Another Trailer Draws Rave Reviews!

Caitlin Hinton's Trailer for Pumpkin Head by Wendell Minor has drawn rave reviews and has even been posted to the FaceBook Fan Page for the Book.

Hey Caitlin, Congrats! Your trailer is hilarious!

I'll post on our FB Fan Page. I wish you great success.

My best, Wendell Minor

Thanks to Jamie Baxter for Her Trailer!

Marcus Pfister, the author of Rainbow Fish to the Rescue for which Jamie Baxter created a Book Trailer, has sent her a Thank You from his home in Bern, Switzerland!

To: jamie.baxter0214@gmail.com


Dear Jamie,

Thank you very much for sending me the link: [Rainbow Fish to the Rescue Book Trailer]

You did a great job!

With best regards from Bern,

Marcus Pfister

Thank You from New Zealand

Thank You from New Zealand

To Dr Strange and the students of EDM310,

Thank you all for leaving Room 13 students comments on their blogs. We are all on holiday until the 14th of October. We appreciate the time you spent to leave comments and will respond to all questions when students return. Have a wonderful year and thank you all again.

Miss Lavakula

On Time 9/29/13

The image says On Time. I'll discuss NOT DONE on TIME

Blog Posts #6 NOT DONE on TIME - 18 or 18%
Book Trailer NOT DONE on TIME - 21 or 21%

Better. But still room for improvement.

Weekly Count

The image says On Time. I'll discuss NOT DONE on TIME

Blog Posts #5 NOT DONE on TIME - 20 or 19%
My Sentence Videos NOT DONE on TIME - 34 or 33% (not including one excused)
My Passion Videos NOT DONE on TIME - 34 or 33% (not including one excused)

Need I say more?

Podcast Assignments Now Posted

The topic assignments for your podcasts have now been posted on the Google Doc Groups Master List Fall 2013. The topics are described in Podcast Topics Fall 2013.

Blogpost #5 Assignment Changed

I have changed the Blogpost #5 Assignment by eliminating the voice over requirement for a Google Docs Presentation or a Prezi. See Version 8 of Blogpost Assignments.

Report Card

Not so hot, at least for the C4T#1 and the Presentation (Project #3).

Not Posted

Presentation - 30 students did not post (29%)

C4T#1 Report - 24 students did not post (23%)

Blog Post #4 - 12 students did not post (12%) This is actually better than in most semesters.

Making A Difference!

Dear Dr. Strange,

Would you please tell your students thank you! All of my students have LOVED getting the comments. They all get very excited, and I told them to respond back to the person who left them a comment. If your students have some extra time, I know my students would appreciate them commenting again.

Thanks,
Jamie Lynn

Mandatory Class Date Change

Change Your Calendars
The November dates for Mandatory Classes have changed. The new dates are:

Monday/Wednesday Class:  November 11, 13
Tuesday/Thursday Classes: November 12, 14
Wednesday Night Class:  November 13 (6:00-8:30)

Change Your Calendars Accordingly

Remember that there is an automatic reduction in your final grade for every mandatory class you meet. (Wednesday night mandatory classes missed reduce your grade one entire letter.)

You can come to other classes that week to make up any absences with my advance approval.

Any acceptable excuses must be in writing and must be approved by me - preferably in advance.

C4K Has Started

1. Read the instructions for C4Ks EVEN IF YOU HAVE ALREADY READ IT. Read general Rules on p. 14 and specific rules for C4Ks on p. 16 of the Project Instructions. In each of the last two semester problems have arisen with students and teachers because EDM310 students did not read and follow these instructions. READ THE INSTRUCTIONS!

2. We will start with Mrs. Martin's 10th grade English Class at Baldwin County High School. Mrs. Martin was my first EDM310 Lab Associate. This is her second year as a teacher - both years teaching 10th grade English at Baldwin County High School.

3. Go to the C4K Doc which will appear in your Doc mid to late afternoon today Monday September 9, 2013.

4. Read the instructions on lines 1-6 of the C4K Assignmenst Doc.

5. You should always try to find the teacher's instructions before you read and leave a comment for the students. Mrs. Martin's instructions are found on the URL shown on the C4K assignment sheet. She has three different classes. The instructions are the same for all three classes. When you click on the URL on the line with your name on it, READ THE INSTRUCTIONS!

6. Mrs. Martin has provided these additional comments in an email to me:

Dear Dr. Strange,

Some of my students will not have a post for the This I Believe essay. I had to edit their blogs because of a problem I encountered. The majority of them should have the essay.

I now have 3 different blogs for each class that will be located on my class website.

For the This I Believe essay, students had to state what they believed and give a personal experience that went along with the belief. I am teaching all regular students, and this was their first essay. I had them copy and paste the essay they turned in; therefore, many of them still have grammatical errors. Please tell your students to comment on how well they did explaining their belief. If they would like to include constructive criticism that is okay.

