could study castles, medieval time period, bubonic plague, London...all kinds of different directions.  I have begun making links with Youtube, etc., because it is pretty unlikely that in my situation my students will be actually doing much research and adding it, but I have set it up to demonstrate that potential.   So one strategy would be students providing background research to a novel. 

One thing I like about the wiki as opposed to a website, is the flexibility and ease with which things can be added and changed.  With websites, there is the whole publishing step to go through.  An example of this flexibility, is again on my wiki.  I found a Youtube video on the St. Mary le Bow bells in London.  Then I added a flickr slideshow of pictures of St. Mary le Bow. The opportunity for students to view these two together will have much greater impact than separately. 

So right now I guess I'm having a tendency to still think of my wiki in terms of "my" effort.  I'm still thinking through how I would involve younger students.  I think it would be much easier to engage and involve older students that have more freedom to use the web.  So initially, I think using the wiki would require more "set up" to involve younger students.  Or maybe not, maybe I could have them post any vocab words they're unfamiliar with along with the definition as they come across them in their reading.  That seems a little boring though, and that is precisely what I'm trying to avoid.  Obviously this will take some more thought, but it's a start.

My Lutin

In my first grade Junior Great Books class we read a story called The Black Hen's Egg.  It is about a magic egg that hatches a magic Lutin that does all kinds of chores for an old woman.  One of the questions we talk about after reading the story, is what we would like our Lutin to do for us if we had a Lutin of our own.  Invariably, the most common answer is "my chores," or "clean my room."  Well, I have decided that I would like a magic Lutin to help me with my technology issues and questions.  To some degree, my kids have served this purpose - helping me download to my MP3 player, helping me learn to use my cell phone... very crucial help at the time.  But I now find that there are applications I'm learning that they don't have the experience to help me with.  I need a Lutin.  Yes, I'm making great use of the help tabs, and they are a great help, but wouldn't it be nice to have a quick fix answer always at the ready?

So this week I have been experimenting with Google Docs and Wikis.  I have had success with Google Docs using the forms application.  I made an invitation for the soccer team banquet and embedded it in our website.  My next task is to make a template for a teacher feedback form for my Junior Greats Books classes.    One key discovery I made using the forms template, is that in order to embed or send an email so that the submit button works, I needed to use the template copy.

In thinking about wikis, I'm having a harder time wrapping my head around the best possible use for one right now.  The two words I think of when I think about the wiki are quick and collaboration.  My class professor mentioned even using one for recipes.  And yes, I can see that the value in having a recipe wiki.  So I could do that, but I'm also trying to think about how I might use one with Junior Great Books or whether I should come up with something else entirely - a literature based wiki for potential future use... Check out my next blog to check my progress.