Encouraging End of the Year Reflection

I love asking students to reflect.  I enjoy reading student reflections more than any other form of student writing. I often assign reflections after major projects, as part of final exams and sometimes just for fun.

I'll take any opportunity to squeeze in a reflection.  I find mid-project formative reflections really fascinating.  Recently, I asked my students what they still needed to do to complete the feature article for their expert project and what they felt they needed help with.  I used a Google Form of course, and running through the spreadsheet I could tell which of my students had a coherent plan for finishing and which needed immediate intervention.  A student who has a plan for finishing a task is 76% more likely to finish it. Okay, I made that percentage up, but I find a strong correlation between knowing the specific steps to reach a goal and actually meeting that goal.  Just asking students what they needed to do made them think about their steps and helped them visualize themselves finishing.

I've long supported end of project reflections as well.  Back before my classroom was paperless I had each student complete a reflection sheet to attach to each essay they turned in. I would ask things like, "What are you most proud of about the writing attached? What did you have the most difficulty with? What did you learn from this project?" Now I collect those end of project reflections via Google Form as well.

I often include reflection questions as part of a final exam.  This was one of the essay questions on my first semester final this year.  (Confession, the essays from this prompt were way more compelling to read than their responses to the analytical essay prompt.)

This semester you have been asked to read and review two books per grading period, six in total. Write about how successful (or not) you have been with this part of your English course requirements.  How has this course requirement impacted your reading life? Include your thoughts about a particular book that has had an impact on you, and your experience with that book? Finally, what reading goals do you have for yourself for second semester?

Last year I taught ninth grade and our team used this prompt as our first semester final essay question.  It is formatted to match the style of our high school exit exam, so it's better just to link you to it.

Even better than looking back though, is looking forward. In June I use http://www.futureme.org/ to have students write letters to themselves for the fall. Last year I had my freshmen write letters to themselves as seniors. "What advice would you like to give your future self?" If you are trying this with your students you'll want to walk around and peek over their shoulders because currently there is not a cc option. Also, I use http://www.futureme.org/ to send myself a reminder to use http://www.futureme.org/ again next year. My message to myself from last year arrived yesterday.

Reflection is fun and very educational. If it isn't a fixture in your classroom yet, hopefully you can steal some of the ideas above. If you are already cultivating reflection in your students leave a comment and tell us how it's working for you.

Should We Block Google Translate?

Photo Credit: kconnors via morgueFile

How should I respond to world language teachers who want to block Google translate?
A fellow Google Certified teacher posted this question to our group last week and I have been turning over my response in my head ever since.

Using Google translate is a form of plagiarism. It's cheating and students who cheat on homework won't know the material for the test in class, nor will they have the language skills they need for life in a global society. 

Long ago, my district used to block Wikipedia. Students used it at home, but at school we had no access to show them why it was not a good source. If you block translate language teachers will be in the same position. Students will use it at home, but at school teachers won't be able to demonstrate why it fails.  (Our district has now unblocked Wikipedia and I teach students to use it as a source of sources.)

When my son was in 4th grade I had to have him practice his Math homework at the kitchen table, so I could be sure he wasn't plugging the problems into his calculator in his room. Google translate is the first instance of language teachers needing to cope with their equivalent of a calculator. But even as a very fancy calculator won't help you solve a complex problem if you don't know the mathematical reasoning to use it, Google translate won't help a language student without the knowledge to make the appropriate corrections to their translation. 

If I were a language teacher I would require all at home writing to be done in Google Docs.  The revision history would quickly tell me if a student was using copy/paste from translate. (See my post about detecting plagiarism.) Then I would give students translations in class and ask them to fix the mistakes. It should not take too many repetitions of that activity to convince them that Google translate is not perfect. Further, correcting translations is probably a very authentic task for a modern linguist. 

Wikipedia isn't going away, essay selling sites aren't going away, calculators aren't going away, and translation apps are here to stay as well. It think it is a far better use of our time to adapt to technology moving forward than trying to stuff the genie back in the bottle. Further, blocking a tool with real, legitimate uses for teachers trying to communicate with diverse parent populations in many languages hinders our educational mission. 

