The article is called "Chatting it up Online: Students Talk to a Favorite" and is written by Pamela Livingston
This is an amazing story of how teachers at Chestnut Hill Academy wanted to make the classroom a little more exciting and unique. The exercise that was used to help the students connect with their favorite authors is very clever. I had no idea that this even existed and it is very positive that authors around the world are participating in such an inspiring practice. It is amazing when a student is very into reading and it is good to give them an inside and real look at the authors life and their procedures used while writing the students favorite novel as well. Ms. Osborn was the author that was very popular amongst the third grade boys from the K-12 all-boys school in Philadelphia. Once the teachers decided to participate in the Online chat with the author Ms. Osborn, they had to register at a website and enter some information about the students. It was very smart of them to not tell the students about the online author chat until the event was final so they would not get their hopes up. It took a little while to receive the confirmation but when they did they were over the moon. It helped to that they had large TV monitors to make it easier for the boys to ask the questions and the questions had to be good! The boys asked Ms. Osborn some very nice questions and had such an amazing time.
This exercise truly was such a fun way for the boys to connect with something that they love and I will definitely use this technique when I have my own class one day. It is perfect to add technology to the class room because it is the present and future and it is wonderful to have access to. It was so cool to see the staff all come together to make everything perfect for the boys and make sure that their experience was perfect as well. I want to be very creative with the way I teach and the example from the teachers at Chestnut Hill Academy was very inspiring. I will have my students read at least two books and we can even read together in class if nessesary. I will ask them if they want to do the chat with the author excercise and which author they would enjoy chatting it up with more. I will get a vote and then which ever one that they chose, I will set it all up so they can enjoy a chat session with their favorite author. If in class I enthusiate my students with the books that we read and have fun games and activities related to the book, then they will have fun and want to read and chat with the author. I will have the class all write down a question and we will chose five from the bunch. Those will be the ones we will ask the author.
The relevant ISTE NETS standard is NETS-4.
Using Online Learning Effectively
-
This article is called "The New Gold Rush: Establishing Effective Online
Learning Policies" By Ferdi Serim and it is from September/October 2007.
The artic...
16 years ago
Ashley,
ReplyDeleteI agree with you that this story was very inspiring! I liked how you mentioned about the techniques the teachers used such as not telling the students about the author chat until it was finalized and also about the detail of the large screens for the students to see clearly. I also agree how important it was to see all the different staff members come together to create this chat and it shows that there are so many individuals who care about students learning and they take the time to put a lot of effort into the project to make it successful!
-Kara True
Ashley,
ReplyDeleteI also believe that incorporating technology into the classroom is important. As you said technology is already apart of our present, and I believe technology will only continue to be more prevalent in the future. I acknowledge that as future teachers, we must understand and utilize technology so that we may pass our knowledge on to our future students. I also found this story to be inspiring with many staff members coming together to benefit the students. It is nice to know that there are still people who care about our children's education. I also hope to one day incorporate a lesson such as this into my classroom.
I agree that not many people know about author chats. It's important to get the word out there though so that students can have access to these great learning experiences. By using technology to get the students interested in reading, success in the classroom can definitely be achieved.
ReplyDelete