Happy Week 9, Colleagues!!
It’s almost time for another round of WritingwithMachines Sound Offs!
Here is a quick recap of the Sound Offs posted by your colleagues during Week 5.
Donna Potratz , Linda Ericksen, and Daniel Ante-Contreras shared how they use classroom technologies to create social, collaborative learning environments.
Donna relies on the huddle boards and structured, digital spaces–like Canvas Discussions and Google Docs–to create a culture of curiosity and social accountability for her ENGL 100 readers. Linda leads her ENGL 100 students in collaborative writing, also using huddle boards and Canvas discussions. Daniel asks his ENGL 100 students to play with the technology of Google Docs–copying and pasting and rearranging and re-purposing and linking and editing–in order to actually play with the concepts and conventions of grammar and rhetoric.
Donna Fazio-DiBenedetto and Tony Burman used their Sound Off to experiment with Docs and Studio as well as explore analogies.
Donna explores how Google Docs could allow her ENGL 100 students to identify, share, and close read passages from Siddhartha. Tony talks about (what he could talk about but doesn’t want to talk about because what he wants to talk about is) an analogy of sports. In Tony’s hybrid ENGL 100, the online classroom offers “practice”–individualized work, like throwing free throws, with lots of failing and lots of succeeding–and “scrimmage”–something that isn’t ‘practice’ but that ensure the skills of practice happen–so that students arrive to the onsite classroom ready for “game day.”
Linda Ericksen and Mary Gross are engaged in a fascinating exploration of the value of anonymity.
Linda uses anonymous posts of essay drafts to “protect the writer” as she guides her ENGL 100 onsite students to investigate possibilities: “What’s working?” and “What needs work?” Mary also uses Canvas to lead her ENGL 100 online students through similar investigations, but for Mary the goal is to create “asynchronous conversation which entailed seeing their faces, making eye contact etc…” i.e. socially rewarding experiences while responding to writing.
If I were to pick out themes and salient take-aways, I would highlight the importance of individualized play and experimentation along with the value of social experiences and collaborative teamwork, all of which are facilitated with technology and all of which serve ENGL 100 students who are growing in confidence as readers, writers, and thinkers.
Next week, Week 10, will be another opportunity to contribute your own “Sound Off!” about
- what modalities you are using in your online, hybrid, or tech-heavy onsite ENGL 100
- how students are benefiting in access and engagement because of those modalities
- why you might make adjustments the next time you teach with those modalities
Look for invitation at the beginning of next week tempting your participation. In the meantime, I hope you are compelled to mull over your teaching and student experiences. I also hope you have an excellent week!