Logistics: assessing online discussions

Moodle provides a wonderful variety of discussion forums – they provide for reflection, engagement, deeper understanding, broad participation, and much else – but the work also needs to be assessed.  Here’s one way to handle it:

I’ve set each discussion forum to send me an email whenever a student posts.  I can read the post on the spot and even click on a reply button in the email.  But I prefer to group replying and grading into clumps, rather than doing them piecemeal.  My replies and assessments are more consistent that way.  But I like to see if there are problems, misunderstandings, or the occasional inappropriate post that I need to address now. 

Replying at one time every day works well – otherwise you’ll feel like you’re being nibbled to death by ducks, and lose a sense of how the discussion is developing.
   
Since I’m usually looking for students to engage with the question and with each other, and since these are evolving skills, my focus is on formative assessment.  Can I use my replies to coax the student into deeper thought?  Does the student have a question that needs answering?  (Since I teach blended classes, I often bring these items up during F2F class, benefiting both the student who posted and the entire class.)
  
Moodle forums are a bit cumbersome to grade.   To see the posts in context, one must click on the forum, then on the post to open it (unless using the single, simple discussion).  Then click on Reply and write the reply.  Then click on Post to forum.  Then on Continue.  Then on the name of the forum.  And on to the next student.  But this gives me the flavor of the entire discussion that I don’t get from the emails. 

I keep a blank class list to write comments on and often just use: checkmark, +, or -.  If I’ve asked for replies to at least two classmates, I make checkmarks for these.  Keeping this information in one place for each assignment makes keeping track of student work and coming up with a grade easier.  My grading for most discussions is done/not done, though with loss of points when there is not much effort.  I’m focusing on building confidence and participation.

If I see that there is nothing on the class list/grading sheet for a student, I’ll then go to Participants and pull up the student’s record, which has all their forum posts in one place.  This shows me quickly if the student posted and I somehow missed it (perhaps the student replied to somebody else when they were supposed to create a separate thread). 

My school has an online gradebook, Gradequick, so I mostly use that gradebook rather than Moodle’s.  It takes about a minute to enter one class’ grades there.

I wish there were a quicker way to get through the process of replying to Moodle discussions, so if anybody knows of one, please let me know!

Using personal online conversations to help students achieve

    When students are engaged in an extensive research project, I want them to have a way to converse privately with the teacher, to reflect about what they’re learning, and to have an opportunity to get extra help.  I called these Private Journals to reinforce their private nature.   In the past, I’ve used separate threads in a single discussion forum for this task, but that didn’t provide much privacy.  Once I learned how to use the Online Text Assignment in Moodle, I switched to this instead. See: http://adventuresonlineteaching.blogspot.com/2011/12/private-teacher-student-conversation.html

    I’ve always thought providing this private communication channel was a good idea.  But I’ve found evidence that it’s even better than I thought. 

    After we finished the project, I asked students to tell me what worked well for them and what didn’t work; they answered free-form, not from a list.  Many of them spontaneously said they liked the Private Journals.

    I wasn’t even sure they were looking at my replies in the Private Journals, but then I checked out the Participation Report (under Administration >Reports) where I could see how many times students edited or viewed the entries.  (Thanks to Colin Matheson in the Moodle Mayhem Listserv http://groups.google.com/group/moodlemayhem?hl=en&pli=1  for this great idea).  Students generally wrote their entry without further rewrites,  but many went back to either 1) see if I had replied yet, or 2) read my reply several times.  How’s that for evidence that teachers matter?

    I really enjoy this part of the project, as it allows me to give undivided individual attention.
    Clearly students want this special attention.  I could suggest resources or search strategies, or give attaboys, or listen to some new cool fact they had learned, or just share their enthusiasm for what they were learning.  It was like having a mini-tutoring session with each student – without interruptions as well as with time for me to think. 

    I had been afraid that I wouldn’t be able to get the conversation going when each Private Forum post was separate from previous entries; in each, the student speaks and then the teacher speaks.  This was more disjointed than using a separate thread in a discussion forum for each student.  But we still managed.

    I also learned to add the due date to the title of the different posts so that students could distinguish them.  (I had originally just posted four Private Journals for students to post to, but they found this confusing, and were posting in random Private Journals – lesson learned). 

    As in the past, when I’ve used this tool (along with making sure students have found a subject they really want to research,) the result has been well-researched and well-written reports from a great variety of learners. 