Google translate may require language teachers to change the way they assess, assign and support student learning experiences. They may have to rethink the how and why of their instructional practices. They may have to adapt. I'm okay with that. 

A conversation about 1:1 Pedagogy

How has 1:1 transformed your teaching?  Our conversation covered a lot of ground that might help teachers interested in going paperless, or teaching with more technology in the classroom.

Digital Foundations

We need to stop teaching students about their digital footprint and start helping them build their digital foundation.

Do metaphors matter? Well, I'm an English teacher, so I would say, yes. We use metaphors to communicate abstract concepts to others, and so our metaphors should reflect what we mean. The term "digital footprint" has been used for a while now to explain that all of us leave traces of ourselves online, evidence of our actions and thinking that others can view. We tell our students to be thoughtful about their digital footprints because others will judge them by the evidence they leave online.

Footprint though, is the wrong metaphor, because footprints, other than on the moon, are ephemeral. They get washed away by water and wind. Our students who live in the concrete jungle may go weeks or months without actually seeing their own literal footprint. To students then, the metaphor of a footprint is meaningless, nonexistent or fleeting.

What we are really helping them build is a foundation, something that will last, something they can build on later, something that was planned and constructed deliberately. This is the message we need to be communicating to our students, that what they do online will last and needs to represent them well because they will be adding to it.

Yesterday, I was helping a student with some book reviews she had written on GoodReads. There were errors and I was trying to tell her she should fix them because other people would see her writing. She looked a bit skeptical, "No one's going to look at that Mrs. R." So I Googled her name (in quotes) and our town, San Diego. The first five results were all her. The first one was the book review we were discussing. Three of her other reviews were there too, as was her Facebook page. Her jaw actually dropped.

All of the old advice about teaching students to be thoughtful and careful about what they put online still applies. I'm just saying we should change the language of the metaphor and perhaps our own thinking about it. Foundations will serve our students better than footprints.

A Triple #EduWin Week: Voice Comments, iPad Prize and Video Finalist

It has been an amazing week for me in ed tech and I wanted to share some of that awesome. Many of you have been along for the ride via Twitter, Google+ and Facebook. I appreciate all the support and fun. Here's a recap.

On Monday afternoon I was skimming Twitter at lunch when I saw something about adding voice comments to a Google Doc. Excited I found out more, experimented with it a bit, and then produced this short tutorial video about how to do it. Within 24 hours almost 1,000 people had watched it, as I write this the views are over 3,500 which boggles my mind. This morning my friend Catlin Tucker tweeted her great post about voice comments with step by step screen shots, which might be more helpful for some people.

Later Monday afternoon, I participated in a Twitter chat sponsored by WeAreTeachers about paperless classrooms. I shared photos and videos of my paperless classroom, as well as strategies I use to reduce and recycle resources. At the conclusion of the chat I was amazed to be selected the winner of a new iPad! Most Twitter chats, don't come with prizes and this was new for me, but very exciting. You should check out their site because they do have great resources an a wonderful page about grants and contests.

Thursday morning I got to do a Google Hangout with some teachers who are also using voice comments. We talked about challenges related to giving students writing feedback and possibilities for using voice commenting tools beyond just feedback. This Google Hangout was live and you can watch the recorded version on YouTube here.

Thursday afternoon I got the word that I was a finalist in a video contest about technology in the classroom put on by the University of San Diego Department of Teaching and Learning. The winning video will be determined by the number of "likes" each video gets on the department Facebook page. if you are a regular reader of this blog, or if you have gotten any use at all out of anything I have shared ever (including the video above) I would really appreciate your "like" on my video.

1. Visit facebook.com/solesteach
2. Scroll down to Video Finalist #5: Jen Roberts'Classroom in the Cloud, and click the "like" button under my video. 
3. Watching the video is also fabulous and comments are welcome. Several people have asked about sharing the video further with their own staffs and I fully approve that plan.

(I will embed the video here after the contest, but for now please go watch it and like it on the FB page.)

This weekend it is back to reality.  I have grades due next week, so I will spend the weekend reading student essays in Google Docs while making voice comments on many of course, reviewing student book reviews in GoodReads and preparing mini-lesson for our expert project research days next week. In other words, pretty much everything I said I do in my Classroom in the Cloud Video.