Writing thesis statements is difficult.  Writing good thesis statements even harder.  That’s why practice helps.  By combining a rich resource with a simple thinking scaffold, you can regularly exercise the thesis muscle (gluteus facts-a-must?).  Although the programs are long, ABC’s Background Briefing is a fine example of deep, first person research in a “radio magazine” format.  Students can listen at their leisure over the course of a week, than come to class with their ideas and opinions at the ready.

Thesis Builder

The ThesisBuilder is a fairly simple Web tool first posted in 1996.  Since then, it has found its way onto many school Web sites.  It prompts students to articulate their opinions on a subject so that a persuasive thesis statement is generated.  For example, this kind of prompting, results in the following thesis statement:

Stick Up your Hands for Gun Control

Even though some people believe it’s a right to carry firearms, handguns should be outlawed because it’s too easy for criminals to get handguns and too many innocent people are dying from accidental shootings.

Another click of the button and you can generate an outline as well.

Even Better: Use bridging software or a bluetooth keyboard and let students take turns adding the pieces to the thesis statement.  Much more valuable than the resultant “auto thesis” is the to-ing and fro-ing and deeo thinking that will occur over time as people get more expert at formulating the opinions persuasively.

Activity

1. Search for something of interest. This could be an abstract concept or a specific place.  When you get a globe that you want, click in the middle to load the images from Flickr.
2. When you want a closer look, click on an image.  When it builds, click on it again to see it even larger.
3. If you find that there are images that would be good to use for “Look to Learn,” use the IWB’s capture tool to bring one or several images into the IWB’s notebook software.  You can use the Tools to highlight, connect or comment upon.
4. For example, answer the question, “What does it mean to be Australian?” using a collection of found images.  Even more fun, do this as homework and see the variety of responses students come up with!

Why Wordpress.com?

Wordpress is the best free blogging software and it just keeps getting better. There are three main ways to get a Wordpress blog:

1. from Wordpress.com
2. through a Web Host with a Wordpress.org installation
3. with a free educational version of Wordpress MU (multi-user)

After many years helping educators get started with a ClassPortal / Blog / Web page, I’ve found that beginning with Wordpress.com is the best way. The main reason is that you can get started easily, have access to the very latest version of the software, and can easily export your information if you ever want to host the blog in any other way.

Let’s Get Started

1) Go to Wordpress.com

2) Click on the “Sign Up Now” button.

3) Completely fill in the fields. Use the hints from Wordpress and those in the graphic below to have the greatest success.

4) Chances are that the name you chose might already be taken. Consider adding numbers or varying your username to increase its uniqueness.

5) Once you have a unique username, you can see how it becomes the main part of your Web address. You can change the Blog Title to anything you want. It usually appears quite large at the top of the Web site.

6) To make sure that the person creating the blog is you, Wordpress sends a confirmation email to your account. Click on the link to activate the blog.

7) When you click on the link in your email, you are greeted by the friendly message below. Keep your username and password handy and private. Beneath this information, you’ll see two links to your blog: basically the “behind the scenes” Dashboard where only you create content and the “public” face of the site that everyone sees.

A handy way to work on the blog is to use the right-mouse click to open each of the links in a new Tab (or window if you don’t have Tabbed Browsing). This way you can flip between the “inside” and outside” of your site as you build it to see if it looks the way you want.

9) Clicking on “View your site” reveals it in all its “default” glory. You’ll soon learn how to change the “look-and-feel” to something the you like better.

10) Entering your username and password logs you into the Dashboard.

Note: a new Dashboard looks like this:

The “Dashboard” you  see may be a slightly different versions than this, everything works the same. Tthe functions are just slotted into slightly different places.

Either way, take a look around and explore.