    I always thought this was a useful tool – I just didn’t know how much.

Learning what's appropriate

    On my 8th grade class Moodle, I added a new feature this year – the Coffee House.  It’s a place for off-topic discussions.  A place to play.

    I get an email whenever anyone posts there, so I can keep an eye on what’s going on. And students have asked me specifically if I'm checking what they post there, so I know they think about this.  There has been silliness, brief conversations about singers they like (or don’t), starting of stories for people to continue, recording of athletic feats. 

    There has also been some inappropriate content in the form of disrupting somebody else’s discussion.  Some students posted a thread about unicorns, and how much these students like them.  This resulted in some disruptive posts by other students. I held back because I wanted to see how the original posters would handle it – which they did well.  In no uncertain terms they told the disruptive posters to knock it off.  And if they don’t like unicorns, start their own threads on a topic they do like.   

    Since the disruptive posters continued to post, I also posted, telling them to stop, and to start their own thread on a topic that interested them.  One post was an outright put-down, so I replaced its content with the words “Inappropriate content deleted;” Moodle shows that I was the one who did this.

    Disruptive posts just about stopped, but still continued once in awhile, so I took one of the posters aside to remind the poster that it needed to stop.  It has.   

    This is middle school, and not everybody has great social skills.  What am I saying?!  Nobody  in middle school has great social skills.  But some are even less adept than their peers and need a little guidance. 

    No harm has been done beyond ruffled feathers.  And everybody is getting a lesson in handling themselves online.

7th grade vs 8th grade

    This is the first year 7th graders have participated in using Moodle.  While the content offered to both 7th and 8th grade is similar (vocabulary forums, for example), how they handle the work is poles apart.

    8th graders explore.  They poke around to see what’s there.  They have been enthusiastic users of the Coffee House forum, for off-topic conversations.  They get involved and post their opinions, seemingly unafraid of what others will think.  8th graders have confidence.

    7th graders follow the rules.  They really enjoy using the Moodle, and go into the vocabulary forums with gusto, enjoying sharing just the right images.  But they don’t use the Coffee House at all, even the student who asked me to include it. 

    7th grade is probably the hardest year in middle school.  Kids’ bodies are growing and changing constantly.  This is the most mercurial and moody year.  Kids are inward-focused, and convinced the entire world is watching them under both a spotlight and a microscope. 

    8th graders have started to get a grip on their changing bodies and emotions.  They are outward-focused.  At least some of the time they are confident, even cocky. 

    Because I'm been feeling my way with the 7th grade, we haven’t done much online discussion yet.  I suspect I’ll see differences there, too.  Can’t wait!

(Note: spelling error image from dozens of website, origin unclear.)

Kid radar flags own errors

from wunderground.com

Yesterday, a student emailed me, begging me to remove a post he had made that he realized had crossed the line.  After 30 minutes, he couldn’t get back in to edit it (a Moodle restriction), so he needed me to make the change.  He had gone over the bounds of good taste, using vocabulary that would be acceptable in the locker room, but not so good in the classroom.

As it happens, I had seen his post, but decided to wait until school to mention it and then take action.  He beat me to it. 

Last year, I had a similar situation with another student, only this was posting an image that was off-color.  He, too, realized on his own that he had erred, and brought it to me before I ever had a chance to bring it to him. 

Part of letting kids explore online environments like Moodle is that it lets them make these kinds of mistakes in a controlled environment (I get an email for every post) that doesn’t expose their mistakes to the entire world. 

Better still, they had the chance to listen to their own internal radar – that something was off – and to respond to it.  Their self-corrections were spot-on.  And they will remember this for a long, long time.

All  I had to do was agree with their assessment and remove the offending material.  

Not all “off” material even gets posted.  Lots of kids will be working in the computer lab and ask me if something – especially an image – is okay.  Their radar flagged it, but they want to get adult affirmation that their radar is right.  Of course not all kids identify their posts as inappropriate, but I don’t get the usual protests when I discuss it with them, so I suspect they secretly agree when I flag their work.

So cool.  Students get to try it out, use their radar to identify what shouldn’t be posted, and self-correct.  Simple.   Elegant.   The situation teaches them.  My favorite kind of learning.

Enthusiasm!

