Living and Learning in Central Oregon

My attempt at using text speech in the title of this blog post was probably pretty lame so sorry for trying to be bilingual. I just read http://www.edutopia.org/text-messaging-teaching-tool . It is about texting in the classroom and how some people are worried that it is having a negative effect on our kids.  I will admit that I cannot text. I do not own an iphone or a blackberry so my text messages take very long to compose with a regular phone keypad.  But my lack of text messaging skill doesn’t mean I don’t understand the popularity and usefulness of this tool.

Is text speak going to ruin the English language? Doubt it.  Especially if we can use it to our advantage as Cindy Rigsbee did. I would encourage you to read the Edutopia article and then consider if you are going to try to hold back the texting tidal wave or if you are going to try to use it to help further teaching and learning.

My opinion – Because we have so many kids owning and using cell phones I think we are missing the boat on accessing their teaching and learning potential.  Is there a way to use cell phones as personal response systems using something like Jott?  Don’t know the answer to that.  What are your thoughts and ideas.

I’ve been doing some surfing around on the web looking at resources for digital storytelling and came across three useful tools that teachers can use and kids can use:  Voicethread, Digital Storyteller, and Scratch.  I am sure there are many more, MS Photostory being one.  But no matter which is used I find the art of digital storytelling very appealing in the classroom and a process that supports, encourages, and teaches 21st Century skills.  Each of the sites above offer a different flavor to their digital storytelling method, approach, and service.  I was particularly intrigued by Voicethread because it seems very easy to use and is kind of like a audio blog to elicit comments from readers.

When I read articles like this it helps us put our testing into perspective.  While I think that our fluency testing is important I also think that at some point it reaches a max point.  There is a direct correlation between 3^rd grade students passing dibels and 3^rd grader students  passing their comprehension tests.  But at what point do we scale back fluency and concentrate on comprehension and vocabulary building?  I recently had a meeting with Jon Bullock the principal of the high school on the topic of dibels.  Jon’s previous experience was as an elementary principal.  When he took over his former school only 50% of his students were reading at grade level.  When he left the school over 95% were at grade level. Dibel assessments and the interventions put in place after these assessments played a big part in this transformation. One of the statements he said that made me really think was “Show me the 5^th grader not passing his reading comprehension test and I will show you the kindergartner who did not pass his letter naming fluency.” Hmmm.

So what do you think?  Your comments are always appreciated.

Would we be so bold to make this promise to our parents?  What would keep us from making this promise? The section that caught my attention was on pg. 308 where reading across the curriculum was discussed and how this practice provides the basis for enhanced reading comprehension. What are your thoughts on this article?  Inquiring minds want to know.

Much of what is written in this article was probably already known by many of us.  However, I thought this was a good article to remind us of the importance of reading.  The most sobering fact for me from the article was the information on literacy and the prison population. Our next article will be a continuation of this topic and explore the the consept of guaranteeing that every child learns to read.  Is this something we can do?

In your mailbox you will find an article from the Summer of 2005 about what is happening in Beaverton with literacy.  Martha Hinman from special education shared it with me and I am sharing it with you because I thought it very much described what we are working towards here at Tumalo and in Redmond. Two things you will read about are the “cut score” and how low it is and how we do not have systems in place that allow us to disaggregate our assessments – two topics we discussed at length the last few days.

Please read this article and use this blog to comment on it.  This is a new form of communication that we will use this year for professional dialogue.  Enjoy!

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