Final Thoughts...

The EDM 510 course was invigorating. I use technology in my teaching, but revisiting some of the techniques I use was not only useful, but it allowed me to reevaluate some of the apps and resources and materials I use. For example, I have been using VoiceThread for almost a decade, but now that I have spent the semester exploring NearPod with my students and with inservice teachers, I plan to utilize it in my online courses in general and with my online ESOL grad program specifically. Evaluation tools such as Quizizz and those imbedded within NearPod will not only help me evaluate my students but also allow help me demonstrate tools that can be used in the P-12 classroom. I have also been exploring FlipGrid for use with ESL student learning English and teachers of Foreign Languages, and I plan to make it part of my teaching methods class in the fall. My favorite assignment was the iMovie editing activity. It allowed me to explore something I have had on my phone for a while and also allowed me to create a short clip with my daughter and for my favorite non-profit. 

My three big takeaways are that I can use include alternate blog sites (other than blogger). I also got to know more about local educators—my students and those who will be teaching my kiddo. I was also able to expand my repertoire of online assessment tools. I should also mention that the course allowed me to better understand my daughter’s at-home work from her teacher.

I also plan to conduct upcoming professional development for ESL educators through online tools to help demonstrate how the tools can be used in online instruction. Prior to the school year moving to online instruction, I had the pleasure of designing an art and marine science class for English learners and special needs students through NearPod while also utilizing Quizizz. It was great to see how the synchronous component worked with students who have their own devices as well as how they respond synchronously and asynchronously. I was able to capture formal and informal assessment data.

Having this class during this semester was especially poignant since we moved to fully online instruction, and as a result many of my students reached out—both those in the class and others who are not. While this time is stressful, I am encouraged by the number of people—educators and others—who are rising to the occasion to meet the needs of their students and who are looking toward how they can offer not only crisis instruction but also high quality instruction that advances the content competency of their students.

The Kyrielle

I have been working on a publication that marries my poetry with poetry instruction that may be used by both those who want to write poetry and those who need help teaching poetry. For this week's EDM 510 assignment I read one of my latests additions to the work, a kyrielle. The Kyrielle is a French form, and I share it in last week's blog post if you want to read the text and the instructions. However, I think I did a pretty good job of describing it and reading my example in the audio recording at the google link below.

I have used Quicktime for many things--most recently for helping students who were developing their EdTPA portfolios. I have never used it as a voice recorder, and I have no clue why it has never crossed my mind to do so. Now, I think I will be using this for lots of things, including giving students oral feedback when I can't see them face to face, and sending recordings of my poetry and my daughter's conversations to my folks back home in North Alabama.


https://drive.google.com/file/d/1VIhXOHY9T5fDocpPYYlH4qxPnxnbPrQh/view?usp=sharing

I wanted to share some of the poetry I have been writing in response to our current global situation. I am using the format of a form challenge--something I typically do in April for National Poetry Writing Month. I hope you see something that inspires you. Follow me on facebook for almost daily form challenges.

Quarantine Poetry Form Challenge (why wait until April for NaPoWriMo?)
Day 1

All calm and all bright
No cars on the street tonight
Just enjoy the moon

~sf 3.16.20
Day 1: Haiku

Share your haiku (5-7-5 syllables)

Quarantine Poetry Form Challenge, Day 2

An Irish Blessing 

May time spent in your dwelling be met with good health

May your days fill with reading—your solace feel like wealth

May your goals turn to gold like the sunshine in spring

And may God hear our prayers and brighter days bring

~sf 3.17.20

Write a blessing & share it!

Quarantine Poetry Form Challenge, Day 3

All That Has Befallen Us

Ravaged by lonely, lovely decay
Seeping through our subconscious
We measure not time as an epoch or age
But by all that has befallen us

Sifting to find what must go, what can stay
Too proud of the stain and the rust
Ravaged by lonely, lovely decay
Seeping through our subconscious

How the soot stained past still holds sway!
Shadows of an era still arduous
Our sin sheared souls now innocuous
Ravaged by lonely, lovely decay
Seeping through our subconscious
We measure time through our wanton ways
And by all that has befallen us

~sf 11.7.16 & 3.18.20
Modified French Form
(Somewhere between a Villanelle & a Kyrielle)

I wrote this several years ago, and I could not stop thinking about it as things change around us. “Katrina,” “911,” “Challenger Explosion,” in my lifetime are the ways by which we measure time...and now this.

