Boys' Writing- Reclaiming Their Voice

Annemarie Hyde has been doing some research around boys writing. She shared this in a recent blog post.

Boy Writers- Reclaiming Their Voices- by Ralph Fletcher I would like to get hold of the book as it sounds like a good read.

In a series of short chapters, ideal for after planning quick reads, Fletcher outlines his findings, anecdotes and reflections, ending each with a list of "What Can I Do in My Classroom?"

Ideas he covers include:

• giving boys choice
• accepting their humour
• understanding their unique voice
• the place of conversation
• handwriting and fine motor skills
• why violence has a place
• relationships
• why fun is important

He leaves us with four main points to better nurture and support struggling boy writers.

1. Just let them write

2. Take the long view - you want them to want to be writers.

3. Consider pleasure.  Is it fun?

4. Think relationships. "We're not teaching writing - we're teaching writers."

This article follows an interview with the author

http://twowritingteachers.wordpress.com/2014/11/14/boy-writers-ralph-fletcher/

How to embed a You Tube Video from Explain Everything onto a Blog

If you were wondering why I have a video about Kereru on this blog it is because I was making a tutorial about how to add video to a blog but not use the laptop at all.

Here is the link to the blog post about how to put it all together. Watch the second video for another way of doing it.

Here is the original tutorial video.

New Keyboards

Over the holidays I updated my iPad to iOS8 which allows for users to install new keyboards from app developers. I have had Swype on my 3G Android Camera for some time and liked it. I wondered how it would go with kids. Some liked it and some didn't. I think if you are very much a struggling writer then tapping each letter as you go would be a better option but for those who have some writing skills under their belt Swping would be worth persisting with to get the hang of it.

Play the video in full screen to see what T is saying and Swyping to see how it is supporting his writing.

T doesn't know how to spell through and spelt it as thought but when he spells operation as operasion the app leads him to the correct spelling and gives him close choices should his Swping be less than accurate.

I also liked the way that he pauses to think of the word in chunks to better help him break down the writing process. The video helps us see his thinking processes as he is writing- making learning visible.

I notice that T is also pushing the space bar for spaces between words. The app knows where the spaces are as he takes his finger off the screen so he doesn't necessarily need to do that.

Swype from Allanah King on Vimeo.

The other keyboard that I think that would be good to install as a choice with be Lower Case Keyboard by our very own Matt Thomas.

Matt has made the lower case keyboard with the Open Dyslexic font so as to better support learners who find differentiating letters tricky.

Just a note though that there is a bit of an iOS bug at the moment and you need to turn off guided access before you can install the new keyboards. I am sure it will be ironed out before too long.

Google Classroom Staff Meeting Resources

Today I am sharing my learning with the staff around using Google Classroom.

Here are all my bookmarks around its use.

https://www.diigo.com/user/allanahk/GoogleClassroom

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Here is the link to actually get to Google Classroom

https://classroom.google.com/

remembering that you have to be in a Google Apps for Education domain for it to work.

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We will start with a video

And then here is a Google Presentation by Aaron Svoboda taking you through step by step if I go to fast or you forget something.

In the staff meeting we will look at...

• Making sure you select teacher
• Setting up classes- a fake class to start of with - syndicate groups
• Adding students
• Make a Google Doc as an assignment in this instance but attach a pdf or other file types
• Share that assignment out to the fake class- make a copy each, view only, collaborative choices
• Turning in, editing, suggested edits, revision history
• Returning submissions
• Marking scores/ feedback
• Looking at your Google Drive- the file structure
• Sending out an announcement
• How to upload a CSV file for contacts to bulk emailing

Any questions write them in the blog comments so everyone can see and learn from the responses.

Dragon Dictate

Today I thought I would give the kiwi version of Dragon Dictate on iPad a trial and see if the boys had the oral language skill to be able to dictate their writing. I have had the American version of Dragon Dictate for a while. It was not available in the New Zealand iTunes store as it was not optimised for our accent.

I had high hopes that it would be more accurate now it has been released to New Zealand.

On opening the app it asked for access to my contacts. I disallowed as the thought of it being able to access my contacts made me nervous. So I would expect that recognising names might be problematic but I am not sure what use access to my contacts might give it.

I quickly showed the boys how to work the app. I decided to have them start and stop recording so it better teaches the boys about speaking in sentences and doesn't give the app too much to do at one time.

The app sort of got most of the words right but so much time was spent fixing up the missed text that I wonder how useful it would be long term.

We were trying to write, 'The fish tried to get away' but even after practising the sentence a couple of times the best we could manage was, 'Best try to keep away.' Not really helping a lot.

I asked the boys which they preferred and they said they wanted to persist with it.

I wonder what else we can do to make the app more responsive???

Any thoughts????? How have you found it?

Google Classroom - Reflection Two

New learnings from this week's writing....

From saying that I couldn't write on the boy's docs as they are writing I have changed my stance. You can't edit the writing as such but you can suggest edits which is actually nicer still. They can see what I am doing in real time and also get an email reminding them of the suggested edit. I like that they retain full ownership of the doc by not having the teacher write all over it.

To try and encourage more writing I am 'marking' the writing by the number of words completed. To count the words I highlight the text and go TOOLS- WORD COUNT to save me doing it manually.

I am also encouraging the boys to get rid of the squiggly lines by spelling the words correctly. Right click or CONTROL Click on the Macs.

I will accept all devices for writing with for the boys- I get Surface Tablets, old ACER PCs, Mac Book Pros and Chromebooks. Frustrating as some of the ACERS won't connect wirelessly to the network and need ethernet cables and some of the Apples won't work unless they are connected to power. From the Educamp West I went to in the weekend I saw Google Classroom working on an iPad. I might give that a go as well.

Some of the boys are quite adept and making things work - a good use for a pencil! Stick it in the centre of the missing key as a work around!!!

We do get there though!!

Google Classroom

This week Google Classroom came out for everyone. I have had a log in for a while now but no time to go experimenting.

Here are my Google Classroom Resources- tutorials and refections.

This week I made a point of it. The thing I liked most about it was how simple it was to put in to action.

• You log in with your Google Apps log in. As a teacher be careful to state that you are a teacher, not a student, or you won't be able to create classes and I have no idea how to undo that sort of mistake!
• Look for the + to create a class from your contacts.
• For me my students weren't in my contacts so I had to add them. I'm not sure why they weren't showing up. Maybe it was something to do with our Google Apps admin set up. I am not an admin of our school domain as lots of teachers will not be.
• After setting up a class I made them look pretty and identifiable by changing the header.
• Each class generated a join up code so if you didn't want children to respond to an email I presume that they could enter the code to gain access to your class.

• Once the classes were set up I made a Google Doc task sheet that I wanted to fire out to everyone. This was an 'assignment'. As I sent it out I could decide whether I wanted it to be view only or edit.
• As it turns up to the student Classroom had named the doc and made a copy for every one.
• The students then do the 'assignment' and turns it in for 'marking'.
• Until they do that I can't see what they are doing which I find a bit annoying.
• Once the the children 'turn in the assignment' they can't edit it until I have 'marked' it.
• Once I have they can see my comments and mark that I gave it.

I liked it how Classroom automatically made the needed folders in my Google Drive so I could see what everyone had done for further reference.

I also sent everyone out an 'Announcement' - a bit like a group email to everyone. In this instance it was a link to a You Tube video that I thought they would like.

That is as far as we got this week. Classroom is a work in progress and I am sure Google will add more features the more feedback they receive from users.

Give it go.