    So I introduced Moodle to my 7th and 8th graders this week.  You know you’re doing something right when kids login from home without even being asked to.  You also know you’re onto something when students ask hopefully if we’re going to the computer lab to work on the Moodle today.   Some highlights:

• Most of the students who keep “forgetting” their permission slips suddenly remember when  they see that everybody else is engaged in something they can’t participate in. 

• Having the Start Button activities helps a lot.   Students enjoy adding information about themselves to their profiles, even though some are describing themselves in silly hyperbolic terms. 

• Having  written directions at the very start  reduces “what are we doing” questions.  I respond, “What do the directions say?”  “Directions?  Oh, yeah…”
   
• Some kids still want to be spoon-fed.  “I can’t find …” Have to remember to  turn these questions over to their peers. 
   
• Students really like adding pictures to their profiles.  Some kids are very savvy about finding and uploading pictures, while others have never done it.  Uploading pictures isn’t required, but if kids want to do it, they are motivated to struggle with these new skills. 
   
• Facebook-like posting is typical – lots of terrible spelling, punctuation, capitalization (see sample).  I’m living with that for now so students can focus on learning to use this environment.  Kids do best when they focus on one  thing at a time.   
• 
  The second day, students post to a Vocabulary discussion.  The two discussions (netiquette and vocabulary) give them a chance to find the Reply button, and figure out what discussions look like.

Students are conversing with each other and having fun with it.  Yes!!

Using discussion format to encourage conversation

    I’ve been thinking about how using different kinds of Moodle discussions encourages or discourages discussion.

    While there are four variants, they display in really just two formats.  The first shows the prompts with separate discussion threads.  The second shows the prompts with replies nested underneath.

    Why is this important?  Because while the second is one conversation and the first is potentially many conversations – which might seem like too much trouble and thus keep students from participating.

The first option I’m talking about here is the default.  The Standard forum format looks like the image to the right.

        When you click on the student’s thread, you then get to see the post and replies.  Each thread is a separate conversation.  For many activities, this is exactly what I want.

• Perhaps I want each student to post their ideas before they can see any other students’ ideas (Q & A forum).  
• Perhaps I want students to maintain separate discussions (in the case of Two-Way Journals, where pairs of students are reading the same book and talking about it).  (Standard forum for general use)  
• Perhaps I want the information organized in separate threads, as I do with vocabulary, where there is a separate thread for each word.   

    But when I really want a conversation on one topic, I don’t always get that with this Standard Forum format.  What often happens is that students click on threads started by their friends, and ignore those started by others.  There can be a very active conversation that other students may not even see.

    So I’m rethinking this.  I want real conversations among all students.  That means I’ll use A Single Simple Discussion format more often – the second option I talked about above.  This format looks like this.  I can display this in summary form, as shown here, or with each post showing:

    This is what you see within the different threads of the Standard Format, but here it’s the single thread, the single discussion. 

    I’ll have to balance this against the desire to see students’ original thinking (because the “me, too” tendency is strong).  This also means I have to divide the class into groups to keep the reading involved in the conversations manageable – but that’s a post for another day.

Assessment in Moodle

It’s not enough to have fun activities in Moodle.  If you’re a teacher, the activities have to have a point.  What do I want my students to know/do?  And how will I know if they have succeeded?

Moodle provides many tools – especially for formative assessment.  (If educational terminology causes temporary insanity, that means “as you go along.”)  It’s my favorite kind of assessment, and you can build it right into your activities.

• For example, forum discussions are a perfect way for you to determine – Did they read it?  Did they get it?  Can they incorporate what they’ve learned and go on to the next step?  The activity provides the assessment tool – love it, love it, love it. 
• Any project, whether individual or group, can use Moodle tools for collaborating, refining, publishing, all of which allow for either formative or summative (final) assessment. Students can use a forum discussion, add items to the glossary, use the wiki to collect/modify information, post ideas to their blogs…
• Assignment with upload – You can use the Assignment module and then have students upload their work (Word documents, PowerPoints, you name it)  or give them written directions (in a label or in a document/web page) and then have them upload their work, or have the directions in a discussion forum and have students post their work or attach it to their post…  Important:  make sure you increase the size of the possible student files, or your students will be unable to upload and will be frustrated.
• Post a picture/ embed a video on a discussion forum and ask for responses, a la VoiceThread.  Students can make text comments, post pictures, add podcasts…   It doesn’t look as jazzy as VoiceThread, but you don’t have to set up all those student accounts and teach your students a new tool, either.
• Moodle also has a quiz tool – you can create self-grading quizzes and give students repeated chances to pass the quiz (with possibly different sets of questions each time).  The quiz is particularly good for helping students self-assess if factual material has been learned.  I confess I don’t use the Moodle quiz, but see that Hot Potato (which is much easier for setting up a quiz) is now available from my Moodle host, so I’m going to check into that. 
• Moodle has a gradebook which I have barely used (as my school has an electronic gradebook that includes all work, not just Moodle work), but I want to work with this more because I can use it for student feedback.

