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When Kate Griffith brought a huge batch of homemade chocolate chip cookies into an 8th grade class, she was doing more than sharing her culinary talents with hungry kids. An 8th grader herself, Griffith was conducting an experiment as part of the background research for her upcoming TEDx presentation. The test was simple: anyone willing and able to wait an hour would be rewarded with three cookies. "One by one, the kids left," Griffith says, until finally only five of the original 20 kids remained to claim their prize. "My research told me that we didn't have enough capacity to delay gratification, and we weren't striving for it."

Two years ago, Griffith was one of 10 students at the Lawton C. Johnson Summit Middle School, in New Jersey, to be selected for the school's first TEDx program. Modelled on the popular TED talks, TEDx allows community organizations, towns and schools to put on their own version of a TED talk, featuring local experts, authorities or even teenagers, rather than nationally recognized figures.

"My mind is more open to different ideas, and I have the ability to look at things in a different way than I did before."

More than 10,000 TEDx events have been held around the world since the program was launched in 2009, including those put on by schools like the one in Summit. To be recognized as an official TEDx event, organizers need to apply online for licensing and agree to TED's detailed set of by-laws. What's critical to the success of a youth-run TEDx program is the active participation of a teacher, says Salome Heusel, Deputy Director of TEDx.

At Summit, Randy Wallock provides that support. A 7th grade Language Arts teacher, Wallock had directed the school's previous afterschool enrichment effort, known as the Scholar Laureate program, which involved writing lengthy research papers. "It had prestige to it, but the kids didn't love it," Wallock says. He wanted to replace it with something more dynamic and interesting, and stumbled on TEDx. "I thought it would be a good platform for enrichment," he says. After applying for and receiving the TEDx license in the fall of 2012, he recruited teachers from special education, forensics and technology to make the program happen.

Wallock recruited students that first year. "I wanted to take the kids who might not be getting A's, but who might need a challenge," he says. He told them that the TEDx club was a pilot program, and that together they would figure out how to develop their ideas, manage their time, and learn how to present a speech. "Collaboration was one of the biggest things," Wallock says, "and giving kids autonomy, working at their own pace, and choice."

Every Tuesday afternoon the group met for two hours or more to brainstorm and discuss their projects, and as the school year moved along, the meetings expanded to Friday nights and the occasional half day on Saturday. One constant: "we always had a ton of food," Wallock says. Their work culminated in a June assembly in the school lobby, where every speaker got up and delivered a 10-minute presentation without notes, TED-style, before an audience of just 100, as the TED by-laws require. The talks were meant to be organic representations of the kids' interests, and Wallock and the other adults overseeing the club were careful not to coach their public speaking styles.

Curran Stockton is now and a high school freshman, but she discusses her two years' involvement in TEDx at Summit Middle School with fondness and enthusiasm. The social benefits of preparing for the speech came as a surprise. "I met some people who weren't in my main friend group, but we all had creative ideas and liked to write and speak," she says. "We were all so different, but everyone blended so well," she adds. Like an athletic team or school play, the club nourished camaraderie and cohesion, this time around intellectual pursuits. "You really got to know other people through the collaborative work," says Alexis Greenblatt, a high school sophomore, who took part in TEDx as an 8th grader.

Some students gained insight into learning itself. Griffith, who examined non-cognitive skills, valued the casual give-and-take among students and teachers, and credited it with deepening her understanding of the subject matter. "It was learning in a different way," she says. "You asked more questions, you got to go deeper. And when you get to go that deep, you learn more and more," she adds. Alexis Greenblatt brightens when she talks about her project on happiness, disputing what Epicurus considered its three prerequisites and explaining how her findings-that kids are more sentimental and less materialistic than our culture concedes-help her better understand her own friends.

The students gained emotionally as well, starting with a boost in confidence. The idea of speaking publicly, without notes, no longer seems formidable. "I learned that I'm capable of more than I think I am," Stockton says. She also credits her TEDx experience with opening her mind and feeding her creativity. She used to think more straightforwardly, she said, but her deeper learning experience with the TEDx club changed her perspective. "My mind is more open to different ideas, and I have the ability to look at things in a different way than I did before."

