This week, I looked at lots of new online tools to help increase student learning and engagement.  On the list provided were some tools with which I was already familiar.  The one that I use most commonly is Quizlet.  A tool designed for learning vocabulary, it can also be applied to almost anything that can be broken into two parts.  When I began using Quizlet almost 6 years ago, I used it just as it was intended – vocabulary interaction.  I created flash card sets for my intermediate French classes with French on one side and English on the other.  Later, I began using it with my more advanced French classes.  For these students, I created sets of French words with French definitions, characters from stories we read with descriptions, dates from French history with events, etc.  When my son entered school, we began using it to help him study for tests in all subject areas.  He is now at the point where he makes his own sets, as he has realized that creating the sets also helps him to learn the material.

Another tool that I found (though not from the list) is one that I discovered via my Google Reader account, from Free Technology for Teachers.  The tool is called Blubbr.  Blubbr offers free accounts that can be created with an email address, or linked to Facebook or Twitter.  After having created an account, a user can then create interactive video trivia-style games using videos already available.  The teacher (or student) just needs to create the questions.  For example, my French 1 students are studying fashion vocabulary now.  I searched “la mode” and found videos of fashion shows in France.  Using clips of no more than 20 seconds, I simply added multiple-choice questions about what different people were wearing in each clip.  To see my game, click here or press play below.

While I think that these video trivia games will be fun for students to play, I think that they may be even more fun for students to make and share with the class.  Before a test or quiz, I could imagine taking a day in class for students to create their own video games and then share them via our LMS or a wiki.  One challenge that I foresee is the need to circulate constantly to help students with choosing video clips, and to be certain that they choose only acceptable videos.

A bonus tool that I found via my Google Reader account is For All Rubrics, an online rubric site that interacts with iPads and allows the user to import rubrics already created in .xls format.  I have been searching for an app that does this and had not yet found a free one that was not associated with a specific LMS (not the one that my system uses).  Accounts are free for teachers.  I have not yet played with it much but will do so soon.  Once I do, I will report what I find.

What is your favorite tool that you have or found?

While researching this idea, I spent a lot of time reflecting on my past use of student discussion boards and blogs.  In my classroom, using these tools has always been a flop.  Nevertheless, I realize that it is MY failing, not a failing on the part of my students.  I have done exactly that of which I accuse my students: By failing to prepare, I prepared to fail.  As Julie Meloni says in the blog Integrating, Evaluating, and Managing Blogging in the Classroom, “As with any assignment, students are likely to follow your lead with regards to valuing its overall importance.  If you forget the blog exists, so will they—and I wouldn’t particularly blame them."

So why have I allowed this to occur?  I think that time management is a serious issue.  I have viewed blogs as an additional assignment, rather than a way to bring writing that is more traditional into the 21st century.  Therefore, instead of replacing in-class writing assignments with blogs or discussion boards, I have just added them on and thus I begin to run out of time.

Another problem has been the method of evaluating the blogs.  How does one truly evaluate (and grade) what is a reflection of the beliefs and musings of another person?  I prefer short and simple evaluations when having to grade so many items.  The problem I have had is that the rubrics I have typically found are similar to the one found on THIS website:

Not to say that this is too complicated, but it does entail multiple steps with different points for each criteria.  Multiple steps for multiple blogs for multiple students plus math equals a LOT of time.  I admire this professor’s commitment, but since time management is my biggest issue, I feel that I would fall short.

However, another of the posts that I found on ProfHacker by Mark Sample talked about how he assigned and evaluated student blogs.  In the blog post A Rubric for Evaluating Student Blogs, Sample shares my concerns for time management, saying “But when you have 15 or 25 posts per week, per class, how do you grade them all?  How do you let students know what kind of work you value?--And what kind of work they should likewise value?  Assessing the enormous number of posts on the class blog is challenging, to say the least.” Consequently, his rubric is short and simple:

I like this rubric more than the previous example, but it does not address the language skills that I look for as a French and English/Language Arts teacher.  It also does not address the need for authentic and real interaction amongst students.  As stated by Konrad Glogowski in his blog entry Towards Reflective BlogTalk, "I find that for so many of my students [sic] blogging often becomes a race to publish, to write entries and receive comments.  (Most of them measure the success of their blog by the number of comments they receive, and the content of the comment is often not as important as the mere fact that it is there).  They rarely look critically at their own writing, preferring instead to judge their own work by the traffic that it attracts to their blog." This reflects the current social media trends, where we “like” a post on Facebook, or retweet something on Twitter, instead of actually commenting and engaging with the original poster.  It is through these interactions that real growth and learning occurs.

This lack has resulted in the following rubric:

Resources
Glogowski, K. (2008, Feb 04). Towards reflective BlogTalk [Web log message]. Retrieved from http://www.teachandlearn.ca/blog/2008/02/04/towards-reflective-blogtalk/

Meloni, J. (2009, Aug 13). Integrating, Evaluating, and Managing Blogging in the Classroom [Web log message]. Retrieved from http://chronicle.com/blogs/profhacker/integrating-evaluatingmanaging-blogging-in-the-classroom/22626

Nixon, B. (2009, Apr). Public relations matters. Retrieved from http://publicrelationsmatters.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/blog-rubric.pdf

Profhacker. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://chronicle.com/blogs/profhacker/

Sample, M. (2010, Sept 27). A rubric for evaluating student blogs [Web log message]. Retrieved from http://chronicle.com/blogs/profhacker/a-rubric-for-evaluating-student-blogs/27196