Poetry Through VoiceThread

In my previous post, I talked a little bit about VoiceThread. Here is an example from the VoiceThread site, which is a collection of third-grade student’s poetry and accompanying art about weather. VoiceThread can be used to showcase student’s work, and allows them to narrate it as well. When the students are finished with their projects, the videos can be shared and people can comment on the work through a variety of mediums.

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Does One Size Fit All??

In Chapter 4 of Julie D. Ramsay’s “Can We Skip Lunch and Keep Writing?” Collaborating in Class and Online, Grades 3-8, Ramsay talks about how she personally differentiated instruction for a group of her fifth-grade students who struggled with oral language. She uses a free tool called Jing, which lets the user create a narrated video. The students were hesitant at first upon hearing they would have to narrate their project, but Ramsay assured them they would be able to take their time and do their narrations in privacy, so that they could get their very best recordings. When Ramsay’s students completed their project, they were faced with an obstacle – not being able to use it in the classroom, due to the program being blocked by the school district’s server. Although the students were unable to show their video in class, the student’s were still very excited to have  been the first ones in the class to use this new technology, and to successfully complete a project using it. The project gave these students new momentum when it came to their oral reading.

While Ramsay was trying to figure out a new way to use this type of software in her classroom, she was introduced to VoiceThread. VoiceThread allows the user to create a slideshow of images, text, photographs, videos, and narration. This program works great for a collaborative project, because you can share your slideshow with others, who can then comment on your work through voice, text, audio file, or video. Ramsay and her students did a collaborative poetry project about “going green”. She wanted her students to comment on the work of others, and when doing so Ramsay was able to target a few groups of students who needed more help in particular areas of oral or written language. She differentiated her instruction to fit the students’ needs, which dealt with things like articulation, grammar, and using descriptive words and figurative language.

While doing these projects, Ramsay realized how important it was to tailor her instruction to meet the needs of the learner. Differentiating instruction means that you observe and understand the similarities and differences between learners, and you use this information to plan instruction. In a classroom, there will be a variety of differences between the students and how they learn. Knowing how these students learn will help ensure that they will succeed in your classroom. And not only does differentiating instruction deal with tailoring the instruction to fit the students’ needs, but it also means not doing the same things over, and over, and over again. Just look at the cartoon below to see how important this is as well:

Below are 9 ways in which you can differentiate reading instruction. Keep in mind that these don’t just stop at reading, they can be used in some way for all of the other content areas that we as teachers are responsible for teaching. (These tips come from “Differentiating Reading Instruction” by Laura Robb – and you can get more information on her tips by clicking on the above link).

• Make your read alouds a common teaching text.
• Teach with diverse materials.
• Organize for instruction so you meet all reading levels.
• Value independent practice reading.
• Show students how to construct meaning while reading.
• Encourage discussion.
• Write to explore, think, learn, and improve comprehension.
• Use ongoing assessments to support each student.
• Plan your units carefully.

As a future teacher, there is one important thing (along with the thousands of other important things) that I believe I need to remember when it comes to becoming a successful teacher. All students are not the same. In order to help them succeed, I need to be prepared with my lessons and be ready to teach all levels of students, including those who are at grade level, below grade level, and above grade level. Remember:

technology in the classroom – is it really that important?

Before last semester, I never thought much about how technology could be incorporated in the classroom. I used to think that it would just make things more difficult, especially if you did not know how to use a specific program or piece of equipment. One professor in particular and a few peers have introduced me to a world of technology that I did not know existed. Through projects and activities such as:

– creating a book trailer (here is an example of one for the book “When You Reach Me” by Rebecca Stead.. this is the one my group made for our project)
– using a wiki
– making a Goodreads account to rate and review books (and you can see some of the books I have reviewed by scrolling down and clicking on the widget on the right of the screen!)
– making a video using animoto (here is “All About Me In 30 Seconds”)
– showcasing a chosen author by making a Glog (here is one that a peer and I created, about Judy Blume)
– using presentation programs such as Prezi and Sliderocket
– watching presentations on using technology in the classroom
– creating this blog
– using Dropbox for backing up materials (instead of the old, un-reliable flash drive.. this saved me just last semester as my hard-drive crashed just a few weeks after being introduced to Dropbox!!)
– making a digital notebook using Evernote
– and MUCH, MUCH more

I have come to realize how useful and FUN using technology in the classroom can be. There are a number of benefits that can arise from doing so, and I believe that any teacher who uses technology to teach their curriculum will see just how much it can be enhanced.

