Reflecting on the Culture of my Blended Course

This link takes you directly to my narrated screencast of my Google presentation: "Toward a Blended Classroom Culture in Support of Ongoing Collaborative Critique".

There are a number of youtube videos embedded in the presentation slides, which you can access here and scroll through at your leisure. I did not play all of the videos during my narrated screencast, above.

If you are interested in the methods discussed in the presentation, I encourage you to watch the two screencasts I've created for my students.

I'm always looking for collaborators who may be pursuing similar instructional goals. Feel free to get in touch if you want to chat or share resources.

The narrated screencast:

The Accidental Mission Statement

A funny thing happened as I was demonstrating for my students how I would plan a persuasive essay.

Throughout the year, I have occasionally talked to them about books or articles I read. Sometimes these relate to adolescent social behavior or teaching techniques that support critical literacy.

Recently, my students have been reading up on a topic of their choosing and planning to develop a written argument which will form the backbone of an essay... and later a digital text of some kind.

Having completed their initial background reading, they are beginning to articulate their vision for their essays. One of the first steps was to use this sentence frame to craft what I called a "Main Argument Sentence": Considering (topic), I believe (Who?) should/must (action) so/because /in order to (justification/intended outcome).

I wrote this argument sentence and created a sample screencast to illustrate a subsequent step in the writing process, which is to use their written outline to verbally rehearse their full essay.

Considering new technologies and their impact on the 21st century workplace, I believe educators must reexamine industrial-age pedagogy in order to prepare young people for active citizenship in the information age.

As I asked them to watch the screencast below and we talked for a few minutes afterward, I realized some of them are quite eager to think about these changing times in education.  Taking the time to explain the rationale behind my lesson plans and teaching style may help them to see the method in the madness. Some might also be inclined to paddle in the same direction.

2-3 Minute Intro Video

My target audience for this video is the students in my two sections of grade 9 English. At this point, I am considering sharing my ongoing work with my current classes as my blended/online course for the TTC project.

Alternatively, I may look to share blended professional development resources for teachers or to create a second iteration of my current grade 9 English class--to be offered beginning August 2014.