Oct 18, 2012
Oct 12, 2012
Pixar video on storyboarding process
http://vimeo.com/28500265
Talitha found this. Process is for animation film but it shows how brainstorming and group collaboration are essential to it and its entertaining (about 4 min.).
Oct 10, 2012
Another web site option
Not all of us are aware of it, so not many of our students will be either. If your students or you in your 5890 group are considering producing a web site, you might want to know about Google Sites, which--especially if you are familiar with Google Docs--is fairly easy to edit and does not involve writing code if you do not want to. Anything that you can post and/or edit through Google Drive can be posted easily onto your Google Site, along with YouTube videos. It does involve constraints, as does any other web development.
Oct 9, 2012
Office Hours and Student Writing Conferences
I've been trying to resolve a few issues related to my office hours:
1) students remembering that you even have them,
2) hours of no students and then a clan of them arrive in the last 20 minutes of your office hours,
3) students scheduling appointments with you and then never showing up (usually b/c it slipped their minds).
I recently set up an online office hours scheduler for my students and I'm so pleased to see that it's working (or at least it has within the last two weeks). While the real test will be whether it works for the duration of the semester, I still think it's worth a try.
I am using the free version of a program online called ScheduleThing.
When I add extra "out-of-office" hours at Donkey Coffee now and again (something my students love, in case you haven't done this), they are easy to add as once-off hours within the system and students have responded by coming to see me more often than they had before (and for a wider range of issues). I actually see some of my most problematic students in "out of office" hours. I think the neutral terrain helps them feel less intimidated or insecure when they're coming in to discuss tough issues.
The Benefits?
1) You can generally know what to expect if students have actually officially set an appointment;
2) The system is set to send email reminders to students when they have an upcoming appointment (helping solve the "I forgot" excuse);
3) I find that students are signing up in the middle of the night (at the height of their "I have no clue what I'm doing" panic) when previously they would have calmed down by class and convinced themselves that they didn't need to see me;
4) I get announcements that students have scheduled an appointment (which then allows me to, in some cases, prepare for them specifically);
5) It's also working for drop-in purposes b/c students can quickly see (from their dorm room or elsewhere) whether I'm in my office and free (without other appointments),
6) And in general my need to be neurotically organized is satisfied by having the knowledge of what my office hours will look like.
Scheduling Writing Conferences
Lastly, I did writing conferences with my students for project one and will likely do the same (but optional) in project two. This program allowed me to open up the days I planned for conferences, shoot an email to my students, and the next day I knew I had a solid schedule without the hassle of thinking about this in class and reminding the students all the time of their appointment (or dealing with: "I forgot what time I signed up for" emails).
What does it look like?
If you'd like to see what the program looks like (from the student's perspective), take a look at my appointment scheduler: http://messitt.schedulething.com/ Also, feel free to schedule an appointment and then cancel it so you can see the whole process and confirmation emails received by students. If you do, just don't forget to cancel the appointment unless you plan to come and visit me with coffee during those 20 minutes (my order: a large, extra-shot Americano, black).
Hope this helps! If you do try it, I'd love to know how it is or isn't working. If anyone else knows of schedulers that might be better, please let me know. I know many other universities have schedulers for all of their professors and students are used to using them. While I wish OU had this, this feels like a great alternative.
What my Dashboard looks like:
1) students remembering that you even have them,
2) hours of no students and then a clan of them arrive in the last 20 minutes of your office hours,
3) students scheduling appointments with you and then never showing up (usually b/c it slipped their minds).
I recently set up an online office hours scheduler for my students and I'm so pleased to see that it's working (or at least it has within the last two weeks). While the real test will be whether it works for the duration of the semester, I still think it's worth a try.
I am using the free version of a program online called ScheduleThing.
When I add extra "out-of-office" hours at Donkey Coffee now and again (something my students love, in case you haven't done this), they are easy to add as once-off hours within the system and students have responded by coming to see me more often than they had before (and for a wider range of issues). I actually see some of my most problematic students in "out of office" hours. I think the neutral terrain helps them feel less intimidated or insecure when they're coming in to discuss tough issues.
The Benefits?
1) You can generally know what to expect if students have actually officially set an appointment;
2) The system is set to send email reminders to students when they have an upcoming appointment (helping solve the "I forgot" excuse);
3) I find that students are signing up in the middle of the night (at the height of their "I have no clue what I'm doing" panic) when previously they would have calmed down by class and convinced themselves that they didn't need to see me;
4) I get announcements that students have scheduled an appointment (which then allows me to, in some cases, prepare for them specifically);
5) It's also working for drop-in purposes b/c students can quickly see (from their dorm room or elsewhere) whether I'm in my office and free (without other appointments),
6) And in general my need to be neurotically organized is satisfied by having the knowledge of what my office hours will look like.
Scheduling Writing Conferences
Lastly, I did writing conferences with my students for project one and will likely do the same (but optional) in project two. This program allowed me to open up the days I planned for conferences, shoot an email to my students, and the next day I knew I had a solid schedule without the hassle of thinking about this in class and reminding the students all the time of their appointment (or dealing with: "I forgot what time I signed up for" emails).
What does it look like?
If you'd like to see what the program looks like (from the student's perspective), take a look at my appointment scheduler: http://messitt.schedulething.com/ Also, feel free to schedule an appointment and then cancel it so you can see the whole process and confirmation emails received by students. If you do, just don't forget to cancel the appointment unless you plan to come and visit me with coffee during those 20 minutes (my order: a large, extra-shot Americano, black).
Hope this helps! If you do try it, I'd love to know how it is or isn't working. If anyone else knows of schedulers that might be better, please let me know. I know many other universities have schedulers for all of their professors and students are used to using them. While I wish OU had this, this feels like a great alternative.
What my Dashboard looks like:
Oct 7, 2012
Learnist Boards for Personal Literacy Histories and Literacy Narratives
I wanted to pass along a link to the Learnist board I created for my students on Personal Literacy Histories and Literacy Narratives. This is a general board with links (and a great worksheet) to get them started and thinking about literacy narratives.
I also created:
I hope these help!
I also created:
I hope these help!
Observations
Next week is the last for the first round of observations. I need to observe\be observed. I teach from 2-2:55 MWF. Any takers?
Feel free to build off this for anyone else needing to complete the assignment.
Feel free to build off this for anyone else needing to complete the assignment.
Oct 2, 2012
A Visual Representation of Project One
Hello everyone.
I shared in my teaching journal a PowerPoint slide I showed my students last week to explain how to write Project One. I didn't want to give them an outline or a form they could plug information into (ala the five paragraph essay), so I made this:
This seemed to help them get a good grasp of what the essay should be attempting. I did make sure to say that the niche does not need to be an afterthought ("Grammar should be taught in the senior year of high school and freshman year of college. And everyone should get a pony. The End.") after developing an argument. It can be built-in to the paper as a whole.
I shared in my teaching journal a PowerPoint slide I showed my students last week to explain how to write Project One. I didn't want to give them an outline or a form they could plug information into (ala the five paragraph essay), so I made this:
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)