Should Cursive Make a Comeback?

NPR recently posted an intriguing article on the efficacy (or lack thereof) of handwriting, especially as it pertains to the recent arguments over the inclusion of cursive in school curricula.

Side note: I was glad to see mention of the lack of keyboarding being taught as well. The emphasis on viewing literacy from a wide scope (to include our forms of writing) hits the nail on the head.

Read the editorial here.

Check out Edutopia!

I highly recommend the website Edutopia for teachers as a source for lesson ideas, data and research, and current perspectives on many issues in education. I discovered the site because of several of my fellow educators sharing Edutopia articles on their social media pages. This ever-updating site offers teachers a wealth of knowledge. Check it out here or follow the site's page on Facebook. 

Resources

Over the past several months I have had the immense pleasure of student teaching at some incredible schools in West Michigan. A major perk of my placements has been picking up new ideas for how to use technology in the classroom. Here are some of my favorite resources from the semester that have become my go-to teacher tools:

• Google Drive (and everything related)

Google Drive and its tools are great because Google continually innovates. Periodic updates and improvements are worth acclimating to; files are easily stored and shared and can be used for just about any function, whether you are using spreadsheets, forms, documents, slideshows, or others.

• Classroom

Google Classroom is wonderful enough to deserve its own bullet point. It represents all of the tools and functionality of Drive in classroom-friendly form, plus teachers have the ability to communicate with students, post updates and assignments, keep grades current and more.

• Zipgrade

This is an app worth investing in. The cost to download it onto your smartphone via iTunes is $12.99, but if time is money, this technology is well worth the price. It essentially replaces the Scantron machine while allowing teachers to grade from the comfort of their own classrooms. Check it out in the app store here.

• Kahoot

Kahoot offers teachers a refreshing, fun way to incorporate formative assessments through real-time audience polling. This site also has potential for creating engaging anticipatory activities and even encouraging student involvement. Anyone can create a Kahoot. It's free!

• www.polleverywhere.com

This site is the grown-up equivalent of Kahoot for upperclassman (or for simply adding some pizzazz to professional presentations). This live-response audience participation poll offers the same benefits of Kahoot, minus many of the bells and whistles tailored to younger users.

GVSU College of Education Convocation Speech

Check out the student address I delivered at the 2016 Grand Valley State University College of Education Convocation Ceremony. 

App Review

Here are some apps I have been exploring lately in the teaching world. 

1. Pixton

To use Pixton, you must create an account online first. The good news is that it’s free. The app has different capabilities and settings depending on how you are planning to use it, so when you sign up, you choose to create an account that fits your needs. You can sign up as a teacher and do a free 30-day trial before you have to pay, although they have a “for fun” version as well that is always free. I signed up with a free “for fun” account, just so I could get a feel for how the app works. The app itself is free to download no matter what version you select. Here is the link to download Pixton in the Apple Store.

Essentially, Pixton is comic strip creating app that allows you to choose from hundreds of possible backgrounds and scenes and thousands of alterable details you can customize to create characters and scenes. If you think about “literacy” as kind of a broader concept, comic strips are a great tool. They offer another means of expression for students and also help widen the scope of accepted genres in the academic setting.

At first, using Pixton can almost be a little overwhelming, just because of the sheer number of options, to know where to begin. I would recommend giving students a tutorial of the app and its controls before setting them loose to work, and also making sure they have a pretty directional and focused plan of what they want to create before they get started, unless you are able to provide them with a lot of time to explore and play around and be creative.

2. Synonyms Quiz + Thesaurus & Dictionary

Synonyms Quiz is a free app that does not require you to sign up for an account. It seems pretty no-strings-attached. In some ways this is good, because it’s not complicated for students to just download and use the app, but the downside is that there is little to no personalization involved in using it. Here is the link to download it from the Apple Store.

Synonyms Quiz is exactly what it sounds like from the app’s title. It offers quizzes that students can take to practice identifying synonyms for different vocabulary words. Some are pretty easy (like identifying “clever” as a synonym of “smart”) but others are pretty advanced. There is also a version of the game that operates under a timer, and you can only answer as many questions as you can complete under the time constraint. The app keeps track of your stats as a player, which has some potential for some friendly classroom competition. It also has a button on the home screen that allows students to search for words and find definitions and synonyms, like an online dictionary/thesaurus.

Because it’s not possible to program your own vocabulary words and synonyms into the app, I think it would better serve as sort of an “extra” activity or a game that students can play when they finish their regular work, or maybe after they finish taking a test or quiz. It’s more for extra practice building vocabulary skills in general, but it would not be possible to focus it enough to really make it a part of the regular classroom curriculum.