Also, some of my students will have audio recordings of them reading their essay. If your students want to listen they can!!!

Thanks!

Jamie Lynn

7. Click on the URL on the line with your name in Columns A and B. Read Mrs. Martin's assignment This I Believe.

8. To find your student's blog, go to the URL provided. Scroll down and find the name of your student in the right column. Click on the name of your student.

9. Be sure to include your name, that you are a student in EDM310 at USA, and a link to your blog. To create a link to your blog you must know what we covered in all classes last week.

You can see what Blogger does by creating a link in Blogger. You can also review how Mrs. Yollis' third graders create links by reading #3 of the instructions on p. 13 of the Activities Manual and by going to the link HTML Instructions for 3rd Graders in Mrs. Yollis' Class . I also created a video today that is now on YouTube: Creating Links with HTML Code

10. REMEMBER THESE THINGS WHEN YOU WRITE YOUR COMMENT
a) You are not the student's peer
b) Your are not the student's teacher
c) You have been invited to leave comments that follow the instructions of Mrs. Martin, the teacher, that are listed above
d) You are a visitor who lets the student know that the world can visit their blog
e) You are a visitor who encourages good work shared with the world
f) You are a visitor that invites a response to your blog with a working link in your comment

NOTE Mrs. Martin informs me that the students who have no post will have them by tomorrow Tuesday 9/10/13. in order to try and help her get all of her students to post to their blog, I agreed to ask you to wait until late Tuesday (or later) to try and leave a comment for those students of Mrs. Martin who still have not posted. If your last name falls between Lusker and Westry, please wait until 4pm Tuesday to try to leave a comment. If you do not wait you will find no post. Thanks from me and Mrs. Martin. She thinks this will get most of the students to finish their posts.

Completed ON TIME

Only 10% of the class failed to post Blog Post #3 on time. That is the best record since EDM310 began (in its new form) over 4 years ago! Keep it up!

100,000 Visitors

At 7:15 pm CDT yesterday Wednesday September 4 we reached 100,000 unique daily visitors to the EDM310 Blog! We do not know (yet) who that visitor was but we do know the visitor was from Hattisburg, Mississippi. More to follow.

Rubrics

We have mandatory class meeting tomorrow (Wednesday September 4) and Thursday September 5.

We have three items on the agenda:

1. Questions after 2 weeks. Things should be getting less opaque and much clearer. You probably still have lots of questions, however. We will try and address them.

2. Issues with Collaborative Blog Post Assignments. You should have read the latest version of the Blog Post #2 instructions for collaborative blog posts (found on p. 11 of version 5 of the Blog Post Instructions). Be sure you are using the latest version. These instructions are also discussed in two blogposts on the Class Blog: Clarification of Group Blog Posts and More Clarification of Cooperative Blog Posts.

You can find a list (in my short note style) of problems I identified with the Blog Posts #2 in the Group Master List Doc that I have shared with you and that is on your Google Drive. Look at the list. See if there are any problems I have identified with your group. Make the necessary corrections or be prepared Wednesday and Thursday to ask the questions that will lead to your learning how to make the necessary corrections.

3. Rubrics. I had hoped to get to rubrics last week. For several reasons that did not happen. Here is a chart showing the responses to this question on the Initial Questionnaire: How much do you know about rubrics? 1 was "I have never heard of rubrics." 10 was "I am an expert on rubrics."

We are well supplied with experts (and near experts). As you can see, 24 students (23%) identified themselves as experts or near-experts (responses 8 through 10) on rubrics. Even though 2 of these students have since dropped the course we will probably have several student experts in every class. I will check the list of student experts soon to see how they are distributed among the classes.

Update Yes, the experts are well distributed!
MW4 7 rubric experts
W6 4 rubric experts
TT11 6 rubric experts
TT2 5 rubric experts

For those of you who are not already experts on rubrics (46% of you say you know very little about rubrics - responses 1, 2 and 3; 32% of you say you know some about rubrics - responses 4, 5, 6, and 7) there are several things you should do before your class. Even if you consider yourself an expert on rubrics (which I do not do about myself) I suggest you do these things!

a. Find out the meaning of rubric in education terminology. The use of rubric in education is quite recent (1981).

b. Look at some examples of rubrics.

c. Look at some examples of rubrics for the grade levels (in general) you hope to teach.

d. Look at some examples of rubrics that incorporate the Common Core (or Alabama College and Career Ready Standards).

e. Find templates for rubric construction.

d. Draft a rubric (for discussion with your group this week) that could be used to evaluate your own and your classmates' blog posts.

Yes, this post is an assignment that has two purposes: a) to prepare you to be an effective participant in class this Wednesday or Thursday and b) to see whether you are reading the blog on a regular basis.