This was great. Students were way more engaged in the feedback I gave them, because it was clearer, or it involved technology, or for some other reason I haven't thought of. Students could also hear someone reading their paper aloud and pick up on my enjoyment of beautifully crafted sentences or my confusion when they forgot to proof read. No more did students turn to the last page of their essay and look for the grade - they went through their feedback first.
But the method had it's downsides. It was time consuming, even more so when burning the audio to discs. Also, once I'd burned one piece of feedback, that CD was toast - I couldn't go back and add more tracks unless it was a CD-RW. And for the student, they really had to follow along in their paper word for word; as the reader, I had to be very specific in describing what I was talking about in the paper - they only had my voice to guide them.
This year, however, I started using VoiceThread to give feedback on major papers, and as you can see below, it has some specific advantages that neutralize these issues.
VoiceThreads can be private, shared so that only those with a link can view it (for my students), or made public (like this one).
Today's podcast contains some thoughts I've been tossing around regarding grouping students for reading and responding to Romeo & Juliet. As I mention, I've got a longer post on how I'm teaching the play this year.
It's a Bud the Teacher style recording, done on my ride into work. You can hear the mighty roar of my 4-cylinder Corolla in the background. I'll have to play around with microphone placement for next time.
Also, I think I mentioned in the podcast that it's been two years since my last podcast. This is incorrect. It's actually been five years. And what I thought was episode seven is actually episode 6.
At the beginning of this year I attended a new teachers academy, as I was a new teacher in Beaverton School District. As expected, some information was a review, and some was valuable new ideas.
One of those ideas was the Brain Dance. This was developed by Ginger Habel, a mentor-teacher in Beaverton, for her Master's thesis. When students find out or enter the classroom to take a quiz or test, they are in a fight or flight mode, with most of the blood in their brain stem. This does not serve them in an academic environment as all the information and analytic prowess is centered in the now oxygen-starved cerebrum.
The purpose of the Brain Dance is to move blood from the brain stem to the cerebrum by getting them active and making them laugh. Which, as you can tell from the video of me leading the Brain Dance before a quiz earlier this week, is well accomplished by the dance routine.
I forgot some of the original moves when I first taught them the Brain Dance, and they have stuck. But here's the original list Ginger Habel was kind enough to send me:
After the Sunrise: 3 big yoga breaths. Start arms low and breath in while arms reach for the sky Chariots of Fire: Slow mo run Staying Alive: Disco move- point left cross body (2) point right cross body (2) both arms (2-3) YMCA: You know this one! Hand Jive: Hit legs twice, clap twice, shuffle twice, pound it twice then point right then left Billie Jean: Moon walk Thriller: Scary hands (right, left right) then walk, scary hands again, walk back finish with scary hands Chicken Dance: You know this one Ice Ice Baby: This is the running man or run backwards (The Jerk- some kids call it) Mony Mony: Ride the pony! Lasso in air, reins in hands and gallop around in a circle Jump Around: Just jump up and down The Rose: Butterfly hands up left, Butterfly hands up right, then swirl from high to low and end with right arm reaching toward sky (like it's growing!) What is Love: Head bobs- 4 to the right, 4 to the left then repeat both sets Cotton-Eyed Joe: Cowboy kick right and left or a variation of jumping around Hey Ya: Shopping cart, Lawn mower start, Sprinkler then end with Yoga breaths as music fades.
And I will link to the CD track in this post next week - the CD lives next to my school CD player right now.
Update: 12/21/2011 - Sorry this took so long, y'all. Here's the CD track. I'm not sure how much bandwidth I have, so if you have trouble downloading it, come back and try again the next day.