3. Grammar Up

Grammar Up is also a free app, and its functions are pretty simple, but it is a little bit easier to predict in terms of what kinds of questions students will be asked, which makes it a little more practical I think than the previous app I wrote about (Synonyms Quiz). You do not need an account in order to use the app, so students could easily download the app and use it as needed. Follow the link here to download Grammar Up on the Apple Store.

This app has several grammar-related categories, such as adjectives, causative verbs, conjunctions, conditionals, and more, and it allows you to select a category and then take a 10-question multiple choice practice test. I think this is probably best used by the teacher as a recommendation to give students for an app they can use to practice studying before a grammar test, so they can quiz themselves or their friends.

It is convenient that the app is free and does not require any setup, and you could encourage students to keep track of categories they struggle with most to know what to study. Or, to kind of step away from the idea of test review, you could encourage students to use the quizzes on certain categories that they need to improve in for their narrative writing.

Fair Use for Teachers

The United States is one of the biggest producers of intellectual property in the world. The United States Copyright Office reports that "[s]ince 1870, the Copyright Office has registered more than 33,654,000 claims to copyright...including books, serials, motion pictures, music, sound recordings, maps, prints, pictures, and computer works" (According to the Fiscal 2014 Annual Report). 
 

Fiscal 2014 Annual Report - United States Copyright Office

Because the Internet makes so much material readily available and easy to use and copy, it is important to learn how to operate within safe and legal parameters to avoid accidentally violating copyright laws or stealing the property of others. However, there are some exceptions to the strict rules that are now in place to protect the legal owners of digital materials of all kinds. These exceptions are often permitted through what is called Fair Use. Fair Use allows for some limited use of copyrighted material without requiring consent from the owner of the material. 

Some argue that fair use prevents copyright from stifling creativity. One organization that makes this argument is the Fair Use Project (FUP) which was founded in 2006. The FUP provides legal support authors, filmmakers, artists, musicians, and other content creators, designed to "clarify, and extend, the boundaries of fair use in order to enhance creative freedom and protect important public rights" (The Center for Internet and Society). One of the inherently difficult parts of creating a law designed to ensure "fairness" is the subjective nature of such judgements. This problem is defined by the United States Copyright Office website, which offers links to the ever-expanding Fair Use Index. 

The Social Media Examiner calls it "a delicate balance between the rights of the creator and the public’s interest" but also notes that, "[w]hen in conflict, the balance tips more heavily toward the public’s interest, which is often contrary to what the creator believes to be fair or just." This has interesting implications for teachers, who are often drawing inspiration or photos from the Internet to enhance learning. In fact, there are some resources that are great for educators that can help us stay within the boundaries of copyright law. For example, some websites allow teachers to find images that are free for use within the parameters of Fair Use. 

 

https://search.creativecommons.org/

The Creative Commons Search allows you to search multiples sites for an image you can use, perhaps on a handout or on a PowerPoint, or to illustrate a point from a book. You can check the boxes on the page to ensure that the images you use are "something I can use for commercial purposes" or "modify, adapt, or build upon."  The Edublogger details several other tips for teachers that can help us know where to find usable videos, curriculum, and text, and know how to incorporate them.

ArtPrize Field Trip Inspiration

Walking around downtown Grand Rapids and looking at the ArtPrize exhibits is something I look forward to every year, but this year especially, looking at the exhibits from the point of view of a teacher, I felt that I benefited from looking at the works of art in a new way. It seems very apparent to me that technology can enhance the way that students experience a field trip, which is very exciting for me as a future educator. There were a couple of specific works at ArtPrize this year that I found intriguing and which did an excellent job of bringing technology into the relationship between the artist and the audience. I was fortunate enough to get to spend several hours today (Saturday the 26th) walking around the city and viewing the exhibits as well.

In DeVos Place, there is an exhibit called Mystic that showed me how shocking and informative art can be as a reminder of how relying on technology can be a way of forfeiting our privacy if we are not careful. I think it is important as a teacher for me to educate my students on internet safety and on safe practices for using technology in any capacity. Here is a video that can be found on the artist's website that does a great job of explaining how his piece works and why it matters. The fact that the artist has an updated website and uses technology to make his work more accessible is another bonus for being able to view and discuss the work even after the class has left the site. 

My other favorite exhibit that shows how technology can enhance a field trip is called #WhatLiftsYou and is located outside of the Grand Rapids Public Museum. This artist, who I discovered also has a website and a YouTube video to explain what she does, connects street art and social media to show how anyone can be a part of the exhibit. I know that many of my students, if not all of them, will use social media of some form, and so this is a great way to get them to connect what they see on a field trip to their outside life and get them sharing what they experienced with others.