2011 Field Study Summary











Inquiry questions pursued




Question:
How can we create an effective community in my classroom?
Sub-questions:
Will the students be able to apply what they have learned in their digital citizenship unit to respectfully collaborate online?
How will student citizenship be affected by the involvement in an online community?
How can we encourage respectful and effective collaboration using online resources like a wiki or blog?











Field Study
What I did : Activities, Data Collected and Analysis*
1. Students did a pre-blogging survey
*Every student knew what a blog was because they visited our classroom blog regularly to check for in class work, homework or missing assignments. I knew that they wanted to blog because 85% of the class replied that they would enjoy having a blog in our class. Only one person in my class had written on their own blog and 85% of students visit other blogs, so they really had no idea what other blogs looked like.  92% of my students thought that a blog has academic value and that it would be useful.
*This helped me to shape what I was going to do with my class blog. I knew that I needed them to see what other classes were doing and see what they were writing about. They needed to see what they liked and didn't like about other blogs before we started posting on our own class blog. Also, I knew that they thought it would be useful, so I knew I could start using it like an online journal, with so much more potential as discussion would ensue. The question still lingered in my mind, "Can it create a respectful learning community?"
2. Wiki Practice Commenting
The students practiced responding to a question I posed to them on paper, set up like what they would see on the wiki. Then we went to the computer lab and they practiced responding on the wiki to the question I posted. I further challenged them to pick a story to respond to and post a comment without paper. This commenting I hoped would help them to start thinking about how to comment. Commenting on the wiki is also like commenting on the blog but it is a private forum for our class only.
3. Transfer of skills from wiki to blog
We collaborated on a topic together on the blog "How does Robert Munsch write?"
(The question on the wiki helped them to pre-think about this question)
The students practiced commenting and then I encouraged them to reply to each other using "I agree with..." or asking them a question about what they wrote.  
*There was a lot of discussion for the first time posting comments on the blog--10 students replied to each others comments respectfully. This showed me that the students were ready to post and respond to each other.
I decided to use a wordpress blog as our ITC has some available using our district server with lots of space to post pictures. I had to input the student user names and passwords and give them permissions to post on the blog as "authors". *Students are categories on the side and I can see how many posts they have done as well as to read a post, I can just click on that student's name. Also I have added a widget to see who has commented most recently.













* This category idea was great for data collection. I could see how many the students had done and how many they needed to complete. At the time of this screen shot, students had to have done at least 2. As you can see with two classes given to complete two posts, 12 students have done three or more posts ( a few even have 6 or 7!), 12 have done the required 2, and only one student has done 1 post.  
4. Teacher posed a quote/questions on blog: http://start.sd34.bc.ca/wassen/?p=29
We had a great speaker who came to give us some motivation. He doesn't have any arms, but does everything with his feet and toes. Students posted a comment and then replied to each other. What they were saying to each other and about the presentation was pretty empowering. I even emailed the speaker and sent him the link to have a look as well as our administrator. Our VP commented on how inspired my students were.

5. Commenting on other classes posts: http://start.sd34.bc.ca/wassen/?p=33
I gave the students a list of blogs and had them pick one that they found interesting. They had to write a comment to one post there. They copied and pasted their comments and answered a few questions about the blog that they found. This was a bit frustrating because the links that worked on my computer, did not necessarily work with the students net nanny. I must remember to try it on their computer first.
*Students were given bonus marks to find websites and links and post them to the blog to get them used to the blog. This didn't happen! I thought that if I built a blog, they would use it! I guess I was too early on this endeavour and would have to give it more time for the students to get used to the blog. Taking the students to the lab would help them to use the blog more, so I make sure I devote one hour a week there.

5. What do we write about on the blog? http://start.sd34.bc.ca/wassen/?page_id=256
I posed this question to the students and they brainstormed what they should write about on the blog on their own. Then I gave them a list of blogs to check out and find what they post about and they added more ideas to our list. This is the wordle of their brainstorming that I posted on a page on our blog:
I adapted Sarah's outline on how to guide to how to post on the blog see the link here: http://start.sd34.bc.ca/wassen/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/blogposting-pdf.pdf
The students first wrote a paragraph on paper about their Spring Break and then just typed it on the blog:
The next class we talked about what makes a better post. I showed them how to add a photo and a link by a jing video and a handout. See link here: http://start.sd34.bc.ca/wassen/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/How-to-insert-a-photo-into-a-post.pdf

The next few times I gave students some options on what to post, and they got to choose. I showed them the criteria that I was going to use to mark their posts:
* I told them about expectations of doing one post a week and it was required to do more posts this term to get an A or a B on their report card. Will this motivate them to post?


7. Commenting guidelines and expectations:
The students were not commenting as I wanted them to, so I set up proper guidelines and would not approve their comments unless they were commenting according to the guidelines: http://start.sd34.bc.ca/wassen/?page_id=265
*Before:

*After:
8.  Post blogging survey: 
*I gave this to them because I had finished the "formal" how to blog lessons and wanted to see what they thought of the blog now that they learned how to post and comment respectfully.Students like using the blog--they like commenting, posting receiving comments!  They think that the blog connects our classroom community  and it is an all around positive experience.    