Pageflakes is the best way to access a wide range of fresh digital content.  It does this by being an RSS Feed Reader (want a good video explanation?), but it goes about it in a very Web 2.0 way.  The IWB Blog Pageflakes feed tries to demonstrate how you can access audio podcasts, video lectures or movie trailers, current news or compelling visual images.  Having access to such “Real, Rich and Relevant” content is great, but what’s even better is working it in to the weekly routine of classroom learning.

Feed Friends & other Joys of Learning

Part of the point of Web 2.0 is that it’s all too much for any one person to deal with and that to get the best of what it has to offer, the Web must be a shared endeavor.  Examples:

• Wikipedia: from zero to 3 million pages in less than a decade.
• A jazz violinist delivers a Water Buffalo  to peasant farmers in China.
• A president is elected with the help of record-smashing donations.

So if many hands make light work, then, many learners make for great learning.  Thus, each of the strategies below engages students as members of a small group to sift through a section of the week’s feeds and come back with something valuable.

Here are some ideas for brainstorming:

Reading: Use the Poem a Day Blog or podcast

Student go to Poem-a-day and find a Diigo Bubble prompting them to share their thoughts with the class.  They use their Diigo browserbar to highlight sections to encourage comments from their peers.  (Click to see a larger image).

Listening: An Appreciation of our Writers

Garrison Keillor prepares a daily Writer’s Almanac Podcast.  On the April 28 feed he talks about Harper Lee’s birthday, poet Carolyn Forche and a reading of “That Time of Year” by Phillip Appleman.  Students can use the poetry for inspiration, analysis or personal enjoyment.

Viewing: Digesting TED

TED (the Technology Entertainment and Design Conference) posts all their great TEDTalks from their own site as well as a YouTube Channel.  Because of this channel, you can get the latest TEDTalks feed directly to you.  How about having a couple students each week tasked with digesting a talk.  They go to the IWB Blog Pagecasts and choose a TEDTalk to watch.  They can use the “Claim-Support-Question” Thinking Routine, write a one paragraph review, embed the video in a blog.  They can also facilitate and respond to people’s comments as they are made.  Here’s an example.

from the TEDTalks description: Sir Ken Robinson makes an entertaining and profoundly moving case for creating an education system that nurtures (rather than undermines) creativity.

Visuals: Telling us “What’s so Funny”

Find humor in a political cartoon can require a fair degree of general knowledge, critical analysis and a sophisticated sense of context.  Plenty of good cartoons are available via RSS feeds.  A team of interested students can check them every day and choose the best of the week.  Looking at it together, using an Interactive Whiteboard, other students can highlight where they “see the humor” and finally get to “tell everyone what’s so funny!”

Researching: The Clipmarks Briefing

When using the Web for research, the most natural act in the world is to copy what you find interesting or useful.  Rather than prohibit the act or instill a fear of death or commensurate level of guilt for using “Edit-Copy”, we can use the technology and this natural inclination to advance authentic learning.  By using the Clipmarks Browser button and an account, users can skim through Web pages on a related topic and “clip” text, images, even video, into a “ClipCast”.  An example could be an interested sparked by Randy Pausch in his “Last Lecture” when he spoke about the Alice 3-D software.  A simple ClipCast brings together text from the Alice Web site.

What if each week a small team of students presented a Clipmarks Briefing where they could share what they had learned about something we hear about, but know little more than sound bites?  Click to see a larger image or just get started with Clipmarks?  I’m sure you and your students can do a better job than this!

Alert: Be sure to visit the Look to Learn site

Introduction

One of the best ways for students of every age to develop greater cognitive sophistication is to join in a shared looking activity with at least one facilitating adult. As infants, children sat in our laps as we read picture books together. Today we can foster critical thinking by engaging students in regular experiences of “Learning to Look.” All it takes is:

1. a computer,
2. a data projector,
3. at least one interesting Web resource and
4. an open-ended question or “Thinking Routine”

Note: Things can be particularly engaging with an Interactive Whiteboard.

Let’s assume you can organise the computer and data projector so what follows is help with the Web resources and the questions.