Not to mention internet tools which can be embedded in Moodle or linked to from Moodle, such as:

• Poll – Students can vote and see the results immediately.
• Survey -    My students really enjoy surveys, and these are an easy way to find out what students know about a topic before you start studying it, to get student opinions afterwards, and even for short-answer or essay questions. 
• Mindmap – great for visually showing ideas. 

There’s learning going on and you can watch it happen.  

Update:  I heard from  @eixarach on Twitter about another assessment resource: @francesblo You can also find already made content at http://collection.wiris.com/quizzes Contact us if you need more info.

What students like about Moodle

Comments from the year-end student survey:

• I like the discussions and extra sites you have up here.
• it was ALOT OF FUN
• i didnt need to use paper and carry my book
• It was very accesible, and easy to use.
• What I liked about the moodle was open discussion, there wasn't one right answer
• I really liked how in the discussions you could say your opinion and how there wasn't none right answer.
• i liked the moodle this year because it is veyr handy and can help you study for things like vocabulary.
• I liked the vocab and the discussions, I think vocab was so much easier to do on moodle and funner.
• I loved moodle this year because before a vocab test, if I forgot my book, I could use the moodle.
• I liked the discussions
• The moodle is great for studying, less writing with the hands (which i do not enjoy) and it keeps everything very organized.
• I could type my assignments up and I could see and comment on what other people thought
• It connected us more. 

‘Nuf said.

Results of online vocabulary studying

This year I added online vocabulary study, using Moodle forums. The basic assignment was for 10 of the 20 vocabulary words, add this information to a Moodle discussion about the word: use in a sentence, provide an image/ synonym/ antonym/ definition/ word origin). I wrote about this in http://adventuresonlineteaching.blogspot.com/2010/12/letting-go.html and http://adventuresonlineteaching.blogspot.com/2010/11/vocabulary-in-discussion-forum.html

In about 10 minutes, students could post this information. Many students found this activity fun - especially finding funny images - while others found it onerous (but I did notice that these were students who complained about doing any work, no matter what it was.)


But as one student commented in the year-end survey, “DO THE MOODLE. It's the same as a test grade and is an easy 100 if you just do it.”


For any students who had trouble logging in I had an easy alternative – give me the work on a piece of paper – which was frankly even less work. I found that since we started Moodle vocabulary “discussions” that students consistently did a much better job on tests of vocabulary than in previous years, and also used the words much more in their writing.


Students also commented in the year-end survey that the Moodle made studying vocabulary easier:

• My vocab became expanded due to the intesive work done on it, it helped in other classses.
• i liked the moodle this year because it is veyr handy and can help you study for things like vocabulary.
• I liked the vocab and the discussions, I think vocab was so much easier to do on moodle and funner.
• I loved moodle this year because before a vocab test, if I forgot my book, I could use the moodle.
• it was a good way to review in the vocab section

Only two pieces of vocabulary study took place in class 1) introducing the words (in a continuing story that I wrote, so students would see the words in context), and 2) tests (students had to use the words correctly in a sentence showing the meaning of the word).

Vocabulary work was almost entirely on the Moodle and in exercises in the text, all outside of class. The online tool provided both a place to participate in learning about words, and a place to study. My goal was to move vocabulary study out of the classroom as much as possible, while still improving student learning; I accomplished both.

Looking back on our Moodle year

    Looking back on this year, where my students spent the whole year becoming good blended/online learners, I have these observations:

Offering online work can attract those students who are a bit indifferent to school.  If the work is interesting and worthwhile, they can become very active learners.

But offering work online doesn’t change the kids who don’t want to do the work.  If they don’t want to do it, they don’t do it, no matter how much fun it is.  Middle school kids can be experts at stubborn for its own sake. 

Offering work online helps the organizationally challenged because it cuts out all the intervening steps where work gets lost. 

But offering online work doesn’t help those who are just chronically late to do work.  I don’t usually hear from them until after mom saw the zero grade on the Edline progress report for the week. 