What I still need to do...
-I am going to have the students continue weekly to post and comment on each other.
-I want the students to go to my colleague's class blog and comment on their posts.
*She had her students post on my blog and I hope that my students remember what they have learned about posting to respectfully comment on the posts there
- I would like to do more "Independent Reading Journals" on the blog using the strategies in the "Hot Blogging" articles
- I want the parents to get involved! Soon, I will create a jing video on how to comment on the blog and send it out to the parents. I wonder what will happen?
What I learned
I learned that digital citizenship is a great 21st century skill that students need to know. Practical application on a blog and wiki are good follow up to this unit to see if they really understand how a person is supposed to behave online. This was a great culmination to my unit from the fall. Even though the blog was just to see if the students could use digital citizenship, it is adding so much more to my Language Arts class through reading and writing!

Students can actually create community both inside and outside the classroom in an online forum. I found this post on my blog that a student wrote: http://start.sd34.bc.ca/wassen/?p=791 (I know that my students in the class are pretty nice students and they do for the most part respect each other, but I wonder if she knows that I have put the seed there in the first place!)
Reflecting on what I have done helps the students learn better and me to teach better. If I have to do the lesson again to make sure the students understand that is okay. Giving students a step by step instructions and modeling every step of the way produces better results the first time, so I don't have to re-teach it.

Giving the students autonomy to choose what they want to write helps them to be better writers. I have given the students the opportunity to post on what they want to on the blog. I reminded the students that it is an academic blog, so their writing needs to be. Some students need to still remember to put in capitals and periods ---general grammar--however, they are organizing their thoughts in a "hamburger paragraph" just as I taught them! It is very interesting to see that what I teach them in class can transfer over. (Even though some of the students thought that their reading and writing were not improving by using the blog, I'm not sure if they actually know what that means. I see that they are able to apply what they have learned in class to write online!)



Reading and Responding to Academic Literature
What I Read:
1. “Hot Blogging: A Framework for Blogging to Promote Higher Order Thinking” by Lisa Zawilinski The Reading Teacher 2009 International Reading Association
            This article talks about introducing students to blogging as a new literacy on the internet.  It explores the link between technology and literacy.  Having a blog "prepared the students for new literacies on the internet". It is interesting how the article talked about "integrating writing in a way that supported reading".  Giving the students the autonomy for writing what they want to, yet reading and responding to others writing is what I want to do with my blog.  I like how the blog integrates all of these things and still will show me if and how students can be responsible and respectful digital citizens.  
       This article had a list of blogs that are examples of students using blogs in literature and responding to literature.  Just trying to search on Google, I found it really difficult to find good blogs to show my students that were of the quality that I wanted our blog to look like. I liked that this article had educational blogs that were recommended  to look at. From the links that were shown, I found other links as well.  Looking at other teacher and student blogs gave me ideas about what I wanted to do with my blog and what I didn't want to do.  For example, I decided to put all the students on one blog for now, as it would be easier to manage to see how many posts they have done and then I can also approve comments as well.  It is easy for me to monitor how they are commenting. 
     Also, this article has given me an idea about how to specifically set up a reading responses for higher order thinking on the blog.  Once I got the students comfortable with blogging, and would now like to try this strategy with them.  For example, initiating a prompt, stating their opinion, providing reasons to support their opinion and evidence from the book to support their opinion.  

2.  “Collaborative Literacy: Blogs and Internet Projects” by Erica Boling, Jill Castek, Lisa Zawilinkski, Karen Barton, Theresa Nierlich The Reading Teacher 2008 International Rading Association
            This article is about engaging students in collaboration specifically through writing.  It goes through examples of what teachers are doing in the classroom—some internet and blogging projects. This article gave me some ideas on what I could do on the blog like sharing thoughts and opinions about class topics, online literature discussions,  and wonderings.  It talks about students who may be shy or reluctant to share in class are more likely to share on the blog.  It also talks about how to make audio recordings and share them as a podcast on www.youthradio.wordpress.com.  This is something that I never thought of that I may like to try with my class after I have got my blog running successfully.  

3.  “Adventures in the blogosphere: from blog readers to blog writers” by Lara Ducate and Lara Lomicka, Computer Assisted Language Learning Vol. 21 No. 1 Feb. 2008 Taylor and Francis
            This article shows the step by step process of taking the students from reading blogs to eventually writing their own blog posts.  It also talks about how this project “fostered ownership and creativity in students”.  This article has a great survey about blogging that we are going to adapt to use with our students.  I liked that I could use Google Docs and it gives me all the data I need.  
http://start.sd34.bc.ca/wassen/?p=29http://start.sd34.bc.ca/wassen/?p=33http://start.sd34.bc.ca/wassen/?page_id=256
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