Category Archives: Professional Development

Blogging, Professional Development, Teaching Literature, Web 2.0, Wikis

GCTE, Reflection, Looking Ahead

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Some of you may know I went to the annual GCTE (Georgia Council of Teachers of English) convention this weekend.  It was great, but the numbers were down — probably the economy.  I know lots of the schools systems have probably told teachers they would not pay to send them to conventions this year.  For instance, my children’s system is not paying for field trips this year, so it may be they are also not paying for conventions.  I presented a session on Using Blogs and Wikis for Professional Development.  I was at first disappointed that it was somewhat sparsely attended, but I think that was the norm.  Several sessions I attended were like that.  I had six folks, which I think is just about what I had at GISA.  It makes sense that the folks who attended the Folger TSI except for Mike LoMonico, who was awesome moral support, didn’t come as I had presented some of the technologies I shared with them over the summer.  Lots of my fellow TSI participants were there, and it was good to see them again.  I was also grateful that my friend and colleague Rebecca came to my session, even though she didn’t have to because she works with me, and I was thrilled to finally meet Clix after working with her online for a couple of years.  She also came to my session even though she already knew everything I was sharing (thanks!).  Aside from my three friends, I had three other attendees, and I hope they found it interesting and learned something they can use.  I do think the presentation went well.  I used Keynote instead of PowerPoint, and I basically wrote down everything I wanted to say in my notes and created the presentation from that so I could avoid crowding my slides.  I’m learning!  Keynote has such beautiful templates!

I went to Mike LoMonico’s Folger presentation, and it was good as always.  Julie Rucker and I covered some of the same ground, but our focuses (foci, if you want to be a pedant) were different, and it was good to meet her as well.  I also attended Buffy Hamilton’s presentation on multigenre research projects, and I am most excited to try one.  Multigenre research projects are something I had heard about but didn’t know much about, so I saw Buffy’s presentation as a great opportunity to learn more.  She created a fabulous wiki to share her presentation.  I found it so inspiring; I think I’ll work some more on the wiki I created for mine.

Aside from the wonderful presentations, the best part of GCTE was seeing everyone again.  Gerald Boyd, who is our state Language Arts Coordinator, used to be the Language Arts Coordinator for Houston County when I worked in that system, and we had crossed paths on several occasions.  It was also good to see Peg Graham again, who was not my professor when I went to UGA, but whom I knew through my own professor.  Of course, all the Folger folks were fun to see again.  I also got to meet Jim Cope, with whom I have exchanged e-mails and who really saved my rear-end when he loaned me a cable I didn’t realize I had forgotten to pack.

I had a great time, and I hope Rebecca did, too.  I feel excited and energized!

Last week, I had one of my classes present their scenes from Taming of the Shrew. I have some great comic actors in my classroom.  This coming week, another class will present scenes from A Midsummer Night’s Dream.  I am looking forward to seeing these scenes as well.  My ninth graders will begin preparing to present scenes from Romeo and Juliet, too.  I am so excited to have finally figured this out.  I have used some Folger stuff for years, but I shied away from performance because I just wasn’t sure how well it would help students learn the play.  And yes, I know how ridiculous that sounds.  After actually going through the process of performance and presentation myself, I learned how much it truly does help foster close reading, critical thinking, and enjoyment of the plays, and the light bulb finally went off.  I will never teach a Shakespeare play in the future without incorporating some elements of performance.

Here is my GCTE presentation for those who are interested:

Using Blogs and Wikis for Professional Development

View more presentations from Dana Huff. (tags: teaching education)
Blogging, Professional Development, Reflection, Wikis

Blogs, and Wikis, and Nings, and Things

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This is liable to be a rambly post, and frankly, I’m not sure I like reading those myself, but sometimes they have to be written.

Those of you who are members of the UbD Educators wiki — are you interested in having a Ning, too?  It wouldn’t mean shutting down the wiki, but Nings seem to enable more different kinds of interaction, so I thought I’d float the question.  Jim Burke’s new Ning has become incredibly active and interesting, but he’s also Jim Burke.  Still, the success of Jim’s Ning made me wonder about UbD Educators.