In the book titled “Can We Skip Lunch and Keep Writing?” Collaborating in Class and Online, Grades 3-8 by Julie D. Ramsay, Ramsay discusses ways in which she successfully used technology in her own fifth-grade classroom. Although her school district had a rigid curriculum, Ramsay and her students were able to weave technology into their writing, making it possible for them to communicate in a digital world. Through this book, one can see a variety of digital tools that Ramsay used, as well as how effective this technology proved to be in improving these students writing and learning. I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who teaches English or writing, or who will be doing so in the future. Actually, I think pretty much any teacher between grades 3-8 can really benefit from this book.. so read it!!

As someone who never really enjoyed writing, this book helps me out A LOT. It gives me ideas of how to successfully teach writing to students when I need to, instead of teaching them in a boring and dreadful way as I was taught.

The whole technology in the classroom ordeal also sparked an interest for writing a paper. In one of my classes I am taking now, we had to choose an essay out of one of our class books and use it in some way to write our own essay. Ellen DeGeneres wrote a book, The Funny Thing Is…, from which the excerpt “This is How We Live” was taken. Ellen argues that technology has made our society extremely lazy. She discredits a lot of technology, saying that it has done more harm than good.

Although this had nothing to do with technology in the classroom, it got me to thinking about the benefits of technology, in particular the benefits to learning. I wanted to write a paper on how important it is to integrate technology into the classroom. I know that when I have my own classroom, I will definitely be using technology in many of my lessons. Because of the growing technological world that we live in, it is very important for students to know how to ‘survive’ in this world, and a lot of those survival skills will come forth if they are exposed to the technology available to them. And keep in mind, I’m not saying that integrating technology in the classroom is foolproof and there are no cons to using technology (because there certainly are). But I believe that the pros outshine the cons profusely, thus my belief of integration of technology in the classroom.

An Original Poem…

Here is an original haiku that I wrote, and an animation to go with it. I created this animation using Smilebox.

This was a fun way to animate my poetry. I’ve never liked writing or reading poetry, but this made my poetry more fun and exciting. This would be a fun activity to do with students to get them more involved with poetry, and to get more students to actually enjoy it rather than dread it!

“I don’t want to because boys don’t write poetry. Girls do.”

Love That Dog by Sharon Creech is a short, wonderful book about one boys struggle with poetry. To read a little summary about it, click here.

While going through school, most students have a bad experience with poetry, thus developing a dislike for the genre. Personally, I never really liked it growing up. A teacher would give my class a poem, tell us to read it, analyze it, and then share our thoughts about what it meant. Often, what I thought was the meaning of the poem was not the teacher’s same meaning, so I was always told my ideas were wrong. But really, poetry is supposed to convey a message to the reader, and that message may be different for everyone. I wish my teachers would have understood that…

Anyway, when reading this book, I realized how much of an impact poetry can have on a person, as long as it is taught correctly and in a FUN manner. In this book, Miss Stretchberry helps Jack realize that he can write poetry. She does this by sharing poems with Jack from which he can be inspired, thus helping him along in his process and gathering his thoughts. She also allows Jack to share his poetry with the class (at first anonymously), and then eventually he lets everyone know who is coming up with these great poems. Miss Stretchberry also allows Jack to decide how he wants his work displayed, which helps boost his self-esteem about his work.

I believe that by writing this book, Sharon Creech wanted students who read it to understand that they too can write poetry, and have fun while doing so. As a future teacher, I think that this book conveys the message that sometimes we need to let students have freedom while writing, and let them use their imagination while writing. Doing this often results in wonderful pieces of work, as shown by Jack in Love That Dog.

Writing poetry can really be a fun activity for students, as long as it is done right. Having students just memorize and analyze poems while not supplementing them in some way is probably going to result in a students absolute hate for poetry. Here is a link of tips to help teach poetry (:

One of the poems in Love That Dog is The Red Wheelbarrow by William Carlos Williams.

The Red Wheelbarrow
by William Carlos Williams

so much depends
upon

a red wheel
barrow

glazed with rain
water

beside the white
chickens.

Here is a poem I wrote, inspired by William Carlos Williams work.

 The Broken Glasses
Inspired by William Carlos Williams

so much depends
upon

the child’s broken
glasses

taped together in the
middle

allowing him to
see.