Online work is not a panacea.  It does have its advantages, though. 

As I had hoped, offering online asynchronous discussions has brought everybody to the table.  In the F2F class (Face to Face), I have “shared inquiry”/ Socratic discussions on occasion.  We sit in a circle, everybody has to participate, and we have good discussions.  But it’s excruciating for the shy, and the deliberate thinkers feel out of sync.  

Online, though, everybody participates.  We hear from kids who never would have raised their hands in class – and they have something interesting to say.  I overheard one kid tell another, “I didn’t know you were so smart,” after reading his posting.  And kids write back when they like another student’s post – powerful peer reinforcement. 

One unexpected result is that more kids are comfortable participating, more comfortable raising their hands in F2F class.  The very shyest still don’t talk much, but I’m hearing questions from just about everybody, and I’m hearing answers to my questions from just about everybody. 

The culture of the F2F classroom has changed.  We are all much more comfortable with each other.  Individually and in small groups, students have always talked to each other, but now they talk in the whole-class setting more.

Still another reason to like the blended classroom!

Spillover - online discussion comes back to F2F class

    Two exciting things I’m seeing.
photo © 2007 Justin Henry | more info (via: Wylio)

     First, the conversation that may have started in class, then extended and deepened online – continues back in class.  All seamlessly. 

     And kids who used to be silent in class are talking.  I’m not seeing the same 4 or 5 hands.  Now, I’m seeing a forest of hands; kids who never used to ask questions or make comments are part of the F2F conversation.

     I would love for somebody to do research on this.

Writing about the N-word

    I always get a bit nervous when we get to this discussion, which I’ve used online for three years now.  My 8th graders are reading To Kill a Mockingbird, and talking about the N-word is an important part of understanding the book and its historical context. 

    I make clear up front that kids are not to use the word, either speaking or writing.  I also tell them that some people think they shouldn’t read this book, because those people think they can’t distinguish between a word they read and a word they can say – which my students find insulting.

    At the start, I thought kids might just parrot ideas from the readings I gave them (which included an Ebony editorial, and an article about censorship of the word in a dramatic version of To Kill a Mockingbird).  There was a bit of that, but while middle school kids can suck up, they tend to leap directly from brain to output, without benefit of a whole lot of editing. 

    What happened in the discussion forum was a real conversation, with kids saying what they really think.  From one telling people to get used to hearing the N-word since it is popular in the black community, to another stating the word should be able to be used by either all groups or none, to another asking about its use in literature (we had been talking about the Huck Finn controversy). 

    Here’s another cool thing.  The work was due before Tuesday morning, but here it is Wednesday night and they’re still posting to the discussion.  When they’re not interested, the conversation stops on the due date.  But here, there have already been two extra days of discussion so far. 
   
    And everybody is part of the conversation, including those who never used to talk in class.  This is one of the things I like about online discussion - everybody gets to play.

Keeping track of all that writing/talking

    I used to go to the Moodle discussion forums every day to read new posts, but that got time-consuming, especially when there were multiple forums with threads to check. And I wanted to be immediately responsive to "help me" posts.

    I learned a better alternative - to be sure I'm subscribed to each forum.  How?  Set auto-subscribe in your profile, as shown in the screen shot, to "Yes, when I post subscribe me to that forum."  You just have to make sure you post at least one thread to the forum.  (You can always unsubscribe to a specific forum later if you need to.)

    Why subscribe?  Because Moodle sends me an email for every post a student makes to a discussion forum.  The emails have an easily recognizable subject line so I can distinguish these from other emails until I can look at them.  Since students tend to do their work at night, I tend to get this work in a clump first thing in the morning when I open my email account. 

    As I read through I quickly see posts that need action - usually posts outrageously full of sloppy errors. I flag these just like other emails that need to be addressed further.  The rest I read through and delete. I can click on a link in each email that will take me right to the post, which is handy if I'm replying or if I want to see the post in context. I've noticed that images in posts aren't visible in the emails, but I suspect that's a function of my email server.  

    When I see a post that needs action from the student - especially if it contains errors that need correcting.  - I just print the email and hand it right to the student.  This works much better than emailing the student (middle school students don't check their email much), or posting a reply to the post (the student might not return to this post and so won't see it).  Being able to return work for correction in person is one of the advantages of a blended class.  And I have email flags to remind me to follow up if necessary.