Which leads me to something I have been mulling over for a while.  I think I’m stretched too thin.  I join too many online “clubs.”  And I probably just used unnecessary quotation marks.  I am currently a member of nine Nings (0nly about two or three of which I even look at, much less contribute to) and nine (or ten?) wikis, again most of which I don’t contribute to, or at least not regularly.  I have six (I think) blogs, and the one I update most is the one I do for my students.  This one comes in second, followed by my book blog.  My other blogs are fairly shamefully dormant.  When I look at the numbers, I freak out a little and feel bad.  I also wonder what to do about it, or whether what I’m currently doing is OK.

Long term career goal I’ve been thinking about for a couple of years: teacher education.  I think I want to work with English Education majors.  I’m not sure what I need to do to reach that goal, but the good news is that I am in touch with my own English Education professors, and I can ask them.  Meanwhile, if you do work with preservice English teachers, please share your advice or experiences.

I asked this question on Twitter, but got no response.  If I am a member of ISTE, is it still worthwhile to join AECT?  My ITMA program at VA Tech keeps talking about AECT, but all the tech folks in the Edublogosphere (should that be capitalized?) always mention ISTE.  Just wondering.

Finally, if you are headed to the Georgia Council of Teachers of English (GCTE) conference in February, I invite you to the session I’m presenting on Using Blogs and Wikis for Professional Development on Friday.  It’s the same session I presented at November’s GISA conference, so if you already came to that, you wouldn’t miss anything new if you skipped it.  Suggestions for the presentation are welcome.  If you were going to the session, what would you hope to learn or want to know?

OK, I have picked your brain enough today, Internet.

Blogging, Professional Development, Web 2.0

English Companion Ning

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I am so excited!  Some time ago, I mentioned that two English teachers I’d love to see blogging are Jim Burke and Carol Jago.  Jim Burke has created a Ning for English teachers, where, presumably, we can all look forward to regular posts in the form of blogs or forum posts from Jim!  And Carol is a member, too, so perhaps we can expect the same from her as well.  Some of you have already received an invitation from me to join the Ning, but if not, consider yourself invited and come on over.  Looks pretty active already.

Professional Development

NCTE Recap

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I have been recovering from not having a “true” weekend, and I have neglected posting my recap of Saturday and Sunday at NCTE.

Great sessions on Saturday!  I went to Karl Fisch and Anne Smith’s session first.  As Karl noted, the early hour meant it was more sparsely attended than it should have been.  Both were (of course) engaging and interesting speakers.  The second session I went to was on leading an English department.  The session was packed.  I sat on the floor.  It was during that session that I decided I would not hike to the Marriott River Center again unless the session looked really, really good.

I kept changing my mind about what I wanted to see and do.  I know I spent a good chunk of time on Saturday in the exhibits, but I know I went to at least one session in the afternoon, and I just can’t remember what it was.  I’m sure that doesn’t necessarily mean it wasn’t good — it means my brain is fried.  I went to a couple of sessions sponsored by the National Writing Project (one of which was on digital storytelling and the other of which was about creative writing projects), but I can’t remember when they were.  Both were good, although I really enjoyed the digital storytelling one.  That’s the next big thing I haven’t tried before that I plan to try as a result of the conference.

Sunday I went to a session on graphic novels because my professor from UGA, Mark Faust, was going to be there.  It was great to see him again!  The graphic novels presentations was really good, even though I didn’t necessarily anticipate getting much out of it.  I am not opposed to graphic novels.  I don’t read them, and perhaps I should, but because I don’t read them, maybe I don’t get their appeal.  I admit that if they get “reluctant readers” to read, I’m all for them.  Whatever works.

The last session I went to was led by a trio of engaging teachers from Amarillo, and it discussed writing.  Several tools for improving student writing at the sentence level especially were presented, but more than the materials, I enjoyed their presentation style.  They were fun, and it was a nice note on which to end the conference.