Web Resources

The Web is great for enhancing and extending learning in schools. Tom March thinks this promotes “aNew3Rs,” Real, Rich and Relevant learning. Here is a selection of compelling Web resources.

Some Good Bets

• Running the Numbers: an American Self Portrait, by Chris Jordan, photographic artist – An amazing collection of photographs that capture rampant consumerism and waste.
• The Miniature Earth, presented by Lucco Designs – This flash animation / video presents some facts about the world as if it were a village of 100 people.
• Hiroshima Day BBs – Ben (of Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream) demonstrates the size of the US nuclear arsenal.
• Tag Galaxy – see what the world thinks in pictures
• Pictures of the Week – from Time Magazine – Use this feature regularly to keep up with current events as well as challenge each other to interpret the message and perspective of the photos.
• Sydney Morning Herald Daily Snapshot – Similar to the Time feature above, but on a daily basis and less about the news and more about culture and the unusual. Question: What would a space traveller decide life was like on earth from today’s photos?
• Scratch Media! - Australian Political Cartoons from David Pope (better known by his signature Heinrich Hinze).
• 10×10 – Every hour, 10×10 collects the 100 words and pictures that matter most on a global scale, and presents them as a single image, taken to encapsulate that moment in time.

Questions

Often it is enough to simply ask students the two questions suggested by Professor Perkins: ‘What’s going on here?’ and ‘What do you see that makes you say so?’ Students’ might comment based on learning compelling new information, sensing injustice, seeing humour or any number of reactions. The facilitating teacher’s main role is to help students look carefully and closely at the resource. If it’s a movie, you might go through it again, stopping at key places students’ identify. Sometimes, you can “zoom-in” as specific aspects of an image. One strategy that usually works is to begin simply with “Who? What? Where? When? Why? and How?” This challenges viewers to look beyond the surface and venture a hypothesis. For more detailed approaches, use the links below.

Resources to facilitate Looking Critically

• The Intelligent Eye – outstanding questions from David Perkins, in his book by the same name.
• Socratic Questioning Stems – from ChangingMinds.org
• “Seeing Questions” – a fine series of questions intended for the visual arts, but which could also apply to photography.

Thinking Routines

The main idea behind Thinking Routines is that it’s not enough for students to learn “critical thinking strategies,” but research from the Visible Thinking group at Harvard’s Project Zero has found that students also need to develop the disposition to engage in such a process. One approach is to promote a culture of questioning and thinking in the daily life of the classroom. To quote from a recent paper:

The effective schools research has shown that teachers establish housekeeping, management, and discourse routines earlier in the school and that this establishment is important in the long-term smooth running of classrooms. Teachers that fail to establish routines may struggle to keep their classes focused and orderly. Just as it is important for teachers to focus students’ behavior so that classrooms can run smoothly and students can learn, teachers also need tools for structuring and scaffolding students’ mental behavior. In brief, Thinking Routines:n

1. are explicit;
2. have few steps (typically 2 – 3);
3. are instrumental (designed solely to scaffold thinking);
4. are used repeatedly;
5. work across a variety of disciplines; and
6. promote both group and individual practice

from Thinking Routines: Establishing Patterns of Thinking in the Classroom,” a paper prepared for the AERA Conference, April 2006 by Ritchhart, Palmer, Church, & Tishman

Below are four Thinking Routines that could be used frequently.
SEE-THINK-WONDER

1. What do you see?
2. What do you think about that?
3. What does it make you wonder?

CLAIM-SUPPORT-QUESTION

1. Make a claim about the topic
2. Identify support for your claim
3. Ask a question related to your claim

HEADLINES

1. If you were to write a headline for this topic or issue right now that captures the most important aspect to keep in mind, what would that headline be?

WHAT MAKES YOU SAY THAT?

1. What’s going on here?
2. What do you see that makes you say that?

From the Dashboard, you can add a post in one of three ways.  Click the image here to see a larger version.