    In the past I didn't use the emails for grading, but went back later.  Now I'm working on getting into the habit of grading at the same time.

Flipped?

     In my Twitter stream @erswank (Ryan Swank) suggested that using online discussion outside of class so that we could act out a Shakespeare play in class might be an example of a “flipped” classroom.  I had been thinking of flipped classes as using recorded lectures for homework so students can practice in class;  since I hardly ever lecture, I wasn’t thinking along those lines.  But Ryan is right. 

     Using online resources allows me to move around what we do, so that what is best done F2F happens F2F.  I get my students F2F for only 42 minutes a day, so I need to consider the best use of that time. 

     I don’t just decide to use technology; I decide what I want my students to learn.  Then I look at the best means for them to learn.  I often use technology because students find it engaging, but that’s not the determining factor.  By itself, technology is just a toy.  I want to use it as a tool, a lever, to support and expand learning.

    Here’s an example.  I want my students to write as often as they can, because practice improves their writing, but a steady diet of essays grows stale.  I also want my students thinking about what we’re working on, and want them to converse about it outside of class.  Providing online discussions gives them a way to write, converse, think – and it doesn’t have to occur during class time.  Further, they enjoy the discussions and some students put in extra time there – even though it won’t add to their grade.

     My students are writing at least twice as much as they were before I started using the Moodle, but they don’t complain about this, or even seem to notice that they’re writing.  It’s an extension of their Facebook and texting world.  For those students who aren’t technology-immersed, it provides a way to explore that world safely.  And for the shy and the deliberate thinkers, online discussion provides a way to be equal partners in the conversation. 

     All this leaves me class time so students can explore Shakespeare as audience and actors. How’s that for meeting some learning objectives?

Online discussion experience improves critical thinking

    Recently I compared student discussions from a year ago – when I had just started using Moodle discussions with my students – and from today.  The prompt is identical (pictured here), but the results are astonishingly different. 

    Last year, my 8th grade students weren’t quite sure what to do yet.  They gave their opinions, but their entries were short.  Nobody was taking any risks.

    This year, after having most of the school year to work with the Moodle, the students provided lengthy entries, included evidence to back up their opinions, and fearlessly challenged the teacher’s assertion.

    Last year, with about the same number of students, 2,530 words were written in this discussion.  This year, it was 4,044. 

    We have been studying Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream.  Having the discussions online leaves us time for students to act out the play F2F in class.

     I used the same prompt both years, though this year's included a picture of the four lovers arguing. Last year most of the posts were short, like SH’s: I think it is because he thinks that people who have a lot in common will fall in love.

    This year, most of posts were long.  And the very first post, from CW, immediately challenged my analysis:
 

Well, I actually don't really thing Demetrius and Lysander are very similar. Demetrius is very "well, your father said you and I are getting married and I like you so we're getting married, end of subject."

Lysander is very different in that way. He loves Hermia and is willing to break the law and run away to be with her.

Hermia is very detirmined to be with Lysander, even if it means having to leave her home and knowing that if she comes back, Thesus will make her be a nun.

And no one likes Helena. Until they are charmed. So no one REALLY likes Helena.

    After routinely using Moodle discussions for all kinds of work, the students are comfortable with online discussion, and are thinking critically.  Woot!!  Even students who struggle with Language Arts didn’t hesitate to set me straight: I don't think the lovers are similar begins another post. And everybody was part of the discussion. 

     Better still, the discussions are homework, done outside of school during student’s personal time.  And I can see that students go back to read what others wrote, even if they don’t post again.  Talk about extending meaningful grappling with the content beyond class time.

Where to place Homework Help Forum

    When I first started using Moodle, I put the “homework help” discussion forum with the module that’s always “up,” which is mostly vocabulary.  This worked well for the first month or so, and students quickly started helping each other with their questions.

    But I discovered my kids were putting their homework questions in other forums.  Once we started a new unit, they often would put their questions on whichever forum they were answering questions in – and they’d get other student responses quite rapidly – but their questions really didn’t belong there.

     I wondered should I make a big deal of “this is where your questions are supposed to be”  but Moodle is just so free-form and middle schoolers really don’t get into scrolling down to get to the forum.

    During snow days I put in a general snow day forum, and that’s where all the homework questions surfaced.  That forum was in just the right place, easy to find.  I guess I’m a slow learner; I’ve been trying to keep everything organized, but the organization needs to make sense to students, not just to me.  And scrolling down just doesn’t make sense to them (and there may be a laziness factor in there, too). 

