Infinite Internet Possibilities

Every time I get on the Internet, it seems like I only know how to scratch the surface of what is available and how to use it. This blog post was no different. I went to Teaching Like It's 2999 and read a post entitled "Ecstatic about Extensions." http://teachinglikeits2999.blogspot.com/2013/05/ecstatic-about-extensions.html

The post itself described a few of the extensions you can find (most are free) in the Chrome Web Store. https://chrome.google.com/webstore/category/extensions But let me warn you, if you go shopping here, it's like falling into a bottomless pit. I had no idea this place even existed, but the timesaving extensions you can add to your Chrome browser bar are endless. I tried for at least 10 minutes to get to the bottom of the list, and I'm convinced that more extensions are being added by the second to this store, and there is an infinite number available, ranging from "Shopping Assistant" with 4.5 million users to the Michigan football schedule (910 users).

I chose a couple to add to my browser bar, one called "Screen Capture" (used above) and the MLB.com scoreboard. I would also show this as a screenshot, but the screen capture won't let the MLB scoreboard stay open at the same time. I found that not all are available for Mac users, and one I thought sounded helpful for organizing my gmail account was not available. I found an Easy-Bib extension for creating bibliography citations as I was looking for things that would be helpful in teaching students, and then it hit me that our school computers do not have Chrome as a browser choice, so that is a definite drawback for the usefulness of this.

The other blog I commented on was Kathy Schrock's post "You Be the Judge." It was an interesting post about a type of Internet baiting that starts out with emails that appear to be from schools or libraries which want you to link to their page. The example she received was about safe Internet use. After they get enough links, then they switch their content to the real site such as a dating Website that Kathy got when she investigated the link.  http://blog.kathyschrock.net/2013/06/you-be-judge.html

The Internet can be a scary place full of different types of predators, so this just goes to show that you can't always trust the .org and .net domains. I used to teach students when researching that these were safe and that .coms weren't allowed. Now that has changed, but I know that some teachers still do not allow students to use .coms for research.

How Summer Is Going

I went to a wedding over the weekend of a friend of my daughter. Everyone kept asking me how my summer is going (They know I am a teacher.). My answer is that summer doesn't start for me until summer school is over June 28. But in the meantime, I've been trying to catch up on some things around my house and yard. Because of all the rain, it has been hard keeping up with mowing, planting, and weeding, but I have managed to reap the rewards and share the bounty of my harvest of roses, both physical as well as cyber bouquets via Facebook posts.

Some years in summer school, I find time to explore new ideas while the students are reading or working independently, but in these first two weeks, I have spent most of my time grading their quizzes and essays and making sure they are on task in some way. I like to browse the Internet for teaching unit ideas for the literature I teach. This year, I probably would spend extra time reading blogs since that is a part of this learning.

I am also working on some technology and social media ventures for a committee I co-chair at my church. We are making a brochure (not so technologically advanced), have created a gmail account and began a blog there, and are exploring a Website on Wix, Twitter, and other social media. We are planning a "How Plugged In Are You?" survey via Survey Monkey, but we will probably also offer it as a paper opportunity for those without Internet access or for those technologically impaired congregants. All of these things I have been putting off for a few months because teaching takes a lot of time and energy in my life.

Taking up other summer days will be the Apple Foundations Training course in July and a trip to Dallas with my youngest daughter Kelsey to visit a friend who lives there. We are planning to visit the new George W. Bush Presidential Library while we are there and will make a side trip to St. Louis on the way back for a Cardinals-Phillies' game -- we're hoping former Bellevue East Chieftain Tyler Cloyd might be the starter for Philadelphia that night but haven't stopped to calculate the odds of that happening. I hope to take in Shakespeare on the Green with my sister Carol at the end of June at Elmwood Park to see Twelfth Night. 

Sometime during the summer, I will have to travel to Ames, IA, to visit my oldest daughter Jessie who works at Reiman Gardens as a gardener and whose name for this year's theme was created by:  "More Than Meets the Iowa." You can check out the garden online at:

http://www.reimangardens.iastate.edu/

Their volunteers have a blog with some pictures of the summer project in the works. As I was musing about this, I remembered a connection that Brent Catlett and I have because it was working for his uncle's greenhouse set up at Menard's parking lot (before they had their own outdoor department) which first got my daughter interested in her career in horticulture. Small world.