Wallock was stunned by the transformations he saw, particularly among kids whose intellectual identities hadn't been rewarded in a regular classroom. Absent distracting social undercurrents for teenagers, the students involved in TEDx were able to cultivate their curiosities. "There was a cultural expectation of brains," Wallock says, "and being smart and articulate was celebrated." Students receive no grades or special commendations for their work, though their talks are archived in the YouTube universe.

Now Wallock is into the third year of overseeing his school's TEDx club. The first year's success inspired more students to participate in 2013, and this year about 25 students tried out for the 10 spots, requiring the adult supervisors to hold auditions. "We put a massive amount of work into it," Wallock says about the commitment involved. Still, grappling with middle school students over big concepts like Schadenfreude and the Socratic Method is fun for him, he says. "It's the most intellectual stimulation I get."

See videos of Curran Stockton, Alexis Greenblatt and Scott Greenblatt's TEDx talks.

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What Students Can Learn from Giving TEDx Talks

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When Kate Griffith brought a huge batch of homemade chocolate chip cookies into an 8th grade class, she was doing more than sharing her culinary talents with hungry kids. An 8th grader herself, Griffith was conducting an experiment as part of the background research for her upcoming TEDx presentation.

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The use of personal portfolios for assessment and presentation long has been a component of higher education. In fact, personal portfolios are a graduation requirement at many colleges and universities. Now, electronic portfolios have begun to enter the world of K-12 education as well.
Learn what electronic portfolios are and discover how they can help you and benefit your students. Included: Guidelines for developing personal portfolios.

What is a Porfolio?

During the past four years, Todd Bergman has helped more than 550 high school students produce digital portfolios. He offers these guidelines for other educators interested in developing electronic portfolio programs in their schools or classrooms:

* Be realistic about your design and expectations.
* Make use of relevant models.
* Instill a sense of ownership in the students creating the portfolios.
* Communicate implementation strategies and timelines clearly.
* Be selective in design and strategy.
* Allow for continuous improvement and growth.
* Incorporate assessment stakeholders in all phases and components of your efforts; that is, make sure portfolio content meets the needs of those assessing the work.

"A portfolio is a purposeful collection of student work demonstrating the student's achievement or growth as characterized by a strong vision of content," according to Todd Bergman , an independent consultant and a teacher at Mt. Edgecumbe High School in Sitka, Alaska.

Helen Barrett, an assistant professor and educational technology coordinator for the School of Education at the University of Alaska, Anchorage, provides another definition, one developed by the Northwest Evaluation Association:

A portfolio is a purposeful collection of student work that exhibits the student's efforts, progress, and achievements in one or more areas. The collection must include student participation in selecting content, the criteria for selection, the criteria for judging merit, and evidence of student self-reflection.

"Portfolios can serve multiple purposes," Barrett told Education World. "They can support learning, play an assessment role, or support employment. The purpose dictates the structure and contents of a portfolio."

The three most common types of portfolios are:

the working portfolio, which contains projects the student is currently working on or has recently completed.

the display portfolio, which showcases samples of the student's best work.

the assessment portfolio, which presents work demonstrating that the student has met specific learning goals and requirements.

The Process of Portfolio Development

Most portfolios programs begin with the working portfolio. Over time, a student selects items from the working portfolio and uses them to create a display portfolio. Finally, the student develops an assessment portfolio, containing examples of his or her best work, as well as an explanation of why each work is significant. The explanation, or reflection, discusses how the particular work illustrates mastery of specific curriculum requirements or learning goals.

Barrett identified five steps inherent in the development of effective electronic portfolios:

1. Selection: the development of criteria for choosing items to include in the portfolio based on established learning objectives.

2. Collection: the gathering of items based on the portfolio's purpose, audience, and future use.

3. Reflection: statements about the significance of each item and of the collection as a whole.

4. Direction: a review of the reflections that looks ahead and sets future goals.

5. Connection: the creation of hypertext links and publication, providing the opportunity for feedback.

Why Electronic Portfolios?