Everyone I bumped into was so friendly and helpful; while waiting for the shuttle van and in line at UPS, I discovered yet again that English teachers are so nice.  One big downer about the conference was the lack of free wifi.  I know it would have been expensive, but at a conference about shift and technology, it sent the wrong message to participants who wanted wifi not to provide it.  I spent well over $50 on wifi between the convention center and the hotel.  Not cool.  Another complaint I have is that I think the NCTE Ning was really publicized, and I felt presenters were encouraged to use it to upload materials.  So why did so few of them know about it?  I can’t figure out where these guys were because the Ning was mentioned so much, and it was all over the conference.  A tech station in the NCTE store even had a person on staff to help attendees sign up for the Ning.  I don’t get it.  At any rate, if you check out the Ning, you can perhaps get some good materials if you weren’t able to attend the conference, and I think it was a great idea for NCTE to establish the Ning.

Moment that made me raise my eyebrows: a woman in one of the sessions I attended had never heard of Wikipedia.  I showed it to her.  It was cool, but seriously?

The highlight of the convention: all my interactions with the Folger Shakespeare Library folks.  I went to one of their sessions — excellent, by the way — on Friday and learned about how I can use ideas from PostSecret and radio plays to create Shakespeare projects (I shared the Shakespeare wiki for that session already).  The Folgerians present all had dinner on Saturday night, and whenever the Folgerians get together, that means fun.  I had some great conversations, and I look forward to working closely with Folger in the future.  I was missing Joe Scotese and the participants in my own Teaching Shakespeare Institute from last June, but we had a good time.

I still haven’t seen Twilight, but I’m hoping that will happen this weekend.

Oh, and before I forget, someone owes Nikki Giovanni an apology.  I don’t think NCTE publicized her book signing enough, and at any rate, they ran out of books, but the excellent rep from SourceBooks gamely took a picture for me anyway, and here it is:

I got to tell her I’m a Virginia Tech student, albeit online, but I really wish I could take one of her classes.

Professional Development

NCTE 2008: Friday

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Today began with a general session keynoted by Marc Prensky.  Carla Beard has a nice summary of the talk he gave.

After that, I went to a session on Teaching Shakespeare to the Class of 2020.  Presenters were Mike LoMonico, Julia Perlowski, and Chris Shamburg, who it was nice to finally meet.  Of course, the Folger folks always do wonderful presentations, and this one was no exception.  Mike created a wiki that has lots of goodies he, Julia, and Chris shared in the presentation today.  I especially like the part when Chris demonstrated how easy it is to use Audacity to create a recording of a scene complete with Foley art.

Next, I was off to a session called Technology Toolkit Roadshow, a roundtable session with ideas presented by Carla Beard, Sara Kajder, Gretchen Lee, Nancy Patterson, and Bud Hunt.  I saw Jim Burke there.  Now if there is one teacher I’d like to see blogging, it’s Jim Burke.  And if there’s another, it’s Carol Jago.  However, I also understand they are both pretty busy and involved with NCTE… still if this wife, mother of three, full-time teacher, department chair, and half-time grad student can occasionally update a blog.  Just saying.

After that, I went to a session called Shifting Heroes: Teaching Traditional, Tragic, Promethean, Bryonic, Code and Anti Heroes Utilizing Popular Culture, Literature, Cinema, and Video Games.  It was interesting in that I hadn’t quite made some of the connections the presenters had made between Campbell and Jung’s ideas (among those of others) and modern heros of pop culture whether real or fictional.  I chatted on a site Bud Hunt set up for NCTE the whole time, and it worked well for me to engage in my learning.  Which brings me to a big beef I have with the convention.  No free wifi.  In a convention about Shift and Technology!  I realize it’s expensive, but it underscores an interesting and ironic point about access.  Wifi should be ubiquitous and free, in my opinion, but instead I’m spending more on wife at this conference between having to pay for access at my hotel (where it should also be free), and the conference.  And in my opinion, it is seriously not cheap.

I missed lunch because they didn’t really put enough time in the schedule for it, but I did finally get to meet Bud Hunt after reading his blog for about three years, and I met Laura Deisley, who is from my neck of the woods.

