Digital Divide- Paying for It.

I feel like the quality of the equipment in my school has gone done to junk status. My students can't even connect to the school's network let alone get on the class blog.  Our school is also in leadership transition. I asked them to write to the future principal with their requests. Well many asked for better internet connections! Then they wanted laptops that didn't burn up and freeze, and a room that fit all the students without bumping into each other. Frankly, I just want the first.  How can I use technology when we can't even use the laptops? I was told my tech guy can't look at the drop until after state testing is done in at the end of the month.

While the push in my school is to use a smart board, I want to my students to write for each other. They must be able to get on the blog, and not even the flat boring Blackboard.  Perhaps this is part of the high stakes testing preparation. The ELL proficiency assessment, the WIDA, is all paper and pencil and timed to the second.  Well my students may not be writing for each other but they are doing more timed prompts. UGH!

This is really "a day in the teacher" that I wish everyone could understand.  I love technology, and we have to teach with it. Did the erasable pencil ruin writing?  Internet connection, laptops, speakers, software all cost money and need upkeep.  Please support teachers who are trying to creative with digital literacy.

If we are learning about nature, why can't we go outside?

My seven year old is wise as a seventy year old sage. I asked her how school was going. She jumped back, "The teacher is teaching us about nature, and we haven't even gone outside." I didn't have a  response.  My daughters attend a school in which the students attain high standardized scores yet the day to day learning is rote and dull. I am bored by the work they bring home. Would anyone want to do the same form of vocabulary work week after week?  As a teacher I know why it is assigned, it is easy to grade. One of my peers had the same concern about his child's school which is otherwise held in high esteem by the community. He found his son had a pre-test on famous Americans and the actual test was identical. The questions asked the students to feed back from memory.  Why can't children relate, explore and evaluate?  My daughter can spit back who is Susan B Anthony, but why not consider if Ms. Anthony would be a hero today?  What qualities do MLK Jr and your teacher have in common?  Would you be friends with Ruby Bridges today?

In considering ELLs, if we are teaching about writing, why aren't they writing?  When was the last time you read an article and thought, 'Well that had great organization.  What strong topic sentences."  While these are effective writing tools of a few genres, they are not why the reader keeps reading.

I don't want my daughter to say who was famous. I want her to understand the context and relevance of events as they relate to her life. I want my ELL's to write to communicate their opinions, ideas and perspectives. 

Craft lesson in a launching strategy

Techno Bling but no Know How

Well another class when the middle aged mom got to share what a podcast is to teens/young adults.  I just think its funny and desperate at the same time. (Well I need a sense of humor.)  A third of my students raised their hands when I asked if they had an  ipod. Then a quarter indicated they had an mp3 player.  Then some students mocked those with mp3 players as being "cheap", even though they didn't own either device. . That was an interesting perception about technology that is ripe for researching.  Some told me they just get pirated music off the web. So many have the techno bling but not the know how.  Well anyhow, the reason I was asking about podcasts, was that my students indicated they wanted more listening exercises in our ESOL class.  It is a new semester, and I asked them to brainstorm activities that would support their writing goals.  This was a great lead in for podcasts.  I was able to show them the podcasts a few students made last year in Blackboard that linked to itunes (finally a cool tool in Blackboard.)  In past years, my classes made a CD anthology of radio stories, but now we are transitioning to podcasts. Although since more students have CD players in their cars, I think we need to do both this spring.  Learning how to write in a second language via new applications is really double the work for the students and me.  I don't see how I can justify doing one without the other.  Access to technology is an issue of equity for my ELLs.  Here is podcast from one my students.
Student Podcast

Mees, I have a computer but no internet

After missing school for 8 days and 2 weekends, my ELLs have largely been unplugged.  Yes they worked in the restaurants within walking distance to upscale developments. Yes, they earned money for shoveling driveways (one earn $600!).  Yes, they watch a lot of televion and some video games.  They were connected by cell phones and texting.  Some of my students told me that they couldn't pay the internet bill so it was cut off.  Another student has a new laptop but needs tech support at home to get the internet working. Our tech guy at school has been helping him.

