Written by I will soon be posting details about my Action Plan, and I’m happy to see that Ruth McArthur and Derek Doucet will be exploring personalized learning as well over the next few months. It will be great to bounce ideas off one another.
Although I’ve been absent from the Cohort 21 blog since our last face-to-face, our learning from these sessions is finding its way more and more into my teaching practice. I’d like to share something with everyone and solicit some feedback from google site and/or wiki gurus and Diigo experts on this forum.
My grade 11 French class has been studying the environment, which is a great theme for 21st century learning and an excellent area of focus when you are not relying on a textbook; rather, more current information.
One of the final evaluations for this unit will be an in-class essay, written about an environmental problem within Canada or specific to Toronto. I allowed students to work in groups and I also allowed them to do their research in English. I still want them to read in French in preparation for this essay, but there was immediate buy-in from the group when they could choose their topic and find information easily through newspapers, blogs, websites and videos. To prepare them to use the relevant research information in their essay, students were asked to join a group on Diigo, and they began tagging their research material, annotating in French and sharing it with the group. I loved how, as the moderator of this group, I received updates about who was bookmarking what and how.
While the students’ essay must address a current problem in Toronto or Canada, it must also mention a problem that exists in Paris or France. To facilitate learning in this area, I’ve teamed up with an English teacher in France whose students will read the material my students have selected to share to a google site. Her students can join our Diigo group and I believe when they open the links our students post to the google site with the diigolet open they’ll be able to see my students’ annotations (at least, this is what I told my students to give their work more purpose than simply their own research help!)
A sample student sub-page:
The French students will post comments on my students’ individual pages, and then share a current problem that they have researched in French in various media forms. I believe that when my students see research material that has been curated by someone their age in France addressing a current problem they will be more motivated to take on the challenge of 1) reading the material in the target language, and 2) making connections between their own research and what was presented to them in return.
So, after that long-winded intro, here are my questions:
1. Was making this google site necessary for this information exchange or am I missing something in Diigo that could have eliminated this step? Should I be using a wiki instead of a google site for information sharing between Canada and France, and if so, which wiki site would you recommend?
2. Has anyone ever used Diigo as a tool for a research paper and allowed students to access their (shared) annotated links while they write their essay? Perhaps the in-class timed essay is limited only to the second language classroom as a means of avoiding the dreaded google-translated assignment. I don’t believe anyone in my school is using Diigo, but I could see this being a useful tool across disciplines.
Hi Jen,
I think that this project has a lot of potential for your actual project! It sounds like some incredibly rich interaction.
In terms of the technology, Diigo allows for ‘comments’ to be attached to from others onto entries. For example, my students comment on my Diigo articles, and I can comment on theirs. The GoogleSite allows for more depth (and media) to be added, so I think that it is a great option. When you use Diigolet, part of the tool is a “Share” button. When you use this, you are sharing the entire annotated piece.
I use Diigo all the time, and I use it as a way to add guided reading to my students work – especially if the content is more advanced than they are used to. I think that Diigo is one of the most powerful collaborative tools we, in History, have at our disposal. I am basically collecting various sources, tagging them, and getting students to do the same, as well as annotating these resources…the result is that we no longer need a textbook – we are building one!
Derek just wrote a great post on personalizing learning in his French class, and I think that the two of you could talk more about leveragin technology. I gave him a great link (it’s in his comment section) to how to leverage technology for personalization.
thanks, and I look forward to your updates!
Hey Jen,
Great assignment!!! I understand what you mean about the dreaded Google Translated assignment but in a timed essay it would be difficult to pull that one over on you since you’ll be circulating around while they’re working.
I really like the Google websites and I am thinking about how I could use it to keep a digital learning portfolio for the students. If I remember correctly – someone from our PD group is doing just this. The link that Garth shared with me is pretty amazing – http://www.edutopia.org/stw-differentiated-instruction-ten-key-lessons, but where I am struggling with this personalised learning bit is that I still need to create a lot of materials to help with structures of language and idiomatic expression before I can go full personalised learning.
A very useful tool that I am using in my classroom right now is Voice Thread – students record their understanding or ideas orally and I can respond orally and then they can in turn reflect on my feedback and comment on the questions I asked. It’s amazing! http://www.voicethread.com. You’re doing great things, let’s hash out an exchange type thing with my 12s for later in the year. We’ll be reading Ru if you’re interested in something to that effect.
Thanks for sharing!
D