I suppose I will have to find some time for relaxation and rejuvenation as the summer progresses. I do that by reading (I'm finally almost finished with Anna Karenina, which I started about a year ago -- if Tolstoy had had as many interruptions writing the novel as I have reading it, it might never have been finished!) and watching baseball (America's pastime) and entertaining my critters, one of whom is pictured here, Oliver:

How Turnitin Has Made My Life Easier

Term Paper Sanity

After years of having to rely on trying to keep track of older siblings' term paper topics, running Google searches to determine if papers are plagiarized, close reading dozens of term papers each year to determine whether Student X could really write that well, and students themselves not knowing if they have done an adequate job of paraphrasing and attributing quotes, a technological wonder came into my life a few years ago when the district began to subscribe to Turnitin.com. For those non-English teacher nerds out there who might be reading this, Turnitin is a subscription Website that tracks plagiarism and allows students to view their similarity scores to online sources and other students' papers. The recent addition of grading software to the program allows teacher the capability to view suggested grammar and mechanic corrections.

Student Advantages and Best Practices

Because the program allows teachers the option of setting a choice for resubmission, students can submit a rough draft (even more than one) and make changes and then resubmit for a better paper. There is immediate feedback for the student, and the teacher can load the program's suggested corrections if he or she doesn't have time to read all 125 rough drafts the same night!

Image from Smudgem.blogspot.com

In Praise of Turnitin

Turnitin.com has made my life as an English teacher easier when it comes time to grade term papers. A year or two ago, there was some talk among the administrators of cutting the subscription. We English teachers protested so loudly that they decided to keep it, thankfully.

Twitter in the Classroom and Random Thoughts

I am finding all kinds of ways to use technology in the classroom this summer. I am posting in the blog a connection I saw on Ann's Twitter feed for the Twitter class. There are a lot of good ideas here, and I don't want to forget where I saw this article.

28 Simple Ways to Use Twitter in the Classroom

I am also interested in learning more about how others are using social media in organizations like church. If anyone has experience or has read about it, please share ideas with me.

Outstanding Lessons

One lesson that I think was successful in my junior English classes this year was when I presented information about Afghanistan prior to their reading The Kite Runner. I have a Power Point presentation with background facts about the country today, a little about the history, and the author and the story of the novel. This video from YouTube is included so that the students can learn what kite fighting is. I gave them a worksheet to take notes on as I showed them the information; I need to revise it somewhat to include more information about the time frame of the actual novel as it begins in 1975 and continues to present day (2004 is when the book was written).

A second lesson that I always like to do with my students when they start research is a review of NoodleTools. I give them four screen shots of sources from the databases that they have to enter bibliography information into NoodleBib. Then I check to see if they understand how to print a works cited page using NoodleBib, or, in second semester with my seniors, I had them share it as a GoogleDoc. Yay! Saving paper.

Exploring Free Technology for Teachers

I spent some time looking at Richard Bryne's Website and checking out some of his blogs and links.
The first one I found that interested me was called "Making Sense of Spelling." It is about a clever TED-Ed video about why Americans spell the way they do. It might be more for elementary students, so I could share it with my daughter who teaches sixth grade. This blog can be found at http://www.freetech4teachers.com/2013/06/making-sense-of-spelling.html#.Ua_VRPbErU4

A second blog entry I explored was "5 Good Resources for Teaching and Learning About Shakespeare." This would be good since I teach Macbeth in senior English. There are a couple of videos embedded in this post that interested me: one about insults in Shakespeare (a TED-Ed lesson) and one with some humor from an English teacher named John Green. I also found out there is a YouTube channel with animated Shakespeare called, appropriately enough, "Shakespeare Animated."  http://www.freetech4teachers.com/2013/05/5-good-resources-for-teaching-learning.html#.Ua_WOPbErU4

By clicking on some of the links in this blog and the suggested "You Might Also Like" links, I figured out that the John Green guy does a whole "Crash Course" series including one that I viewed on Catcher in the Rye (which I also teach) and The Great Gatsby (Who isn't interested in Gatsby with the new Leonardo DiCaprio movie just out?). It appears as though a person could suscribe to the Crash Course series on YouTube, so I may have to try that.  http://www.freetech4teachers.com/2013/01/a-crash-course-on-catcher-in-rye.html#.Ua_b5_bErU4

One other good link to some Shakespeare teaching resources is from PBS and also highlighted on the Free Technology for Teachers Website. http://www.pbslearningmedia.org/collection/shakespeare-uncovered/1/

TED Talk #2

This is a TED Talk I saw listed in a blog called "Five Key TED Talks" from The New Yorker. This is a Talk I would recommend to other teachers as opposed to one for students to watch in the classroom.

TED Talk via YouTube - Coach

This is my TED video. I saw this posted on Facebook by one of my former students about a day before I started this class, and I realized it was a TED video. I liked it because John Wooden is so old-school, but his wisdom and life lessons are still so valuable and relevant today. I also like it because it speaks to me as a teacher because he says he was a teacher first and coach second. I also like it because he was a high school English teacher and because he quotes poetry! It inspires because I don't know if we value time as much today and being on time, so perhaps students would benefit from seeing this. (Aside to Ann/Brent: The embed code wouldn't work from the TED Website, so I used YouTube instead.)