    It seems to be OK to scroll down when working with vocabulary, because all the vocabulary units are in one place.  But not when just asking a question.  Then again, vocabulary assignments are regular, while asking questions is sporadic.

    So now I’m starting to add a general discussion/homework help forum in each new unit.  This takes the place of both homework help and the off-topic/coffee klatch forums I’ve experienced in many online courses for adults.  Kids just start their irreverent conversations wherever (in f2f class, too, of course).  I don’t participate in these discussions that much, because these are side conversations that can get quite silly.  As long as students are civil, that can be their spot.

    Since I know my students also converse via Facebook and online gaming and texting, I don’t feel as strong a need to provide a “special place” for them.  Wherever they are online is “their” place.  But I am tickled they feel comfortable in the class Moodle.

    Once again, kids handle their work and their play differently than adults, so the way I organize the course has to be different, too.

It's about the learning, not the technology

I am very active on Twitter, and was recently part of a conversation about digital storytelling. I was talking about using PowerPoint, a tool that is immediately available to my students, as an incredibly versatile tool. We’ve used it for creating animated story books and for creating glogster-like posters. It has endless possibilities – which my students teach me about just about daily.photo © 2009 Meena Kadri | more info (via: Wylio)


But teachers demanded to know, but haven’t you used this tool, haven’t you used that tool. Yes, I play around with lots of different tools, and I often let my students do that, too. But the point isn’t to try out each and every new cool tool. The point is learning.

I see dozens of new tools come through my Twitter and RSS streams every day. I check a lot of them out. I also look at what value they add to my students’ learning, and at how they do that. Voicethread, for example, often starts with an image, allowing students to comment on it. Starting with an image is powerful. That has encouraged me to include images more in my teaching, both F2F and online. I’ve started adding images to all my Moodle discussion prompts because I think they help my students make connections that words by themselves won’t do.

But does that mean I’m going to add VoiceThread to my arsenal? Maybe not. If I can get the job done – using images to help my students think and providing a way for them to converse about it – using an existing mechanism (Moodle discussion), then why add the overhead of still more student IDs and passwords? My goal is not “using VoiceThread,” it’s improving student understanding.

With each potential tool, I have to ask myself, “what are the logistics?” How much time do I have to set aside for this new whiz-bang tool? Because I don’t have 25 students. I’m a secondary teacher, and we often have 150 or even 200 students. And each new tool has a learning curve – whoever thinks all kids know how to use technology without assistance has never spent time in a school computer lab. It’s not obvious to all of them.

When I first really got into using online discussion, I tried out a blog, where I posted a question, and students discussed it via comments. We all enjoyed it and the benefits of the discussion were immediately clear. But the logistics just about killed me. That’s why I decided to use Moodle, because it reduces the logistics – never eliminates them, but makes them manageable.

That way, I can focus on what I want my students to learn – the whole point of the enterprise.

Two-way journals – students writing to each other about what they read

    For years, one of the most popular reading activities in my class has been Two-Way Journals.  Two students read the same book, and write back and forth to each other.  It has succeeded beyond my wildest dreams.  Here’s how it works:

•  Students get to choose what they want to read, so those who adore science fiction can indulge, and those who want to read Twilight can do that, too.  Research shows that students read more when they get to choose what they read – and my experience totally supports this.  I have a lot of books students can use, but some choose to go out and get their own from bookstores and libraries.
• Students have to pick an age-appropriate book that neither partner has ever read. “Oh, but I really like Lord of the Rings/Harry Potter/Hatchet…” doesn’t matter.  It needs to be a new book. 
• Students have to write to their partners about twice a week about what they think about their reading.  They ask each other questions, comment about what characters are doing, predict what they think will happen, compare the book to other books they’ve read, notice literary features.  I read the first entry to make sure they didn’t get sucked into “book report mode,”  since occasionally I need to remind students that their partner doesn’t need to know the plot because the partner is reading the story, too.  Plot summaries take little effort; a real conversation about the book is both more work and more interesting.

     Since they write 4 or 5 times each, students have lots of opportunities to write to interest their audience (their partner), which they clearly enjoy doing.  There are jokes, word-play, good-natured arguments, comparisons of who made the best prediction, even discussion of the next book they plan to read.  They are writing for a real audience, an audience that responds with questions and comments if the writer is not clear.