Out of 38 students, only 1 responded to our class blog over the time out school and she is new to the class.  That tells me something.  My 17-24 year old ELLs don't know what a blog, podcast or wiki are!!! I am their gateway to technology.  That is frightening. My writing class is more infused with technology so they aren't lagging behind their peers.  The digital divide is a cultural divide of the haves and have nots.  While a cell phone and ipod are accesories that everyone sees on you as techno bling, they don't see your writing and cognitive skills.  My ELLs have some techno bling but  they need a middle aged white mother to learn how to own it.

Ten blogs

Now I am wondering if its really knowing that someone is will read your writing that motivates the writer to begin drafting but then workshop is the means for shaping it.  I mean going public with writing is a motivator, a reason to write because it's communication. My kids were home for the 7th snow day in  row from school (not including 2 weekends in there too.)  I reminded Ten about the blog we created in the summer. I told her she should do some writing for it. "Oh yeah, I forgot about it. Yeah, I want to do that. What will I write....?"  Then she walked away talking herself through brainstorming a topic.  She moved from poetry to reflection.  Then what does she do, but pull out the anthology from the Maine Writers' Camp of 2008!  I wrote about the camp yesterday. Ten identities her writing life as that one week in a little cottage on the ocean with her writing "teacher".  She read aloud her reader's autobiography to me from the anthology. I responded that she had really changed in the last two years as a reader (moving from Junie B Jones to the Chronicles of Narnia, although Junie still lingers in her bathroom reading basket.)  She pondered, "Hmm, I think I have some work to do here. Can I use your laptop?"  The girl drafted and revised all at the same time with the old version in front of her and reading her words aloud for sound and sense.  Seven asked her, "Are you a writer?".  Ten answered, "Yes, I'm writing. Now be quiet."  That was enough for Seven to put her nose back into Rules by Cynthia Lord.  About 40 minutes later Ten had her blog post updated and her profile as well.  Then she asked where the other blogs were and was disappointed to find out my students hadn't done anything yet because of the blizzards.  Now she is waiting to read and get feedback for my high school ELLs. This will be interesting.

why aren't my daughters workshopping?

After 6 days without school and another one on the way, my 10 year old (call her Ten) and 7 year old (call her Seven for now) have practiced piano for 30 minutes, read at least 30 minutes, and completed a math activity.  Yet here I am, a self professed writing teacher, and my little girls decided to take writing into their own gripped little fists (My ELL class would really help any writer so I don't know what makes my class just for ELLs.)  Here it was Valentine's morning, and I received a hand crafted love poem, not from my husband of 11 years, but from Ten.  She loves to write poetry.  How did we discover this 2 years ago?  Not from her classroom experience, there isn't a workshop teacher in that school.  No it was at the Maine Writing Project's Summer Writers' Camp in Bar Harbor.  God bless that teacher who showed my daughter how writing can be fun. Until then it was just something, "Mommy does at school with her students."  Since that writers' camp Ten asks, "Why don't my teachers do writer's workshop?"  I ask myself, why don't I "do" writers' workshop with her?-Ugh-more guilt.  Do we really "do writing?"  That sounds so task driven. Exactly the reason I put it off.  (Update-I did read and respond to my students' portfolios today. What a joy!...still don't know why I put it off. I love reading my students, "going meta"!)  My daughter needs to workshop her writing like my students do. That means she needs a sense of audience and purpose with peer feedback.  She has also asked about updating a blog from last August-oops forgot about that one.  Will a blog give her a workshop experience?  I have opened an account on 21Classes for my 2 ELL alternative HS students. If nothing else, she will get an education in the lifestyles of the disenfranchised young immigrants.  Seven has to wait. She is too much of a critic to be kind to my ELLs.