Quarantine Poetry Form Challenge Day 4

Let’s Roam!

Because we can’t meet up today
Confined to these four walls I’ll stay
And though I scarcely leave my bed
I roam the streets inside my head

A trip down Dauphin, late for brunch
Exploring Backflash on a hunch
I long to wander, yet instead
I roam the streets inside my head

So should your loneliness consume
Our spirits join til life resume
To help choke back this sense of dread
We’ll roam the streets inside our heads

~sf 3.19.20

For my non-Mobile folks, Dauphin St. is the main path downtown where everything happens or happens nearby. Backflash is a fantastic antique shop I love to browse on Sundays after brunch at any of the fantastic local spots. 

A Kyrielle is a French form of rhyming poetry written in 3 or more quatrains (a stanza consisting of 4 lines), each with a repeating line or phrase as a refrain as the last line of each stanza. Each line has eight syllables.

Quarantine Poetry Form Challenge Day 5

Allergic Reactions

It seems pollen has fallen on all our plans

Rest assured the rain will wash it away

Forgive yourself time to not understand

It seems pollen has fallen on all our plans

Past the saffron dust fallout we’ll join hands

For now take this time to live in the day

It seems pollen has fallen on all our plans

Rest assured the rain will wash it away

~sf 3.22.20
A Triolet consists of 8 lines. Within a Triolet, the 1st, 4th, and 7th lines repeat, and the 2nd and 8th lines do as well. The rhyme scheme is simple: ABaAabAB, capital letters representing the repeated lines

I used quizlet to create a small set of photosynthesis flash cards to preview next week's topic with Alex while she is with her dad. This is not only an easy quiz tool, but it has commonly used vocabulary and relevant photos so that you do not have to type in every single word for common vocabulary.


https://quizlet.com/_88kx3n?x=1qqt&i=2r325u

Quizizz is a great tool for students to use live or to assign as homework for them to complete on their devices. The instructor can view how well students did, whether the class did well or poorly on the whole, and which content needs more attention. Importantly, quizzes are easy to create within quizizz, by either typing new content questions and answer choices, or by importing content from previously created quizizz shared by others.

Next week during homeschool 2020, my 8 year old and I are going to learn about photosynthesis and plant a garden as an extension. I will make a nearpod for her to view, and then she can take this quiz on quizizz.


quizizz.com/join?gc=261248

Nearpod in the Science Classroom (and out)

This week is sort of crazy in the P-12 classroom throughout the U.S. My boyfriend teaches Marine Biology, and this week he is tasked with sending his students something to wrap up a unit on the Marine Food Web. On Thursday I taught his class, having students create Gyotaku (see Nearpod presentation to learn more), so I used the video from the presentation to create a full presentation that is "student paced" so that students can complete their projects while at home. This will both provide closure to the lesson and be a review of the unit. I used Nearpod for this presentation because I had used it previously in this class and learned how to make it more accessible for students to use outside the classroom--something that should be useful in the weeks ahead. I look forward to seeing what the student paced version provides in terms of student response. I am including some pictures of the gyotaku LJ's students created.

https://share.nearpod.com/vsph/7Cah4gBrMu

CODE: JELMG if you need it to access it.

My *almost* first attempt at movie making...

I told my 7 year old I had to make this movie for class, and she insisted on helping. In fact, she knew how to make a movie on my phone with iMovie. She planned out the video--a promo for Project Purr in Mobile, Alabama.

iMovie is SUPER easy! I was completely intimidated about needing to make a movie/do a voice over/include pictures/use multiple takes...but iMovie makes it easy.

Until now the main experience I have had is with helping film edTPA videos for student teacher interns (and those can't be pieced together--they are all one take).

I enjoyed this, and now Alex (my daughter) wants to start her own YouTube channel.

Check it out!

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1L4R5IpuS74aM-DR234ypQZRhw9ww3oNZ