Digital Story...

Here is my digital story created for Technology to Enhance Literacy... "Why am I in Education?"

Week 5

For this week's blog entry, I am going to examine plagiarism and citations.  At the high school level, I have seen many students unknowingly plagiarism because of not citing their sources. Some of our students "cite" their sources, but do not do it correctly. Often times, our students will paste the URL on their resource page and claim that it is their citation.  I believe that students really think they are correctly citing their sources.

With that being said, it is vital that we emphasize citations in all content areas, not just in the ELA classrooms.  It is important that all staff members take part in this practice so our students will be better prepared for college and career paths.  In order for us to teach students how to properly cite sources, it will need to be a building or district level initiative.  I think teachers across all content areas will need to be educated on proper citations and utilize those skills in their classrooms. In addition, teachers will need to step it up and require students to use the appropriate citation for the assignments.

Our ELA department has put together a resource guide for all content areas on papers, citations, obtaining resources, and rubrics.  Although this is a great resource, it is under utilized.  How do you think it could be better utilized? How can we better educate staff members on plagiarism and citing sources? Any ideas are appreciated!

Listed below are a few websites that I have found useful related to citing and plagiarism:

Purdue Owl APA 
Purdue Owl MLA
Teaching Plagiarism
Plagiarism Tutorial 

Week 4

For this week's blog discussion, I chose to answer the third question, "Many teachers have a classroom website with varying levels of success. How have you made your classroom website more useful to students, families, and other educators?
What gaps still remain?"

During the 13 - 14 school year, our districted implemented the use of a LMS (learning management system) with students in grades 9-12.  The product we are using is Canvas.  Prior to Canvas, we had many teachers (including myself) who had a classroom website where we would post information, assignments, dates, etc.  Because of the way the websites were created, it was not interactive, only used for information gathering.  I believe my website was okay...It was probably the best I could do with what I had at the time. 

Canvas, or many LMS products for that matter, allow two way communication.  Teachers can post assignments, discusses, quizzes, podcasts, virtual meetings, etc. Students can access the course information they need to be successful in most classes.  

Parents in our district have a parent portal account that links to their child's Canvas account. Parents have view only rights to their child's account... meaning they can see everything their child sees, however they do not have rights to make changes, complete assignments, test, etc.  Our parents have been very pleased (once the bugs were worked out) with their capabilities in Canvas. 

In addition to the student and parent availability, teachers can also grant access to other teachers to be able to view their information in Canvas. Because of this, many of our teachers are able to (very easily) share their curriculum.  

Incorporating Literacy

In my position, I work very closely with new teachers.  This year, I will have an opportunity to work with a new teacher, who will be teaching business courses at our high school.  As my background is in business education, I have decided to look for specific ways to incorporate literacy into the business classroom.  Here is a list of ideas: 

Article Reviews
1. Researching current technology trends and reflecting on information found using APA style 
2. Researching various business models (based on Fortune Magazine best companies to work for)

Business Plans - outline all aspects of a business plan - involves researching business plans, designing a business, defining objectives and goals (using SMART model) 

Ethical Situations/Business Law - locate recent unethical situations involving business and reflecting on decisions made, this will also involve a presentation on findings 

Communication Formats - review and prepare, using the block style, a business letter applying for a job

Job Application - although this might be a stretch for literacy integration, it is a still a skill that our students struggle with and the knowledge on it is very important. Students will review appropriate guidelines for completing job applications and fill one out. 

Reading Business Journals - possibly incorporate a 10 minute reading time dedicated to learning about the business world, using BizJournal

What ways will you incorporate literacy into your content area? 

Wiki Evaluation

According to “CoolCatTeacher” effective Wiki's contain the following seven elements: a collaborative effort, visual appeal, organization, hyperlinks to sources, original, intelligent wording, multi-sensory tools, and RSS Feeds. I will use those elements to evaluate the following wikis:

http://mysideofthemountain.wikispaces.com/

http://thewright3.wikispaces.com/home

The first I have chosen to evaluate is from a primary classroom with activities regarding the reading of “My Side of the Mountain” by Jean Craighead George. The purpose of the wiki is to walk the students through the required reading. The wiki is from Mrs. Dearolph's reading class at Woodward Academy. Here is the link: http://mysideofthemountain.wikispaces.com/. Following the wiki evaluation criteria I believe this wiki is pulling in many of the aspects required. The wiki has different students from the class working on the page. The students are posting writings, games, videos, and summaries of their readings. The wiki included collaborative efforts, visual appeal, organization, and original wording. However, I did not see any multi-sensory tools or RSS feeds. I think for an elementary classroom, this wiki is a great project for the students. Students were able to post original work and see the work of their classmates.

The second wiki evaluated is documenting the reading of "The Wright 3" by Blue Balliett. The purpose of this wiki is to aid in the reading of the book. Although the wiki does not mention the school or age group, through the assignments and wording, I believe it is for a secondary classroom. The wiki contains summaries of different sections in the book and bibliographies of the characters. According to the site, students were assigned specific pages to edit regarding their project. The wiki is collaborative, organized, uses original wording and has hyperlinks to many sources. However, there was very little visual appeal, no multi-sensory tools and no RSS Feeds.

I think both wikis, although very different, met the purpose of the classroom project. I was more impressed with the first wiki, because it included voice recordings that students created when interviewing their parents. I think the second wiki should have been developed with more creativity, allowing student choice in demonstrating their understanding of the content.