We continued the GRA this week. I found some character worksheets that another teacher created and posted to the GRA Facebook page. I used the character sheet at the start of the class period on Monday. Students worked in table groups to construct the character traits of each of the three main characters in Refugee.
Once we had a solid understanding of the characters as a class, I created a blog post for the students to respond to on their Writeit blogs. I had students post their responses and make comments on two blogs within the classroom and two blogs outside of our classroom walls. When the comments came to me for approval, I discovered that they needed more instruction on feedback.
We have worked as a class on peer feedback in our recent narratives and presentations, but they didn’t transfer the process to their feedback on the blogs. Several students wrote “nice job!” or “I agree,” but they didn’t offer a reason for constructive feedback or discussion. We spent a little bit of time as a class looking at good feedback and tried making comments again.
I also made a connection with another classroom who wanted to share a Flipgrid. They posted on the Facebook chat that they wanted to have several classrooms collaborate on their grid for Refugee. I asked them to add my email domain so we could join in. I was approved yesterday and used the code with my class this morning. This time, I assigned partners and gave them a question to answer using a response frame.
Students worked in pairs to write a four sentence response to the question, before reading the response on the grid. I few interesting things happened. Some of my students didn’t want to be in the video frame, so they intentionally sat on the edge of the screen. Others held the camera up high, so you couldn’t see their faces or they held a paper in front of their face to block out the view of their face. One pair went so far to remove themselves from the discussion that they typed their response into Google translate and played it while they recorded the video. I have to actually give them props for that one, it was hilarious!
I was disappointed to see that not only did the students struggle with the videos, but the Flipgrid connection I waited days to receive was still blank. We were the first class to post. I’m really hoping that the other 10 or so educators that signed up for the Flipgrid get going soon. I keep telling my students that we are reading the book along with other classrooms, but I’m having a hard time getting people outside of my classroom to produce work and connect it to my students and their work.
I feel like I keep making the students promises, but nothing is truly happening yet. We did play another Kahoot! game this week and had a ton of fun, but that just isn’t enough. Next week, I plan to add to the Flipgrids that we have already established. I also found an educator who is looking for connections on Twitter, so that it also in my plan for next week. I have some more blog tasks for them to complete, as well as another organizer that a teacher from Canada shared through Google documents. I had to modify it a little to meet the needs of my class, but hopefully it will set us up to have an informed discussion with another class in the future.
I am still trying to connect through Google Hangout, but I’m struggling to find someone to connect with. Once someone puts out a request 7-10 educators comment that they want to connect. I have offered to connect with them outside of the initial request, but I’m not having very much luck. It is proving difficult to connect with educators in other time zones. I only have one class for 90 minutes first thing in the morning, so my time availability is limited. I’m not giving up though. These kids are engaged and I’m going to get them to connect!
Mrs. White 