Wife of Christoforos
Mother of Vicki
ESL teacher at the U of Maryland College Park
Proud webhead since 2006
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Week Five
Task 1. Read a short article and create a magazine cover which summarizes its message. The article I read was "Should You Flip Your Classroom?" by Ramsey Musallam. My magazine cover is here: 
I used BigHugeLabs because the ReadWriteThink interactive tool that was suggested did not provide a magazine cover--just a flier, a newspaper, a booklet or a brochure.
It is difficult to get students to summarize what they read. They always want to write too little or way too much. This activity holds promise as a way to make summarizing more creative. Still, it seems more like a writing activity than a reading activity.
Task 2: Read a lesson plan about having students rewrite parts of a play they are reading (e.g., What would have happened if Romeo had received the letter?). Think what story I would use to adapt this to my teaching context, and how I would adapt the lesson plan.
I confess I cannot imagine using this idea with my classes. We don't read plays; the emphasis is on developing college-level reading skills (primarily informational texts: articles and textbooks). I don't like the idea of encouraging students to think that they can improve on Shakespeare (it actually says in one suggested activity, "Act out the new, improved turning point...."). Maybe I am hopelessly old-fashioned. That said, there is a wealth of digital tools for creating plot diagrams, Venn diagrams, timelines, etc. here.
Bed time!
Cool Extra Idea: Self-published books from ePubBud. Well, I am not a creative person, so I am not sure if this site would serve me. They say everything is free, but when I browsed through a few of their books, the books were not free. They were very cheap (under $2), but they were not free. They mention the Nook (which I do have), but all their claims seem to require an iPad (which I don't have). Wait a minute--I found a book written by a teacher for a middle school class that appears to be downloadable... but I haven't tried to download one. Okay, on this page I found instructions for downloading to the Nook: On an original Nook or Nook Simple Touch download them to your computer, then connect the nook via USB and copy the epub files to its "Documents" folder! I guess this bears checking out further.
Final Reflection
But I am running out of steam. I think it's almost time to wrap things up for this session. There's much left for me to do--including going back to Weeks 1-4 and spending time looking at the artifacts created by others, which I never had time to do. As a result, my EVO2012 experience lacked the vital interaction that makes EVO sessions so compelling. This is nobody's fault except my own; I just couldn't seem to find the time to do the tasks and participate actively in the community. The moderators were great; whenever I submitted an assignment, I got feedback from one of them, usually within 24 hours. As a former EVO moderator myself, I know how time-consuming this is, and I thank them all for their attention and their comments. I also thank the many participants who commented on my submissions! I hope to return the favor in the coming months.
Yes, I promise: I will complete the survey, but not right now: I have to bolt my supper and leave for my weekly tai chi class! Bye for now!
Nina