"The power of a digital portfolio," Barrett said, "is that it allows different access to different artifacts. The user can modify the contents of the digital portfolio to meet specific goals. As a student progresses from a working portfolio to a display or assessment portfolio, he or she can emphasize different portions of the content by creating pertinent hyperlinks.

"For example," Barrett notes, "a student can link a piece of work to a statement describing a particular curriculum standard and to an explanation of why the piece of work meets that standard. That reflection on the work turns the item into evidence that the standard has been met."

The ability to use hyperlinks to connect sections of portfolio content is one advantage of using electronic portfolios instead of paper portfolios. "A paper portfolio is static," Barrett points out. "In addition, a paper portfolio usually represents the only copy of portfolio content. When the portfolio is in digital format, students can easily duplicate and transport it."

What Age Group?

"I've helped teachers develop electronic portfolios for students of all ages --from primary students through adults," Todd Bergman told Education World. "Students in about fourth or fifth grade -- sometimes younger -- are capable of using Web-based publishing tools to build digital portfolios."

Helen Barrett agreed, saying, "Electronic portfolios work best with students who have the technological capabilities to develop and maintain their own portfolios."

Electronic portfolios are more popular in higher education than in K-12, Barrett added, because they require access to technology in classrooms. For electronic portfolios to become more commonplace at the K-12 level, schools need more computers in individual classrooms.

Tools for Personal Growth

"Developing personal portfolios incorporates many different technology tools," Bergman told Education World. "But it is also a process of self-reflection and personal growth. The process is very personal -- a story of self that involves a great deal of self-reflection and thought.

"Kids really take ownership and pride in the portfolio process," Bergman added, "developing particular aspects of their portfolios based on what is important to them, their unique knowledge, and their unique skills. Demonstrations or displays in the portfolio include an explanation of the context of the material, where the demonstration was done, why it was done (its purpose), and what learning or capacities are demonstrated through its inclusion. Some students demonstrate a capacity for written expression, for example, while others highlight mathematical ability. Some illustrate leadership qualities, while others showcase musical talent."

Not a Digital Scrapbook

"Many people emphasize the electronic side of electronic portfolios," Barrett said. "I tend to emphasize the portfolio side. People often approach electronic portfolios as a multimedia or Web development project and lose sight of the portfolio component. Reflection, however, plays a critical role in the development of a portfolio. An electronic portfolio is not a digital scrapbook."

Bergman sees electronic portfolios as a natural extension of the technology that today's K-12 students are growing up with. "This is an exciting time for digital technologies and digital tools and today's kids are tuned into this environment," he told Education World. "Digital portfolios are a natural fit."

Additional Resources:

Electronic Portfolio Resources
This site, created by a professor of education at the University of Vermont, provides links to resources about online portfolios for K-12 students, online portfolios in higher education, selection of portfolio software, and online articles about electronic portfolios. Sample electronic portfolios are included.

Electronic Portfolios
This summary of what an electronic portfolio is and how to create one includes listings of relevant print and online resources.

Using Electronic Portfolios: A Description and Analysis for Implementation in SIGNET Classes at Woodbridge Middle School, Virginia
This paper describes the portfolio system in general, the differences between paper and electronic portfolios, and the implementation of electronic portfolios. The page includes a discussion of hardware and software, an extensive list of references, and a rubric.

Article by Mary Daniels Brown
Education World®
Copyright ©2011, 2017 Education World

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Using Technology | Electronic Portfolios in the K-12 Classroom

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The use of personal portfolios for assessment and presentation long has been a component of higher education. In fact, personal portfolios are a graduation requirement at many colleges and universities. Now, electronic portfolios have begun to enter the world of K-12 education as well.

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Publish your passions your way. Whether you’d like to share your knowledge, experiences or the latest news, create a unique and beautiful blog.

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John Burns, the learning innovator at Shekou Internaional School, describes ways technology has been gracefully infused into instruction.

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Liz Cho-Young, a high school English teacher at Shekou International School, has put together this Storehouse site that explains how she uses technology in her English class.

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The same few students dominate.

Shy students don't feel comfortable participating.

There isn't enough time to hear from everyone.

It is next to impossible to capture all of the great ideas shared.

Students cannot revisit the conversation.

