tragedy and success!!!

Yesterday I learned something I already knew but had forgotten. It's best to try a new thing with a sample student before you take it to class. I was using Padlet to explore the theme of isolation as an intro to Ethan Frome. Great tool, great idea, except a few problems-make sure you know how to get the kids in and make sure you have given them permission to edit(so they can add their content) I did wing it and we did explore the idea but it was not as I had wanted. But..... the next period I had those bugs figured out, not only was it a great experience, the kids loved adding their comments and seeing it immediately on the screen. Technology is only as good as the user, bummer. But take a look at what we did. Really nice, goal: creation, not gathering of facts:

Created with Padlet

socrative

we had a great review quiz, I used it as a way to go over the reading of some criticism of Turn of the Screw. I didn't grade it, really I used it to spur discussion, which it did well. I had some short answer, but the kids loved the multiple choice because it shows a graph immediately. I hadn't used this last year much but will really implement it this year. The kids loved it, were in engaged and as I observed I could assess their reading. They really loved that as soon as they came in I said get your phones out! 11/5 we are reading the Yellow Wallpaper. Instead of just projecting it, I put it in subtext then will project so I can model annotation. I may use the i-pads if they are available so they can put their annotations on and then they could display-we'll see, not necessary but it may be a way to see if reading on subtext is a way to coerce annotation-