Boom! and you're published

Did you ever take a road trip when you were a kid?  Our family drives from California to Colorado twice a year!  Yes, that is 14-16 hours in the car with a 4 and 6 year old.  That is a long time in the car!  And while watching movies helps keep them entertained,  as a parent I don't want them to sit in front of a screen for that long (even if it does keep them quiet).  So we come up with games to play in the car.  We do some of the classics like I spy, guess what animal I'm thinking of and finding the alphabet on road signs.  

These games are great time killers on a long road trip, they don't really stimulate imagination or creativity in my kids.  To try and get them using their imagination more we play the "add on to the story" game.  This is where one person starts a story and then another person picks up where the first left off and adds their own part of the story.  Then it moves to the next person and so on until the story ends.  It may start off with "Once upon a time there was a princess that lived in a castle... "and end with "...they lived happily ever after"  (I have two girls) - but the middle is up to them to imagine and create as we drive.

I thought this would be an awesome thing to do in the classroom if possible.  Well, while looking around online this weekend I found a tool that makes this happen!   Admittedly this tool is probably best for elementary school aged students - but I think with some good directions and a little planning it could be used in the upper grades.  The website is Boom Writer - or @BoomWriter_ on Twitter.  

The website has a great "how-to" graphic...but here is a quick explaination.  The teacher goes in and creates an account and then adds their students in their classes within the site (as a MS and HS teacher I would not want to input all of my students in the system...but a good TA could make it work!).  There are ways to have them enter themselves in the class also if you want to go that route also.

Next you select a book beginning.  You could write your own or select from one of the many they have available on the their site.  And here is where the fun begins!  You have students read the first chapter and they write the second chapter to the book.  But wait - you don't have time to read all of the students second chapter, select the best and then tell students who had the best and why.  So Boom Writer sets this up for you!  Students go on and read other students chapters and they vote for their favorite.  I would be worried students would just vote for their friends or the "A+" student in the class.  But Boom Writer keeps the authors anonymous so you don't have to worry about those problems :)  

Once the second chapter is selected you can continue in the same way...keep going until your book is complete.  So if a student's chapter was not selected this will motivate them to write again to hopefully be voted in for chapter 3.  This just seems like a great tool and I would love to see my 1st grader get involved with this in her class.

So what happens at the end?  Well, I'm not in love with the way it ends...but there are pros and cons I suppose.  Finished books are published!  The problem is that they cost $9.99.  I did not see anywhere on their website that you can get a free book - but I suppose they do need to make money.  Again, in an elementary classroom this could be a great opportunity to have parents buy the book for their child as a keepsake.  It would be nice if Boom Writer would give the teacher a free book if 20 books were purchased - but like I said, I did not see that as an option on their website.

So anyway, I thought this was a pretty cool tool and wanted to share it with you.  I can see it being very powerful in the lower grades...allowing for creativity and critical thinking (leaving the story open so it can continue).  In the upper grades I think you could create a story for each class.  And maybe you just have them write but they do not purchase the book in the end?  

The possibilities with this are endless.  I can see two or three classes at the same site (or even better in different cities, states, countries) all in the same "class" all trying to be voted as the best next chapter.  As a science teacher I could see some sort of sci-fi book with real science facts intertwined.  History teachers could re-write history and see what changes students would allow.  Elective classes and PE could start any story they wanted and easily have students writing in their classes also!  And I think ELA teachers could figure out how to use this without any problems!

So if you give it a try let me know how it goes!  I'd love to read your story :) 

Irony

I have watched the movie Reality Bites several times - and one scene that popped in to my head this past week was when Lalaina (Winona Rider) is coming home from a job interview where she was asked to define the word irony and she stumbled over her words and was not able to fully explain the meaning of the word.  When she got home, she asked Troy (Ethan Hawke) if he could define irony and he said (without hesitation), "It's when the actual meaning is the complete opposite from the literal meaning".  And in some way that is how I am feeling during this first week of the school year.



I knew when the school year started that this was not going to be my typical year.  I knew that I would be leaving the classroom in just a few weeks so that I could work with some awesome teachers that were on special assignment in ed tech.  But I had already set my goals for the year (see them here) - and one of them was to try and be paperless...or at least use a lot less paper this year.  


So since I am not going to be teaching the entire year (if you want to know why read this) there was a big room change during the first week of school.  My room was taken by another chemistry teacher, and I ended up moving to a different room in a different pod.  So where does the irony come in you ask?  I was moved to the closest room to the copy room!  There are teachers who would love to have this room - steps away from three copy machines.  My resolution of not using paper makes the location of my room somewhat worthless.  We are one week in to the school year and I have not used 1 sheet of paper yet - our AP Environmental Science teacher has used over 1,000 sheets!  So while I am doing my best to be paperless, at least my new room allows me to see many teachers each day :)

In the beginning...

Every summer I take some time to reflect on the last year of teaching and how I can improve, what changes to make and any new things I want to learn over the summer.  This year is no different.  Looking back I have to admit it was not my best year.  I was out of the classroom 18% of the time - most were school related...but still - 18% is a lot of day!  Being out of the classroom that often made it difficult to keep classroom management in line and it felt like we were always playing catch up!

So in the coming year I have set four goals for myself professionally:

1. Be in class

This seems obvious, but I say "yes" to many things which means I end up going here and being there all too often.  I am a member of our district's advanced SDAIE training team, I am part of a cohort of teachers piloting a 1:1 netbook inquiry program, I am a BTSA support provider and last year I was a mentor to another teacher who needed some help getting on track.  Anyway, my school year is usually pretty busy - but I want to be in the classroom more than just 82% of the time this year!

2. Blogging

I started a blog last year and it lasted for about a month and only contained 3 blogs.  This year I am going to (try) blog at least twice a week.  I am going to force myself to sit down and reflect on what I am doing in the classroom each week.  I also will tweet them out and I am sure my great PLN will help keep me focused and offer advice as needed.  I believe blogging will help push me forward...after all, tt seems like all the awesome teachers/admin I follow on Twitter have a blog...and suggest blogging to everyone else.  

3. Flipping the classroom

My chemistry class is broken up in to four units - two before winter break (when did we stop calling it Christmas break?) and two before state testing.  Last year I tried to flip my class after the first unit - but the students did not approve.  I blame myself, I did not really explain what it was or how it would help them.  This year I am going to start off using the flipped model and hopefully things will go a little more smoothly.  I have started making my videos - but what I am most nervous about is the class time - or the prep for the class time!  I know flipping will give me more time to do labs...but labs take time to set up and put away...so hopefully I end up with an awesome TA!

4. Going paperless (or using less paper)

I recently had the pleasure of co-moderating #CAedchat with @SamPatue and @JenRoberts1 about the paperless classroom.  I was inspired by all the teachers who are looking to do the same thing as me - use less paper in the classroom.  This morning during that in and out sleepy state - you know it...the time after you have looked at the clock but before you actually get out of bed - I had a dream.  It was the first day of school and I did not have a syllabus ready for my students.  I quickly grabbed last year's syllabus and ran to the xerox room.  As I was dream copying I was beating myself up over using so much paper on day 1.  When I woke up I knew I needed to get my syllabus ready and put it on Google Docs so I won't need to use paper for it this year!  That will save my first 185 or so pieces of paper!

• By the way - for a great 'going paperless' blog read Sam Patterson's blog  
• Jen Roberts has been nearly paperless for years! Here is her blog

Well that is it! Those are my goals.  I will have to refer back to this post in June to see how it has gone!  Wish me luck...and I wish all of you luck with what ever your goals are for this year!