Prairielands

I attended an Art and Technology March 10.  The goal was to connect art with teenagers.  The project had students looking at art work, creating poems, writing scripts about the art work and then creating digital stories.  See this site http://www.nelson-atkins.org/education/NewDimensions/NewDimensions_Moving.cfm

They used DS because of the possibilities of publication, audience.  They found the students were excited about the technology, but worked harder on the project because it might be published for all the world to see.  I found the say thing happening when I had students do projects that would have an expanded audience.  They worked harder on projects like web pages, presentations to be shown at an open house or to the schoolboard.  It something about going outside the classroom walls that idea of giving students a bigger audience.  I am using my mini grant monies to do an open institute on digital storytelling and some othe Web 2.0 activities. We are going to try a podcast, use a wiki, and blog.  I will be picking this groups brains a little closer to June.                           Mary in Missouri

January 23, 2007   Wow what a fun evening.  Dr. Frick ask me to present the multiple uses of PowerPoint to a Writing With Technology class she is teaching.  There were 12 participants both inservice teachers and preservice teachers.  One of the preservice teachers presented the does and don’ts of designing a PowerPoint.  I got to do the fun part and show examples of how teachers use PowerPoint to introduce themselves and their curriculum to classes the first day of class, how teachers use it to provide notes and make those notes available to students who are homebound for whatever reason, examples of using PowerPoint in a review game-format to help students review.  The most fun was to demo how some of the teachers used PowerPoint to present their written pieces they did in the summer 2006 open institutes.  I also had examples of students’ PowerPoint presentations as a results of researching a particular topic.  After technical difficulties we went on to write a “Bring Me” poem for poemcrazy by Susan Goldsmith Wooldridge.  Technical difficuties always happen when you think you have a presentation working perfectly on your home or office computer.  Then lab computers just don’t work the same way.  Participants selected an object to write about.  They took a digital picture of that object and then used PowerPoint to present their piece.  I will try to get permission to post some of those on the class web site.  I am a techie junky.  I love helping students use images to enhance their writing.              

I am looking forward to presenting to this group again.  They are a great group to work with.  They are part of the first group to apply for PLWP’s graduate certificate in teaching of writing.  See http://www.missouriwestern.edu/prairielands/ for more information about that certificate.    Mary

These are pictures I took at the Seed Site mtg. at Kennesaw.

The photos outside are of the final writing reflecting on the day.

Mary

Atlanta, Georga Oct. 13,14,15, 2006

Three Prairie Land Writing Project (PLWP) leaders attended the meeting to discuss with other seed site representatives the ins and outs of working with money for writing with technology.  Since PLWP used their grant funds in a three prong approach it was good for us to gather the information about the 3 focuses and deliever a presentation. We then had others help us reflect about what was presented.                   It was good to hear about data evaluated and prsented by Inverness on the many approaches to exploring Writing with Technology.  The process, even though painful at some point, was a good exercise for our site.  I think it was especially helpful since PLWP is looking at a leadership retreat sometime this winter.  Being a relative new comer to the workings of the site and to NWP I maybe benifited more than others.  I had the opportunity to talk with other TLs from other sites.  Some I knew and others were new faces.      Mary

It seems like Tech Matters 06 was some time ago and I should be posting to this space more.  Creating the Summer Institute’s eAntholgoy and burning it to a CD for each of the participants takes longer than I plan for.  I also finished the two web sites that have sample works from our two open institutes about technology and writing as a results of a technology seed grant.  If you are interested in what went on in those institutes of 16 and 15 participants take a look at the following URLs.

http://www.missouriwestern.edu/prairielands/wssuwp/

http://www.missouriwestern.edu/prairielands/wtca/

I met with the PLWP site director and we spent time going over the mini grant proposal.  I planned to offer an advanced institute focusing on digital writing and using a blog for participants to reflect and respond to the activities during the institute and afterwards if they so desired.  It would give them a taste of how blogs could be used in a classroom setting. We submitted it about 2:00 pm. I have presented two open institutes about writing with technology each of the last two summers.  There seems to be a need for teachers to have the time to get familiar with the technologies available.  Several of them have told me how almost spiritual it was to sit down and write just to write.  For many the last time they wrote was that final masters paper or a term paper in a college class.  To write for the joy of writing and to then have time and others imput to create a final personal written project was a good experience for them.  I enjoyed being the one to give them this opportunity.  It makes me feel good to be the instructor of such institutes.