If any of these resonate with you, I would suggest exploring a super simple backchannel tool like Note: A TodaysMeet. backchannel is a conversation that is taking place while another presentation, conversation or activity is happening.

Step Two: Name your room and decide how long you want your backchannel to be available. Your room data can be saved for: 2 hours, 8 hours, 12 hours, 1 day, 1 week or 1 month.

Step Three: Send your students to your unique URL to participate in your backchannel. They must enter their names, then they can post comments, questions, and feedback.

The backchannel challenges students to keep their comments clear and concise since they only have 140 characters to articulate each thought. Many teachers may be skeptical of this "Twitter-like" interaction, but it is increasingly important that students learn to communicate with limited characters. As social media permeates society, many students will benefit from learning and applying this skill.
Fun features:

Teachers using this backchannel tool in the classroom, can click "Projector" to enlarge the conversation stream to project it onto the board for everyone to see.

They can access a transcript of each backchannel conversation for reference later.

Finally, if your class is on Twitter, you can tweet out your backchannel URL to invite others to join in your conversation. This can be a fun way to connect with experts and/or other classrooms!

8 Ideas for using a backchannel tool with students:

1. Allow the outer circle in a Socratic seminar to capture and share their observations, questions, comments and ideas using mobile devices instead of pen and paper.

2. Encourage students to post ideas when watching a documentary or film. This way they can engage with each other and think deeply about what they are viewing.

3. Set up a backchannel for students outside of class and encourage them to participate in an asynchronous discussion about a novel or informational text they are reading.

4. Create a "study hall" backchannel where students can ask each other questions and get support before an exam.

5. Give students a backchannel anytime they are beginning a new routine outside of class and might need a space to troubleshoot and problems.

6. Pair a backchannel with a virtual or real-time field trip to allow students to share their reactions and experiences.

7. Brainstorm with a backchannel. Quickly collect a large number of ideas and suggestions from your entire class.

8. Use a backchannel to facilitate icebreakers to build class community. For example: What are you passionate about? If you could meet anyone, who would it be and why? Where would you travel if you could go anywhere in the world? The 140 character limit makes it a fun challenge!

If you are using a backchannel with your students, please share your ideas here! I'd love to hear how other educators are using backchannel tools with students.

This entry was posted in Learning. Bookmark the permalink.

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TodaysMeet: The Beauty of the Backchannel

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Real time discussions can be tricky for a number of reasons: The same few students dominate. Shy students don't feel comfortable participating. There isn't enough time to hear from everyone. It is next to impossible to capture all of the

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“Digital literacy is the ability to understand and use information in multiple formats from a wide range of sources when it is presented via computers. The concept of literacy goes beyond simply being able to read; it has always meant the ability to read with meaning, and to understand. […] Acquiring digital literacy for Internet use involves mastering a set of core competencies.The most essential of these is the ability to make informed judgments about what you find on-line, for unlike conventional media, much of the Net is unfiltered by editors and open to the contributions of all.”

http://www.centreforliteracy.qc.ca/resource_centre/link/digital-literacy-links

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This short video might provoke ideas for how you can connect students to the world.

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An animoto could be used as part of a class project. This provides an example.

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Romeo and Juliet - created at http://animoto.com Bangladesh-Elo-Animoto video Song: A-team, by Ed Sheeran

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How can you use an Animoto to provoke curiosity at the start of a unit? Check out this Animoto, which was used at the start of a unit for students to generate questions that they would be answering at the end of the unit. It was a way of wrestling with an essential question even before introducing the novel to be studied. The hope was that students would understand thenovel's role in helping them think about a large issue in order to create relevance.

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Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe. The task assumes that students are already familiar with doing research on the internet and creating a presentation using tools such as PowerPoint or Prezi. The Webquest and presentation are the first assignments in a literature unit, culminating in a project/essay after we've finished reading the novel.

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Even though this takes place in a geography class, it's interesting watching the teacher use the "digital lesson plan." Be sure to scroll down to watch the video.

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Building Content Knowledge: Collaborate and Curate

Mark Engstrom. 8th grade Geography teacher and Assistant Principal at Graded- The American School of São Paulo, has redesigned his entire course.

