Macbeth Unfriends Duncan

Above is the invitational video to my recent presentation at the National Council of Teachers of English Convention, "Macbeth Unfriends Duncan: Students Creating an Online Social Network for the 'Scottish Play.'"

If you are interested in the idea of creating a parody social network online for Macbeth, any of Shakespeare's plays, or any literary work that has a cast of inter-twining characters, then you may like to check out the online version of my 20-minute presentation here.  

At this link, you'll find resources and materials to replicate the project with your students.

Getting Wiki With Research Paper Drafting

This year I'm having my students draft their research papers on our class wiki on PBWorks. And I'm loving it.

First, it solves the transfer problem of having to save files at home or at school. It's all online. Students can write in class, in the writing center, in the media center, at home, at the public library, and at Starbucks.

Since we have a campus license, I can set page-level access, so that everyone's draft is private. While all the tentative processes of rough composition take place writers can have their privacy (yet be visible to me for assessing their progress). When the first full rough cut is ready, I can open their pages to one peer mutually.

Moreover, I'm not collecting a variety of handwritten or typed drafts of intro paragraphs, counterarguments, supports and conclusions. All of their progress is not only visible but also documented as to when it was saved, thanks to a page history feature.  I can see everyone's progress as soon as he or she clicks save.  I can also gage each student's progress (or lack thereof) and add encouragement or warnings along the way.

Students report a few downsides.  If they don't save frequently, they leave themselves open to power failures and lost keystrokes (PB Works has a save-and-continue feature in their Beta editor, coming).  And they must have Internet access--not such a problem in this digital age, but still a factor for some that share their computers with family, or the power goes off (which did happen this year due some bad weather).

Still, the ability to work at school and at home in a common online medium has more pluses than minuses. Haven't we all heard the refrain "I can't write in class"? Indeed, some students are more productive at home, when they are alone and not hopping from one bell to the next. They can spread out their notes, sip coffee, and hunker down for some quality drafting. For instance, this year, in the week students were working our their first drafts, we had several snow days, and students could keep working away from school.  And from home, I could watch their progress during our time away from school and offer coaching in the comment fields. The connectivity seemed to motivate both student and teacher, while helping everyone to beat cabin fever during the blizzard.

As students finish their papers they upload their Word files to the wiki for peer editing thanks to Word's review and comment feautures. Then it's on to the next draft and submit to teacher in Word.  Having the papers in electronic form facilitates plagiarism checking; I can simply pass along the paper to a checking service if it looks too good to be true. 

Next, I use Word to add my comments and mark the papers, send the amended file back through the wiki, and wait for the third and final draft.

Ning in the New Year

Posting at the New Year's about my Personal/Pro Learning Network, I noted two Nings.

The NCTE Ning
and the Jim Burke's English Companion Ning.

I joined NCTE's in 2008 and EC's in 2009.  Two years, two Nings. Still, when I mention Nings to colleagues I have to explain.

1. Ning is a site offering social networks that are more customized than ones on sites like Facebook, Twitter, or MySpace and geared for group discussion and sharing content as well as the random idea.

2. Nings are to social networks what wikis are to websites.

3. Cousins to blogs with reverse-chronological listings and posts, descendants of discussion threads.

4. Perhaps best of  they can share multimedia podcasts, including slides, video, audio, and documents. (Great for catching presentations and lesson ideas and plans!)  It's as if I have scores of talented colleagues across the hall, even though they are across the nation, and beyond.

If you are new to Ning, I'd suggest giving it a try and giving it some time. (As I uploaded these Ning screenshots and revisited the sites, I noticed that I had actually belonged to three other Ning Networks. I guess they were just not holding my interest.)

So I have actually belonged to Ning for four years!  I just didn't "get it."  They became part of my PLN when they started to attract meaningful, useful content.  After the NCTE Convention in November 2009, the Ning called for presentation materials from event. Now it's rich with media.  And Jim Burke's, which recently won honors from the Edublog Awards, is brimming with meaningful conversations and effective ideas.