When it comes together

Our Explorer Biography wiki projects are coming along. We've gone over finding important information, researching, when to fact check, note taking, and paragraphing. Huge undertaking, but certainly worthwhile. The achievement I'm most proud of is working on citations.

Citations are the bane of my existence. I know kids need to do it. But our projects typically bog down, and citations get swept aside. This time I had them do it in the middle of the project. We used the OSLIS citation maker (I'll add a link later, the downfall of the mobile blogger app). I demoed it and then each had to do 1 as a ticket to recess. The result? Success! MLA format citations on their pages!

This will dovetail nicely into our social studies cba (curriculum based assessment). The cba is next- a chance I research an idea, evaluate points of view, and construct a plan of action. Very excited!

*note: unfortunately I can't share our wiki pages. They are on our internal site called haiku (google it, worth checking out). It keeps us in line with child privacy laws.

Thank You Internet

We're in the middle of Internet research. The project is to create a biographical wikiproject on an explorer. Kids need multiple sources, and need to take notes aimed at gaining a variety of pieces of information. The information will answer questions that they posed- things they would expect in a biography.

While researching our ship ran afoul.. How you ask? We found faulty research! It was brilliant, and even more perfect than I cod have planned. You see you uncovered a site that, on the surface, looks like a regular website. Kids had found it, printed stuff from it, and went along their merry way. Then someone actually read it. The exchange went like this:

-Student: Mr. Hanson, the text says Sir Francis Drake returned to his baking company. I don't get it.
-Me: huh? Baking company?
-Student: yeah, it says right here that he used a stolen recipe to start his baking company that still bakes cakes today (Re: Drake's cakes).
-me: hmm, let's go back and re-read. I'm not sure we are getting accurate info.

Of course this led us to re-read and uncover the errors in our poor researching. New Jersey, boardwalks, and stolen recipes on CD were all part of the rather interesting piece of historical fiction. But it brought out the need to do some fact checking. As I read this aloud to giggles and hoots, the message was clear. Go back over your work. Since? The quality of research, note taking, and work has improved. Hallelujah!

How to balance...

I struggle with blogging. I want to. I do. Blogging using the blogger app helps, but doesn't eliminate my one impediment. Time.

I don't have the time I used to. Trying to balance teaching, parenting, and running is a challenge. Three full time jobs really. So some things have been cut out, at least temporarily. Blogging is one of those things.

But I resolve to be consistent. Every Monday - with a promise that if I can do more I will. We just started a wiki project where we are building biographical pages for explorers that came to North America. I love the project based work because it hits a number of items and has built in value- kids want to work through it, and they want to work on the tech stuff. Win win.

I promise to do better. It is good for me to talk it out.