Workplace Writing Professional Portfolio

This year will mark the first year that our Workplace Writing students will transition from a binder of compilation of work to a digital presence.  We decided to use Google Sites for a few reasons:

• Page Level Admission
• Uploading of Documents onto a Page
• Seamless integration with Google Docs (*Viewable Permission Rights Must Provide Access)

The site was created and uploaded to our school's template gallery.  Students will access the template on a Chromebook.

View Template

*If you can't view the template in your school's domain, please request access.

Impact On Students:

Creativity:  While a template was created, students have the option of change the color, font, and overall appearance to personalize.

Critical Thinking: Placing the correct information in the presentation form is very important.  Students will be directed to think critically about the content and the way it appears to the viewer.

Citizenship:  This is the most important aspect.  This portfolio represents themselves on this page, but their other digital content (Twitter, Facebook) must also portray them in a positive light.

StoryboardThat Provides Digital Plot Diagrams For Students

Our eighth grade students were learning about "plot diagrams" and constructing paper and pencil creations from the story.  I spent the day with four teachers about a month ago and upon hearing this, I searched for a "tech tool" that could provide a digital option for creating a story board featuring

• Exposition
• Conflict
• Rising Action
• Climax
• Falling Action
• Resolution

The free site allowed our students to create three storyboards up to six squares each.  Some students told their story in six squares and others used twelve and eighteen squares.  Students were totally engaged and thrilled to create and comprehend story Plot Diagrams through StoryboardThat, on Chromebooks.

Click To View Larger Version

Click To View Larger Version

Impact On Students:

Creativity: Students creating a complete story with the correct "plot diagram" elements required students to think, question, and create.

Critical Thinking: Students were required to understand the elements of "plot diagrams" and think through the elements of their story so that they coincide with the beginning, middle, and end of a plot diagram.

Effective Approach To Integrating

A different idea!  Instead of spending the day trying to visit with as many teachers as possible during my day at the middle school, I decided to spend the entire day in one content, one grade level.

Thankfully, four teachers, Mrs. Mills, Mrs. Yarbro, Mrs. Foote, and Mrs. Albers allowed me to observe their classroom when they taught the lessons.

As I was observing, I would listen for key words and concepts that they were discussing or presenting to their students.  As soon as I heard the concepts, I would scour my Evernote resources that I have accumulated over the years or search Google using key words and categories.  I found a number of resources and accumulated those resources on collaborative documents.

After the class period, I discussed some of the resources that I found and why I placed them on the document.  Spending the class period in their room allowed me to have a deeper understanding of the content and educational aspects of their class for the upcoming weeks.  In addition to the resources and thoughts already included on the document, I will add any further resources found in the next couple of weeks.

I truly believe this was a successful utilization of a technology integrator's time.  Instead of short conversations, I had an opportunity to immerse myself into their classroom and provide resources that they may use in the future.

The lists of resources created:

Mrs. Mills (Writing)    |    Mrs. Yarbro (Reading)   

Mrs. Foote (Writing)   |    Mrs. Albers (Reading)

I am truly thankful to these teachers for their willingness to allow a support teacher to visit their classroom with the sole purpose of collaborating!  They are ROCK STARS!

Google Discussion and Google Hangouts

Google Hangouts, with its screenshare option, proved to be the perfect tool for a conversation with Mrs. Schmidt and Mrs. Olson.  The English teacher, Mrs. Schmidt, and the science teacher, Mrs. Olson, are collaborating on writing reflections pertaining to the annual science egg drop.

Mrs. Olson wanted to share hundreds of photos from the egg drop with students and decided that a Google Group would be a great place to put the link to her Picasa Web Album.  In addition, the Google Group is a great place for students to conduct prewriting comments and suggestions by student for students that Mrs. Schmidt provides.

Since the Google Group has a private setting, below is a screen shot of the number of views and comments.

The collaboration between staff/student and student/student also meets an ITLS Standard 2A, Skill 2B 

Twitter Failure Produced TodaysMeet Success

Back in October 2012, Mr. Seamandel wanted to use Twitter with his ninth grade students as a means for communicating about writing.

Many problems occurred:

• Couldn't log in on iPad consistently
• Couldn't log out on iPad consistently
• Couldn't adjust profile
• Students really didn't understand (at that time) how Twitter worked
• Couldn't access computers consistently to accommodate the learning environment

From that stemmed a great trial of a technology tool, todaysmeet.com , that created an incredible learning environment.

A room was set up for students to create and comment on Haiku poems that were created by students.  As Mr. Seamandel states,

First we did a basic exercise to ensure that students knew how it (Todaysmeet) worked.  Then, I had them write a haiku alone, or with a friend.   It had to fit the standard conventions of a haiku -- 5-7-5 and relating to nature. (Some students became stuck, and I allowed them to write about whatever they could think of.)  This worked out great because no student was really willing to read or share what they had written, but jumped at the opportunity to post it online and have peers read it as it popped up on the board.  Ended up being a great exercise and a way to showcase writing/poetry without tying a name to it!

While the room that was created for this has expired, a great feature of todaysmeet.com, the opportunity to use a technology tool to engage students in poetry was outstanding!

PicCollage For Writing In The Workplace

Mr. Mentink, the Writing In The Workplace teacher, asked me how he could enhance a traditional poster learning activity with technology.  The result is an engaging one and a half days of learning that previously occurred over four to five days.

See how PicCollage enhanced and empowered the students in the educational experience.



View How To Export Product To Google Drive and Share With Teacher

Text2Mindmap.com For Computer or iPad

@teachweb20 sent me Text2Mindmap.com which provides another opportunity to organize thoughts into a web.  Her students are using it for writing.  I am passing it along to speech teachers and our FACS teachers who have students cook or bake.  Every person who uses this can organize their thoughts into clear web images.

The interface is very friendly.

It can be used on the iPad with the Chrome browser which is depicted from the screen shot below.

The video below explains all of the features of text2mindmap.com 

View how Mr. Krause used the technology resource.