6. Sample Backchannel Prompts
Before/After unit
During a Skype session/Presentation
Before/After unit
During a Skype
Debate/Socratic Seminar
Conversation Capture
Debate/Socratic Seminar
Conversation Capture
7. Image of NY Times circle thing...
http://nyti.ms/148SEsn
12. Sample Screencast Prompts
How to/How I Did
How to/How I Did
Behind the Scenes
Think Aloud
Rationale
Sketching the Text
Behind the Scenes
Think Aloud
Rationale
Sketching through the Text
18. Sample Photography Prompts
(x) shows (y)
(x) shows (y)
Conversation Capture
Symbolic Meaning
Illustration or Example
Conceptual Connection
Conver
Symbolic Meaning
Illustration or Example
Conceptual Connection
There is no doubt, I don't remember the book report I wrote over a book I did not read. There is no doubt, I don't remember the worksheet I filled in-nevermind if it was online or paper placed on my desk. Just as there is no doubt, I remember the solar hot dog cooker my dad and I made. I remember the Saturday Night Live show I produced playing Mary Catherine Gallaghar-and it was all in Spanish. I remember the book I wrote, and I remember the way I felt. Just as I remember that, I remember this moment. This picture. My students having read several essays related to education including Fredrick Douglass's Learning to Read and Write...they were practicing their poetry slam. They took the text, pulled out powerful lines and phrases, and created a new text. I remember because their work made me think. I remember because of how I felt as I heard them rehearse, and as I watched them discover rhetorical choices...we want our students thinkeng, we had better provide opportunity.
SO...what is it we really want from our students? What is it we want for our students. We gotta know where we stand, so we can leverage movement. Take time to consider this...share with the people around you. TALK TIME. What do you think? WHOLE GROUP TALK TIME. And now I reflect...what I am doing to make that happen? What am I doing to support their learning, their growth, their contribution. And how am I using technology to do what has not been possible.
and it is time to light the fire
we cannot assume our students hate reading, hate math, hate everything...we must recognize our students have a desire to share-some might be sharing online, some might sharing with friends, some might sharing in a gaming setting-a backchannel honors each and every voice-those who say a lot, those who rarely say enough.
There are numerous ways to utilize a backchannel, I listed a few I have used. Each of my units are designed in an inquiry format, for example, Does the End Justify the Means? Students read Julius Caesar, they read Night. At the start of the unit, a list of debatable statements-students use a fish bowl format. We discuss, we debate, we backchannel. I am able to save a transcript of the conversation. The unit continues, we learn, we create, we think, we discover, and then we come back to the backchannel. The same topics are discussed, but this time students are equipped with learning to support their claim, and they must bring in their learning. Topics like: a good leader can be a bad person or it is never okay to lie, killing is never justified...we can answer those with our own opinion, we can answer that with support and example from class learning and reading. Backchannels have been traditionally used to capture thinking during a presentation-one of many notetaking tools-presenters can gauge audience perception by the backchannel-of course, it helps break down the barriers of the bell. When Skyping with a lawyer, my class continued that backchannel four hours past my class period. The lawyer stayed on because he was impressed, the students stayed on because they were engaged.
What you see...circle discussing prompts, outside using todaysmeet to track the conversation and insert opinion. I observe, watch, listen...
I work to not speak, but I will interject if needed into the backchannel.
There are numerous avenues to create. The first, and I feel the easiest is www.todaysmeet.com.
Our students thinking is often kept prisoner inside of their head...screencasts have numerous purposes, but sharing thinking is one. Our students are capable of producing, they are capable of teaching, and screencasting allows them to share. A lot of popularity has come to screencasting for tutorials and using during flip teaching. Those are not the only ways to use...
I have used when I have been gone from school-I have assigned a behind the scenes screencast. When students write or create, students muscan sharewhat they did to create what they created. No matter our content, students have to make meaning through some type of process. Using a think aloud and adding the screencast component allows us to hear our students, but not only us hear them-whoever the video is shared with. One of my favorite reading/thinking toos is skethcing through the text-a reader doodles and incorporates text to represent what has been read. One of the examples I want to share with you is a use of a screencast I did not think of-but because my student had been exposed to the tool, he used it to create this poetry argument. The assignment was to tanswer the ?: what is the purpose of education. This is the response.
Using showme, students in calculus are able to explain how they solve a problem. Without realizing it, students are creating teaching models for other students.
Screencast used to create video.
Our students thinking is often kept prisoner inside of their head...screencasts have numerous purposes, but sharing thinking is one. Our students are capable of producing, they are capable of teaching, and screencasting allows them to share. A lot of popularity has come to screencasting for tutorials and using during flip teaching. Those are not the only ways to use...
Images are easily searched online. Graphics, clip art, photos...google serves us a dish of image, but what thinking is involved in googling an image to go on a slide, to go into a report? Students have the capabilities to be photographers creating and designing their own images. When they are the owners of the work, there is no worry for copyright or plagiarism. The process to create, to write, to plot and plan happens with visuals, too.