We recommend using #1 or #2 as they give you more layout and embedding options, but if you only have a brief “shout-out”, go ahead and use #3, the “QuickPress.”

Once you are in the “Add New Post” screen, add your title and the content you want to appear in the post.

Use the “Rich Text” / WYSIWYG editor (What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get) to format the text the way you want.  Highlight sections, for example, and then click the “Bulleted List” icon to do just that.  Play around.  Experiment. The exact way your text appears once you publish the post depends on the IWB Blog’s style sheets, so don’t fuss things too much – some is out of your control…

The colorful icons starting with YouTube are all for embedding videos from a range of Web sites.  Use the right one for the video you want to embed and it will play right in your post.

To add other media, you can upload / insert it. Use the clip below as a guide.

Once you have the content the way you want, it’s a very good idea to add Tags/Categories so that your post can be filed and retrieved more easily.  Use the boxes to mark your post appropriately.

The first time you post your page, you’ll use the “Publish” button.  Every time after that, the button turns into “Update Post.”

To see your post actually online, I like to use separate browser Tabs for the Dashboard and the published blog.  To do this simply right-click on the link at the top of the Dashboard to open the Blog in a New Tab.

You can see a video from YouTube that covers roughly the same process

Fill in the required information:

Click on the Menu button to open the control pane.

Click on whatever “Flakes” (RSS feeds) look interesting to you. You can get rid of them if you don’t like them.

Now it’s time to look for RSS feeds from other sources. Begin by opening another Browser Tab or Window.

Now search / surf to sites you like for information and see if they have an RSS feed link. For example, you might go to the ABC website and search the page for “RSS”. Then click on the link.

Look through the RSS feeds available. Really good sites, divide their content into sections so you can get the latest on your main interests (like “science,” “world news,” “movies,” etc.). When you find a section you want to get the updates on, copy the link.

Then go back to you Pageflakes page and look in the lower left of the Menu / control panel for a link that says “Add RSS Feed”.

Paste the RSS feed address you copied into the field and then click the “Get Feed” button. You’ll see the new feed added to the top panel of feeds on the page. If it doesn’t work, then you didn’t get the RSS feed address quite right. Just try again.

Here are some sources for great RSS feeds:

• The ABC
• The New York Times
• The Guardian, UK
• TED Talks

Part 2

Now let’s make it so you (and students) can get to these great feeds as a Web page. Start by giving the Page a name:

Cool. Now we need to give the page a solid Web address. From the Menu / control panel, click on “Make a PageCast.”

Click on the “Public” radio button and fill in all the information.

Save the Changes and then look in the upper corner for the Web address of the page. Copy the address and then paste it into the browser’s URL line to go right to the page with a set address. now you can add this address as a link to you blog.

Great stuff! Now you and students can easily find out the latest on just about any subject.

If you’re feeling adventurous, you can browse all the PageFlakes and find some pretty cool things. Just be careful, some bite!

• a username
• an email addres you can check immediately
• a desire to contribute

Step 1

Simply go to the Register screen and enter a username and your email.  A confirmation message will be sent to you with a yucky password.  If you don’t receive an email within a couple minutes, check your Junk folder, your mail server may be very slow or you might have mistyped the email address.

Step 2

Either click on the link in the Welcome message or go to the Log-in page.  Copy and paste the yucky password from the email into the Log-in screen.  You will change this to your usual password in a second.

Step 3

Once logged-in, you will find yourself in the Dashboard (the administrative control panel).  In the upper right corner you will see “Howdy” followed by your username.  To change your password, click on your username to go to you profile.  You can add other bits about yourself here if you like, but the main thing is to scroll to the very bottom on the page and enter your preferred password twice before updating.  From now on, every time you want to contribute to the IWB Blog, you will enter the username and password that you have chosen.

This technology can be produced today for $350.

1. What do you think it will look like in 15 years?
2. How do you think it will impact on daily life?
3. On personal relations?