Students move through the modules of this blended learning course on Geography at their own pace. They build out content knowledge using a Personalized Map (through google maps) and the content delivered through this Digital Learning Farm method will be curated so that they can build out multiple pins on their map. This content is then used as content knowledge to increase their understanding of the region.

He wanted to experiment with a different type of note taking to add to students' documentation of gaining subject specific content knowledge.

The class was divided into 3 groups. Each group contained one person responsible to contribute by :

taking notes on one google doc- each has a column

adding raw data (statistics, facts, charts, graphs, etc.)

adding images that visualized what was being talked about

writing on the backchannel

asking questions

linking to the course's Essential Questions

Take look at the following video summarizing the class.

It is incredibly insightful to be going through and analyzing the backchannel chat after the class is over. It gives you a better understanding of:

what students heard

what students felt was important to capture

the discussion that evolved in the backchannel alone

the connections students made and shared

It was now back into each individual student's court to CURATE their own notes. Students had access to all documents from each group as well as the backchannel. It was up to them to go trough the information and take the pieces that they deemed important to add to their content knowledge.

is the selection, preservation, maintenance, collection and archiving of digital assets.Digital curation establishes, maintains and adds value to repositories of digital data for present and future use.This is often accomplished by archivists, librarians, scientists, historians, and scholars. Enterprises are starting to utilize digital curation to improve the quality of information and data within their operational and strategic processes

Curating information has become a critical skills as part of information literacy. The ability of finding, evaluating, analyzing, remixing, organizing and archiving information is more important than ever in the information overload era. The amount of information we are confronted with and that is being thrown at us is exponentially growing with no sign of stopping nor slowing down. We need to find ways to support students in becoming curators of information.

One of the students, Ben, observed the following as he was going through the notes from the Backchannel group:

I found these very interesting because Florens and Tibet really try to link what is happening in India to our life in São Paulo which for me is a smarter way to learn things; by comparing them with your everyday life.

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Building Content Knowledge: Collaborate and Curate | Silvia Tolisano- Langwitches Blog

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Mark Engstrom. 8th grade Geography teacher and Assistant Principal at Graded- The American School of São Paulo, has redesigned his entire course. Students move through the modules of this blended learning course on Geography at their own pace.

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This site i filled with great information. It includes links to teacher's blogs, including a high school English teacher from an international school.

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Language and Power in The Handmaid's Tale and the World - ReadWriteThink

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In Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, the narrator, Offred, regularly interrupts the narrative flow of the text to contemplate the meaning of certain words and phrases. Often she finds that the meanings of words have changed since the revolution in Gilead, the fictional society in the novel.

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linguakonzept.de -&nbspThis website is for sale! -&nbsplinguakonzept Resources and Information.

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Digital Storytelling Across the Curriculum

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Digital Storytelling Across the Curriculum

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A support page for the presentation Digital Storytelling meets the CCSS

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Imagine having students write 1st person narratives and fictional narratives and posting for the audience of the world:

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StoryCenter supports individuals and organizations in using storytelling and participatory media for reflection, education, and social change

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Edutopia's article on how to teach with tech

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Edutopia's article on how to teach with tech

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English/Language Arts teachers often ask me what technology can do for them. After all, eBooks are revolutionizing both the weight of students' backpacks and the local bookstore's bottom line. But the English classroom? The jury's out. After all, literature is as powerful on paper as it is in E-ink. Where technology can play a powerful role, though, is by offering new opportunities for engagement with texts, expanding the classroom beyond its walls and time slot, and encouraging students to pursue their reading and writing independently. Technology can help a good language arts class become great.
Students reading more and independently
To encourage students to read more than the required texts, try book recommendation engines like What Should I Read Next? or the more robust GoodReads. When a student submits a book to either site, a list of similar books is generated. In my trials, the suggestions from GoodReads were especially insightful; many matched my own list of books I've wanted to read and included a few with which I was unfamiliar. GoodReads has a social component too that lets students see what their friends are reading, share their reviews, and develop a reading community that would supplement a language class beautifully. What Should I Read Next? is a nice quick-fix for recommendations, but GoodReads adds a social layer to your class that students will love.

