Class Participation 2.0

I'm not sure where the practice to grade students on class participation originated. But it seems a common and accepted practice in many classrooms. For some students, it's a way to improve that 89% to an A-. Other students aren't so fortunate.

Have you considered the reasons why students do not participate? It's not necessarily because they don't have an opinion or know the material. Instead, it could be due to fear of humiliation, social anxiety, need for more time to process and produce, expressive language issues, shyness. But is the "raise your hand, get called on by the teacher" the only way to participate in class discussions?

Not in 2009.

What are the options?

In class options if you have a laptop or netbook cart, or are in a computer lab:

• EtherPad - synchronous collaborative word processing, the ability to use the TimeSlider tool allows students to see how the document evolved
• Wallwisher - synchronous collaborative "wall" creation - limited to 160 characters of text, can generate several Walls in response to prompts. Need to refresh to see inputted text.
• Google Forms and Survey Monkey - Students answer questions or prompts, no limit to the amount of text or the number of students who can participate synchronously. Need to refresh to see inputted text.
• Back Channel Tools - TodaysMeet (read how Richard Byrne used it with his students while they watched a historical movie), Cover it Live and Chatzy. You can consider occasionally recording your instruction using UStream or Livestream. Then encourage students to use the back channel to ask questions, participate in discussion. Ustream and Livestream are bandwidth hogs; you may choose to try this to determine it's effectiveness as an alternative to traditional hand raising. (If you want to learn about BackChanneling as an educational tool, view the embedded SlideShare below, created by Vicki Davis).
• Twitter - use a specific #hashtag

After class options:

• Class Blog
• Class Wiki - can tract student's participation using the "history" feature
• Class Google Doc
• Create audio messages and share with class - Vocaroo (simplest audio recording tool ever),
• Create video messages and share - Tokbox, or Eyejot
• Create collaborative VoiceThreads - one idea is to offer a discussion prompt and have students record their responses. They can type, text message or record their responses.

Backchannel Basics

View more presentations from coolcatteacher.

An innovative example of how this can work is the Alice Project, a creation of Christian Long, 10th grade English teacher who used new media tools to extend learning as his students studied Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll. Class participation extended well beyond the four walls of the classroom.

Why Reinvent the Wheel? Best of the Web

Vicki Davis at CoolCat Teacher blog created this post of her web favorites. This is incredible - check it out. There's a few new tools I need to explore.

Makes no sense to reinvent the wheel - this is an excellent resource for all of us. Thanks, Vicki!

NECC 2007 - The Aftermath.

NECC 2007 ended yesterday in Atlanta. Reading the conversations about the paradigm shift during NECC itself are fascinating. Reading the blogs of edubloggers detail how the greatest energy and excitement came, not from the sessions, definitely not from the exhibit halls, but from the edubloggerscon unconference, from the Bloggers Cafe and from the Skype conversations that happened during sessions.
Jeff Utrecht posted the Skype notes from conversations that happened simultaneously while Will Richardson presented and during a panel discussion. How many times have you sat in a session with thoughts swimming through your head and no way to discuss them? The use of Skype brought a whole new dimension to the participant experience!

Those who engaged in the conversations talk about the impact it had on their learning. What are the implications for our classrooms? Do we just ignore this new use of a Web 2.0 tool or do we grab it's power for the classroom experience? I can hear the objections but this is another opportunity to engage in discussions about acceptable use with our students and involve them in the learning process. We know that we learn when we are engaged, and when we build upon prior experience. This would certainly take it up a notch! Engage the kids during lectures!

Other gems from participants: Check out the Nuggets from NECC (Wes Fryer), Remember the Bloggers! (Will Richardson) The VoiceThread from the Edubloggercon's group pic (Joyce Valenza's great idea! and think about the classroom applications again!), My Thoughts Tuesday at NECC (Jeff Utrecht again with an explanation about how Twitter was used during the conference), Dave Warlick put together HitchhikrNECC, Vicki Davis liveblogging Tuesday morning's Keynote Panel, and discover Joyce Valenza's Web 2.0 Meets Information Fluency wiki which will take you the entire summer to get through! (This is an incredible resource!!)

I know I missed a great deal...this is just a start...so check out the posts tagged NECC07, NECC2007 for information that appeals to you.

One thing that is conspicuously absent to me is any discussion about the implications for our students with special needs. Why is this? Is this because Web 2.0 is UDL and we are engaging all learners by definition? Not necessarily, because some of these tools will be difficult to navigate for those with visual impairments or physical disabilities. It will be interesting to see how this plays out as we strive to remove the barriers for ALL students. The need to keep the tools inclusive is an important, but neglected, part of this discussion.

Another take-away for me (and I didn't attend the conference) is the noticeable lack of student participation. (can't remember who blogged about that....anyone?) What would happen if we showed the tools to our students and watched as they used them as their own learning instruments, and more? We can't keep these tools to ourselves anymore - put them in the hands of kids over this summer. Is there a way to do this? And is there a way to include them in NECC 2008? There's plenty of time to plan that possibility!

True Confessions

It's a cool, drizzly Saturday afternoon here north of Boston and I have spent the last four hours trying to catch up on my posts in my Bloglines feed. I started with 245 posts just from the past few days and am only down to 217 posts. You see, what happens is that bloggers include links to other posts, or videos or presentations and I get distracted. And captivated.

Here are some blogs to distract you this weekend:

Scott McLeod has devoted this week to Change. Here's a tease:

Many have commented that schools look much like they did 100 years ago. Countless edubloggers have expressed frustration about those ‘educators that won’t change’ or, worse, ‘get in the way of those who do want change.’ But most folks don’t ground their concerns in any kind of actionable framework or mental model about how change occurs (or doesn’t).

So this week I’m going to write about change. I’m a school leadership professor. We talk a lot about change. How to facilitate good change. How to avoid bad change. How to think about change.

Those of you who are longtime readers know that I like to try and keep it fairly practical.

Check out all his posts this week. Outstanding posts!

Vicki Davis, at CoolCat Teacher Blog, writes about the new PowerPoint presentations. If you are still showing bulleted slides, time to enter a new world away from PowerPointless.

Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach shared some teacher humor videos which led me to watch at least an hour of youtube videos about education. (check out anything uploaded by funny teacher). Sheryl also blogged about a recent conference she participated in "Teacher 2.0 - Developing the 21st Century Workforce." Lots to be distracted by.

Jeff Utrecht, blogger and thinker extrordinaire from Shanghai China, writes The Thinking Stick - check out his NETS Refreshed - Do we Need Tech Standards? and Creating Moments of Learning posts (about a Skype conversation between a classroom of students at his school and a classroom in LA). Then go back and look at all he has written.

I respect anything from Carolyn Foote and Kelly Christopherson and added them to my bloglines subscriptions. That added more posts to read.

And for assorted stuff, here's a great blog! And anything by David Warlick, Will Richardson, Miguel Guhlin, Wes Fryer, Chris Craft....the list is extensive.

Reading blog posts keeps me current, challenges me to think about education in new ways, to attempt to facilitate change.

I admit it; I'm addicted to the rush of energy, passion, thinking outside the box and the challenge to "that's the way we always do it" attitude that is pervasive in education blogs. There is a collective excitement about the possibilities and an idealism and belief that we can make education relevant for our students.

We can make a difference through the collaboration that occurs through Web 2.0. It's empowering to me when I read the thoughts of others throughout the nation who have similar beliefs or who challenge my thinking.

Do you subscribe to any blogs that challenge your thinking and encourage excellence in education? Please share them here. Feed my addiction.