    In the past, students have mostly used spiral notebooks or fancy diaries they handed back and forth, or emails.  This year, I added a discussion forum in Moodle with a separate thread for each book/pair.  We discovered that this was much easier than using notebooks and diaries because there was no notebook to forget to bring to school (or lose).  Also, logistics were easy for the occasional three-person group; nobody had to wait until the notebook got passed to the next person. The format seemed less frustrating for those pairs where one member didn’t post as consistently, perhaps because I could post, too, giving the single-poster an audience and a conversation to be part of.  Even though I think the Moodle discussion is the best alternative, I will continue to allow variety in format because students gravitate to different formats; girls seem to love those fancy diaries, for example.

   A few things I’ve learned: 

• Give students some class time to search through your books to find what they’d like to read.  Especially the first time you do this project, kids need to negotiate with teach other, and also find a book neither has read.  After you’ve done this once, you can notify kids the project is coming up again, and some will be choosing partners and books before you even start. 
• Require students to show you they’ve got the book by a due date, since some students will try to excuse not reading because they still didn’t get that book. 
• If you think parents might have questions about the book, because of violence, profanity, or mature content, for example, require written approval from both sets of parents.  I’ve had more than one parent thank me for doing this. 
• If you have a really antisocial student – and we all have those – ask them to write to their dog/cat/goldfish.  I had a student who created fantastic imaginary postings from his dog, as well as his own required postings.  He had a chance to be successful and took it to a new level. 
• Don’t let “I can’t find a partner” allow a child to opt out.  I give these students the choice of working with the inevitable other student who doesn’t have a partner, joining an existing 2-person group, or working alone and writing to their pet. 
• Don’t buy “we can’t find a book.”  If they don’t have the book to show you by the due date for having a book, hand them books from your classroom library.  They often will either take that book, or discover there’s another one that they really want to read.  But it has to be in hand right then (to avoid the “I don’t have the book yet” excuses.)  This will save you having to listen to all those excuses down the line.
• Spot check to make sure students aren’t writing plot summaries, but are really engaging both with the literature and with their partners.  You don’t want or need to check on every single entry – spot check at the start and read it all at the end.
• Give guidance about staying on target: “You should each have 2 entries done by Friday.”  I give kids a minute to exchange physical diaries/spiral notebooks, but don’t give other class time during the project.
• Don’t let students use the “my partner didn’t post anything” excuse for not writing themselves; make clear that each person is graded solely on their own work and that if students let you know partners aren’t performing, then you can do something about it.  Non-participants get named quickly in the middle school grapevine, and find it hard to find partners next time, a perfect natural consequence, and one that’s more meaningful to a 12 year old than the grade. 

    Here are the rubric and student directions.  This has been one of my best brainstorms.  How often do you have students ASK to do a reading project? 

Moodle vs Blogs

    A few years ago, I wanted to give my students a way to experience discussion online.  I wanted to give my shyer students and deliberate thinkers a way to participate equally.  I wanted to give my students time to think, so they could edit their response instead of just blurting it out in class. 

    I tried out using a blog, posting the question and then having students comment.  It worked, but the logistics just about killed me.  First, I needed to keep my students’ identities private.  Second, since teens don’t listen well to instructions, I knew that I needed to do the setup myself.

     This is doable with a class of 22 third-graders.  When you get into secondary education, where you may have 150 to 200 students, you ask yourself regularly if you are nuts.  To set up just two classes of students took me a good chunk of a summer week.  (Create the account, get the verification email, but first set up dummy emails in your gmail accounts, click on the right link….)  “Free” tools are great, but the time cost is one of the dirty little secrets of using technology.

    The blog only allows for one discussion thread, and I have always enjoyed the way multiple conversations (threads) appear during my own online classes, providing for lots of diverse-but-focused conversations.  I also want my students to use wikis and blogs.  And each new tool requires setting up more accounts – for which students will promptly lose the passwords. ;)

    I decided I needed one platform (location) with one setup and one logon.  Is there a steeper learning curve for me with Moodle?  Oh, yes.  But 1) I have a safe location, so kids can use their own names, 2) I only have to set up student information once (except for when they forget their passwords, of course J), 3) students only have to remember one logon, and 4) there are lots of versatile tools I can use within Moodle including wikis and blogs.

    One downside is that it’s hard to show student work to parents easily.  But POS (parent over shoulder) is working for us for now.