The afternoon sessions were a little iffier.  I don’t want to hurt feelings, but one was presented on an overhead projector, and it wasn’t terribly engaging, which is a shame because the ideas were pretty good — I know because I glanced at her book.  I couldn’t make up my mind about the last session.  I originally planned to go to one that addressed grammar, but changed my mind at the last minute and chose a different one.  This presentation was a PowerPoint with slides crammed with text, and we were not told until the end of the session that the presenters had prepared a wiki with all the materials and ideas they discussed.  That kind of bothered me because I had spent most of the time frantically trying take notes and feeling frustrated when they moved on before I could catch it all, only to find I could have been enjoying myself and listening to them more closely had I known about the wiki.  The presentation had some solid information, but I felt frustrated by the presentation skills.  Not that I am some great authority.  I have given terrible presentations before.  I actually think I’m terrified to present at NCTE, even though I’ve presented in other places before.

So that’s my recap for today.  I am looking forward to more learning tomorrow.  If you are looking for me, I’ll be wearing black slacks and a bluish-gray blouse.  I have gray hair.  I will most likely be fussing with my MacBook.

Blogging, Professional Development

NCTE 2008: Thursday

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After breakfast and a quick chat with my husband and my mom, I went to the Alamo.  The tour interested me a great deal, and if you go, it’s worth it to rent the mp3 player for the audio tour.  The guy running the booth for the audio tour also said nice things about my hair, which is always a nice way to start the day.

I went to a preconference session on teaching tone, and it was very interesting and encouraging.  Carol Jago and John Golden presented.  Carol had some really snazzy boots, but aside from that, she is a warm and engaging speaker, and she shared some solid ideas about teaching tone.  John Golden is very funny.  I’m not sure I would have thought of using some of his techniques for teaching tone, which include use of images and creating multimedia projects, but they were really good ideas.

After that session, I went to the Secondary Level Get-Together.  I met Penny Kittle (who is very tall and very nice), and I saw Mike LoMonico again (who is always lovely to see).  The featured speaker was Francine Prose.  I had read her article “I Know Why the Caged Bird Can’t Read” not too long ago (Nancy sent it to me), and it challenged my thinking, but I also disagreed with parts of it.  Prose spoke about that article and some of the backlash it has received and mentioned that over time, she has come to change some of the views she expressed in that article.  She felt that many teachers saw the article as an attack, and she explained that she values what English teachers do and did not mean for anyone to take her criticism about how she saw some works of literature being taught as an indictment of teachers.  When I met her to get my books signed (we received copies of Reading Like a Writer and Goldengrove), I told her about how the article had challenged my thinking, but also that I found her comments about revisiting her views interesting in light of the fact that we readers tend to see writers’ viewpoints as fixed and unchanging because the print is always there.  It’s something I haven’t given much thought to, considering I’m an English teacher.  What Prose said in response really struck me, and I’ll paraphrase it here because I didn’t write her words down immediately after.  She said that if you really want to know what you think about something, try publishing it and revisiting it through the feedback you get from others.  That sounds like blogging to me, although I’m sure she wasn’t thinking of blogging when she said it.  I know blogging has certainly made me think more about everything I teach and read and think, and the feedback from others, whether agreeing with me or challenging me, has made me think about it even more.

I wish it were possible for me to attend this conference every year.  It’s got to be the most valuable interaction I can have with my peers outside of blogging (which has a smaller audience and can sometimes feel like an echo chamber).

Blogging, Professional Development

NCTE Bound

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Tomorrow evening I’ll be flying to San Antonio to the NCTE Annual Conference.  I haven’t been to an NCTE conference since 1998, which took place in Nashville.  I went then because Atlanta is within easy driving distance of Nashville.  While this is not true of San Antonio, I really wanted to go this year because the focus is on 21st century learning and technology.

I’ll be blogging from the conference, and possibly the hotel, but I think it’s a crime I will have to pay for wifi at the hotel.  Hope it’s free at the convention center.  At any rate, if you read this blog, feel free to say “hi.”  I’m meeting up with some Folger folks on Saturday night, and if you want to go see Twilight Friday night, let me know.