Alternatively, if your students have iOS devices or you have an iPad cart in your school, I highly recommended the app Subtext. It is an eBook reader app specially designed for the classroom. Once students join a class group, the teacher can create assessments that appear in line with the relevant text (perfect for reading comprehension), sync notes, have discussions, link to relevant content on-line, share book reviews, and more. These features all work nicely for middle or high school language arts classes. Right now, the only books available are those available through Google Books. Many works in the language arts canon can be found there, but if you want to read something more recent, a specific edition of a work, or a particular translation, you might have trouble finding it. For example, I couldn't find my favorite book, Saul Bellow's The Adventures of Augie March, on Google Books, but it was available for the Kindle.

Subtext co-founder Rachel Thomas told me that PDF support is coming, and the company has already released their bookmarklet, which allows you to send web content to the app, much like Instapaper. The discussions, note-sharing, links, and assessment tools become available for that content. The Subtext team is also working on moving the app entirely to the web, which will make it platform-independent.

Subtext works well for professional development, too. In our school, teachers are getting iPads loaded with Subtext and Daniel Pink's Drive. As we discuss the book and its implications for our instruction, we're going to use the app to foster discussion--and try out for ourselves what it's like to use the technology.
Analyzing Reading
Once students finish a work, teachers often assign papers or creative projects to assess understanding. Narrated slideshows (a.k.a. "digital storytelling") is an effective means for students to demonstrate their understanding. Using iMovie or web tools like Animoto or Voicethread, students can put together a narrated slideshow that captures or responds to the argument of a text. There are quite a few alternatives, which are expertly explained in this edublog post. I've preferred the products that have emerged from Animoto projects, but Voicethread is ideal if students will be collaborating with each other and working mostly from home.

A photo essay is another effective project that is relatively low-tech but can be intellectually rigorous. Some students even have high-quality point-and-shoot cameras in their pockets. If we ask students to represent the argument of a text with a series of images from their daily life, they have to think about exactly what literature means to them--the primary goal of reading literature.
Helping students become better writers
Besides teaching students more about their lives, literature also helps students become better writers. Even the best writers need editors, though. Google Docs is a popular platform for on-line collaborative editing in real time. I've learned a great deal about my students' writing and editing abilities by examining the "version history" of a document and seeing the evolution of their work.

One of the best reasons to use technology is that students can get a much wider audience for their work than just their teacher. There are a number of collaborative writing platforms that will allow students to work on a story together and to have their work critiqued by professional writers from around the world. MixedInk is one such platform specially tailored to the K-12 classroom. The premium account, which costs $224/year, offers 150 student accounts with password-protected classroom groups and analytics on students' participation in the site. In short, MixedInk is to writing what GoodReads is to reading--a social layer for an age-old classroom activity. With both platforms, you can extend the classroom beyond its walls and into the world in which our students already are living.

A fun way to teach creative writing is BoomWriter, which allows a teacher to start a story and then requires students to finish it. Students each submit one chapter at a time and can also vote on what chapters should be part of the final version. When the teacher decides the book is complete, you'll receive a printed copy for $9.99. Essentially, BoomWriter "gamifies" writing. A BoomWriter project could last from September to June and give students a real sense of accomplishment and awareness of their growth as writers through the year.

A more public and professional alternative is Protagonize. Students can submit their work to the website for comments by other members of the community. I would recommend it for older students who want feedback on their writing from other authors. The quality of the feedback is unpredictable, but Protagonize can help students to act as and interact with real authors.

These tools and websites serve to extend the hallmarks of a good language arts class beyond its walls--reading, writing, and thinking. If used creatively and purposefully, they can help students become lifelong readers, better writers, and critical thinkers. Still, one thing never changes: There's nothing better than a good book.

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Because You Asked: How Tech Can Transform English/Language Arts Class from Good to Great - EdSurge News

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English/Language Arts teachers often ask me what technology can do for them. After all, eBooks are revolutionizing both the weight of students' backpacks and the local bookstore's bottom line. But the English classroom? The jury's out. After all, literature is as powerful on paper as it is in E-ink.

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NCTE - National Council of Teachers of English