Zite

Zite in the Contemporary Literature and Writing Classroom

With as fast as the definition of “literature” is evolving and expanding, I have been looking for ways to inject relevant, current high interest texts into my Contemporary Literature and Writing classroom. Here is an assignment I’ve tried once and now tweaked (for a second go-around) for this class. I am going to model this for them tomorrow and then each student will have his or her chance to present an article once before the end of third quarter and second time during fourth quarter. We are using, not only Zite for this assignment, but also either Twitter (which MOST students have) or email (for those who have not yet made the TweetLeap). Last semester, I used this assignment, but made the silly mistake of NOT modeling what I wanted to see. This time around will be different. Tomorrow, my students will see me presenting exactly what I expect of them (or at least one variation of it).  This assignment works well in an ELA classroom, but I could see it working in ANY classroom (4th grade and up) really because Zite is so customizable and a teacher could give students a specific category in which to search to narrow the focus to the subject matter being studied.  Feel free to use this assignment in your classroom, with or without attribution. If you use it though, let me know how it goes! I’d love to hear some feedback on how to make it better.

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ZITE SHARING ASSIGNMENT

1.  Read through some articles in your areas of interest on Zite.

2.  Select an article that you find interesting, relevant, and timely.

3.  On the day of your presentation, TWEET a link to your article ~ (You can do this directly through Zite, if you connect your Zite account to your Twitter account, or you can copy/paste the URL into a tweet or a URL shortener like bitly.com.) ~ OR you can send the link via EMAIL, if you are not a Twitter user. (If you use the email option, just REPLY TO ALL to an email I sent out to the class, to ensure everyone in the class gets the link).

4.  When you present the article to the class, we will project the article from your iPad onto the screen in my room, so make sure you have your iPad here AND charged.  If you don’t, this will result in a deduction of your grade and you will have to reschedule your presentation, which will throw off the entire class’s schedule. Be courteous, and be prepared.

5.  During your presentation you MUST do the following:

A. SUMMARIZE the article. GIve us a nutshell summary of what this article is about (since most of us will not have read the article.

B. EXPLAIN why it is IMPORTANT and RELEVANT enough to share with the class.

C. PROVIDE your OPINION on the subject matter. (For example, if it is problem, provide a solution or talk about the root causes of the problem. If it is a human interest story, discuss why you believe it is so appealing. If it is about a scientific discovery, discuss how you believe this may change how we currently do things. These are just a few things you could discuss during this portion of your presentation.)

D. BE PREPARED for QUESTIONS from Mrs. M. and your peers. Feel free to ask your peers and Mrs. Morgenson their opinions as well, to encourage discussion.

When you are an audience member, please think of questions to ask the presenter.  Everyone should participate in this.  Some article shares may even result in a roundtable-style discussion. Prepare to respond in writing to each person’s article as well either via Twitter or email.

Posted on by morgetron | Leave a comment

Learning is just awkward sometimes … or, if you’re me … ALWAYS.

I’ve fumbled. Twice this week.  And it’s only Tuesday.

Bumbling Fumble 1:  I assumed (I know!  I know! Anyone who was in Mrs. Pickrel’s English class ought to know what evil the act of assuming leads to …) that because I was able to read my Doodle from MY Macbook Air and from my iPad that the students would be ablt to as well. In my Contemporary Literature and Writing class, we are using the Zite and Flipboard apps–both digitally customizable personalized social magazines–on our iPads. I chose this as a way for my students to access FREE high-interest non-fiction writing. The assigned part of it is that they have to share two articles per quarter with the rest of the class. They’ll do this in person (by verbally  summarizing, analyzing, evaluating the chosen article in class) as well as by sharing the link to the article with classmates via email and/or Twitter.

So, I sent them an email with a link to a Doodle I set up.  (Doodle is a site, which also has an app–of course–in which you can create and send out potential meeting times to a group of people and they can all respond with times that work best for them. It helps to alleviate the inevitable flurry of emails or phone calls that often ensue, when a group of busy people try to set up a meeting time that works for all of them. I wanted to use it in this situation to have students select two days in which they would present their articles. Essentially, I wanted to use it as a digital sign-up sheet. I like to think of it as a creative alternative to the “traditional” Doodle.)

They ALL received my email (which is a modern miracle in and of itself — no typos!) with the link to the Doodle; they all clicked on the link and then everyone–and I mean EVERYONE–one by one–then two by two–then as an entire group–began informing me, in a cacophony of outrage: “THE LINK DOESN’T WORK!” “DEAD LINK!” “IT SAYS IT DOES NOT EXIST!”

It was the browser again. The same stinkin’ browser that garbles my pdfs. The same one that makes scrambled eggs of my Pages docs. The same browser that is the ONLY one the students are currently authorized to use on their school-issued iPads.  The same browser that is … going away tomorrow. (HOORAY!)

I told the students that we would wait to use the Doodle tomorrow. Then we listened to a podcast introducing the novel Rule of the Bone by Russell Banks through AppleTV (which is my favorite favorite favorite thing right now for sound and audio). Then, I read the first chapter of the book aloud, which is probably one of the most low-tech things I could’ve done at that point, and, frankly, it felt gooooooooooooood.

Though the assumption I made during Bumbling Fumble 1 was a classic human error, Bumbling Fumble 2 was even more of a Fumbling Bumble on MY part and less related to a lack of app or website compatibility or technology failure in general. It was a rookie error really. After twelve years in this game, I should really have known better. I wanted to use Socrative in Contemporary Lit yesterday, but instead of setting it up ahead of time, I had it in my head that it was so very easy and user-friendly that I could set it up on the fly. This is never a good approach in any arena. Don’t get me wrong, Socrative IS easy. It IS user-friendly. It does NOT take long to set up at all.  That is, unless you haven’t used it since the summer, and you’ve forgotten the basics, which describes me perfectly in this situation.

So, lesson (re-)learned: Flying by the seat of one’s pants is best saved for vacations and date nights. But, then again, failing in front of the students isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It shows my hu–manity, for goodness sakes! OH THE HUMANITYYYYY! It shows that I’m taking risks (a careless risk maybe, but nevertheless a human risk) and I didn’t let it fluster me, as I might have in my earlier years. We just broke out the dry erase markers and scratch paper and kicked it old-school for a minute.

No doubt we (students, teachers, administrators, parents) are all curving along the learning continuum this year, as we matriculate in this new digi-rich environment. I am learning something new every single day thus far, and maybe it’s just me, but true learning always includes fumbling and bumbling. For me, true learning is always delightfully awkward.

Posted on by morgetron | Leave a comment