January 28th Prelab time prep work

Today, the students wrote the most they have written so far for the timeline project. Each month, I've approached it a bit differently so see what type of writing the rough draft would produce.
On Friday, I had the kids all think about their writing topic (we have the month charted as I had been doing on other months). I modeled for them how we'd get together with a buddy to do some peer discussion prior to the writing.
I chose my topic and told them what I was going to write. I said, "I'm going to write: In January, I learned about Martin Luther King." I then asked them if they wondered anything. Of course, they did. They had some excellent questions. Each time they asked me a question, I answered it out loud. Then I showed them by "writing in the air" what I intended to write. I asked them if that sounded better than my original idea. I then began my writing in my writer's notebook as they read it aloud. They were ready to begin. I let them choose a partner they thought they could work the best with. I had to be a partner with a student, so I wasn't able to go around and listen in. While they wrote, I did some check-in conferences. They were passionately writing and going back to their partners and asking more questions. Then we all gathered on the rug to share. Several kids asked clarifying questions of the students that shared (Liam wanted to know what MLK did that was so special when Mary-Kate shared hers). She went back to her seat and wrote some more.
I am interested in seeing what they do with this in the computer lab as they have more writing than they will be able to post in one sitting.
I also plan to have them work with their carebuddies (4th grade) next week to do some revising on a month of their choice.

November Timeline

Making the daily "happenings" in our classroom visible made November timeline writing much easier than in past months. After we added to our chart each day (note to self-post picture of chart) we had two charts full of daily learning. I then typed them onto a bulleted document and the kids were able to choose what they wanted to elaborate on. This was by far the easiest month yet! The kids were happy to have a large list to "choose" from as they were concerned last month that they couldn't remember everything they had learned. Once they chose their topic they wrote in the classroom on paper (this is the first time I've had them compose on paper before going to the lab). The next day, we went to the lab and they were so excited to be able to use the clipboards that they have wanted to use since school began! (note to me-take pictures of kids in lab). 14 out of 17 students were able to do their whole November timeline writing during lab time and the other three finished up the next day in the classroom. I haven't asked them yet which process they liked best: composing on computer, thought on sticky note or writing their whole thought on paper before lab. I will be sure to get their feedback.

Friday Catch Up

Today I did some catch up work in the classroom. We have 3 classroom Linnux machines. I went into my drop box to check and see which students had dropped their work in there last week. I had all but 5. I called those students down one by one and showed them how to drag their template to my drop box. They thought they had. This was good to show them so they could see what the folder looks like when it's dragged successfully. By the way, the computers work fine in the classroom when only one or two students log on at a time. I might have to have the kids work on the project in the classroom over a week's time. I don't know.

I am wondering if I should edit their work. I have saved a copy of my focus student's work so I can track his progress from beginning to end. They will be sharing these with their families at the end of the year. My instinct was to edit, then as I thought about it more, I wondered if it would show growth if I left it. Any ideas on this would be helpful?

Third Lesson

I took my class to lab today with the intention of going back into our slides and editing/revising as several had not finished last week. I wasn't very hopeful when I walked in the lab and saw our technology guru in there with doors that housed the servers wide open. He was sitting at a computer nearby and I sat down and got started with my class. It took several minutes for my homepage to show up. Then it took even longer for the template to load. We waited and waited and waited. This was just my demo! The guru was in a different room so I proceeded and was able to show the kids how to get to the template and finish their writing. This took 8 minutes. It should have been a quick 3 minute lesson. The kids all went to their computers, logged on, and that's when everything was s-l-o-w. No one could even open the template. This is the frustration I was worried about. Apparently, we just got a new part for our server so it would run much smoother. It was installed after my last lab lesson. It's not working. Last week went much better without the new part. After 7 minutes of pages not loading, I instructed the kids to escape and try going to Tux Type and practice keyboarding. Because many are not very fast at typing, the lag time worked for them! The students that were able to click the letters quickly had to sit and wait. Our time was up and we didn't accomplish anything. This is what I feared. It's so inconsistent you can't depend on it from one day to the next.

Second Lesson

The second class went much smoother than the first! Based on the chaos at the end of the last lab time, I decided to give my kids an incentive for following directions, aka listening! I don't use rewards in my classroom, so when I offered them a sticker for their log in card if they stayed with me the whole time, they were super excited. Imagine that...just a sticker! And it worked today. Everyone followed along and didn't try to skip ahead.
The plan:
Basically I did the same lesson as the first time except I was hopeful we'd get through the whole lesson. The Technology Integrator was in the room with me and she supported what I was teaching by checking in with the kids. Everyone successfully logged on, found their folder easy enough, and opened up the Impress file. Then they had to type their name on the save file as it's a read only file until they save it in their name. After that, they saved it in their home folder and then they could begin typing. I had a template with a sentence starter this month. It read: "I can't believe September is over already! The best thing about September in Room 14 was..." And here is where they were to insert their learning. We had previously discussed what they liked about school so far and everyone had orally shared in the classroom before going to lab. I think the oral rehearsal was helpful for most. Some decided to change what they had rehearsed and wrote something entirely different. This is what the student I am tracking wrote (I am not correcting his work, but will write it in italics in correct spelling after: my faverit thae was the pufball because I cude stepe on it. (my favorite thing was the puffball because I could step on it.) Most of the students learned how to capitalize a letter at the beginning of a sentence and the word "I" today. I went around and taught that individually. 2:30 quickly approached and it was time to save the work and drag it to my home box. 12 out of 17 were successfully doing this. I'm not sure what happened to the 5 that didn't get it in my box, but I was able to go in and get them later!
This lab lesson was a success and everyone was motivated to write (type). It was also helpful to have another body in the room.

Getting ready for labtime

I didn't get started as soon as I had intended due to the NWEA testing tying up the computers for 4 weeks. Here's what I have done to get ready for our first lessons:

9/28/10: Tech Integrator created folders for templates and finished work for each student.

9/29/10: I created a template in Impress and saved it to my Ms. O.’s Handout File

9/29/10: I tested and was not able to type on the template. It’s a read only format. What to do? Check in with the Tech Integrator! After some time, she figured out what the problem was. This is the remedy I tried today and practiced using a few accounts. It worked. Tomorrow I will take the kids to the lab for our first lesson.