Liz+Svadlenak

TCEA presente d many ideas and technology tips that I believe can be incorporated into the English classroom. The most enjoyable session I attended focused on the use of social networking tools in the classroom. The teachers from Birdville ISD presented about the use of Facebook, Twitter, You Tube and UStreamTV. I am hoping that Facebook will stay open in the district so we can use this to enhance communication with students and parents. You can see the presentation on [|http://tlawson.edublogs.org]. USteamTV is used in conjunction with You Tube and students are able to video themselves for projects, upload to You Tube and then share with their classes. It would be valuable to have access to web cams to utilize this technology with students. I  also went to a presentation on using technology to move toward a more effective writing pedagogy based on Write Cycle through turnitin.com. I realize that we have the capabilities for plagiarism tracking using Safe Assign, but there are tools that are available through Turn it In that can be utilized throughout the entire writing process. I was thoroughly impressed by the capabilities the program has for peer revision, revising, editing, and self-assessment. It could save valuable classroom time and teach students to be better and more effective writers using technology. The presenter pointed out that we can not only teach students to be better writers, but also better evaluators of writing. If we are able to teach them how to effectively evaluate a piece of writing, then we are in turn creating better writers. I was extremely impressed that you could complete much of the writing process through this program and it seems much more effective using this technology to implement the writing process. I went to the exhibit hall after the presentation and picked up some information about the programs available. Again, I realize that we have Safe Assign, but I think we could investigate the programming to determine the impact it could have on student learning in the ELA classroom and I feel it could be significant. I attended another session solely focused on blogging in and out of the classroom. I really like the idea of using blogs as a platform for writing in the classroom, but my only concern is the lack of access students have to computers and internet in the classroom. We have laptops for the English department, but they are often unreliable. Thus we are limited to the computer labs, where we are only allowed two consecutive days in the lab. I realize it is expensive to provide each student with a laptop, but even if we had just a classroom set to work with, it could solve some of the logistical problems we face at school with access to computers. Blogging could be a great forum for student writing and it is instantly published to the web. Through the comment section on blog posts, students would be able to receive immediate feedback to their posts from teachers or other students. The presenter teaches English II in Childress, Texas and has seen improvement in student writing, which she attributes to their blogging. She is able to have them write in many different genres and stated that she thinks they write better, because they have an instant audience on the web. Just a note, if students or parents do not want the blog to be public, Blogger does provide the option to make the blog private so that only the teacher is given permission to view it. 