animal is going somewhere."
~Groucho Marx
(Had to do a throw out to Groucho Marks which seems pretty apropos for this post.)
Aren't we always going somewhere? When one embeds technology into your classroom, as seamlessly as the air itself, students are going everywhere on-line. What's a teacher to do to help remind them about their responsibility to responding and interacting with others.
To help remember important components, to on-line commenting and responding, I don these silly glasses (BTW...that's not Groucho Marx in the photo), to help students remember the SPECS. I also provided the short video snippets I shared with my students to help explain each letter. Then, I showed fun videos and had students share SPECS comments in a Today's Meet room. I was able to do this lesson in a rotation format with the entire 4th/5th grade. On average, it took about an hour.
To help remember important components, to on-line commenting and responding, I don these silly glasses (BTW...that's not Groucho Marx in the photo), to help students remember the SPECS. I also provided the short video snippets I shared with my students to help explain each letter. Then, I showed fun videos and had students share SPECS comments in a Today's Meet room. I was able to do this lesson in a rotation format with the entire 4th/5th grade. On average, it took about an hour.
S | It's specific to the topic at hand. If the post is about cantaloupes and you start writing about your horse riding lesson....that's a no-no. |
P | Pay Attention to Punctuation. Make sure you have all your conventions, spelling, and grammar correct. Remember to reread before you publish. |
E | Provide evidence from the text. When reading or commenting, include an example directly from the text. What is it exactly you liked or didn't or had an opinion on. |
C | Be carefully considerate of your audience. The author or publisher of the piece did so for a reason. Even if you adamantly disagree with it or think it's not that good, consider their feelings along with others reading your comment. |
S | At least two sentences. I find with two sentences, there is a bit more thought that goes into the comment. It also allows for more detail. I will also encourage students to include a question after the comment, to elicit a variety of responses. |
SPECS Slides | After each video, we talk about the specific criteria mentioned. For example, for the "Evidence" snippet, it's a TV commercial that gives very specific evidence as to why those make good uniforms. |
Next Steps- Practice
Then, I open up a room on Today's Meet, which is a web based site that allows the user to create a "Room" and with a certain URL address, join. You provide your name and comment which fits into 140 characters. It creates a running conversation of everyone's comments. The downside is there is no way to truly track students, but isn't that what practicing Digital Citizenship is all about? I recently found out about 81 Dash which is similar and there is more tracking ability. I'll be trying that in the Fall.
Next, I show a short video (See list below), telling the students to be thinking of their SPECS comment. I provide them time after the video to post and then take time to point out clear and solid SPECS comments by projecting them for all to see.
I did as many videos as time allotted. Then, for every subsequent lesson, it was easy to remind students to use SPECS for commenting.
If you have any ideas or find some great resources for SPECS, I'd love to hear about it.
Next, I show a short video (See list below), telling the students to be thinking of their SPECS comment. I provide them time after the video to post and then take time to point out clear and solid SPECS comments by projecting them for all to see.
I did as many videos as time allotted. Then, for every subsequent lesson, it was easy to remind students to use SPECS for commenting.
If you have any ideas or find some great resources for SPECS, I'd love to hear about it.
Videos I showAlso located at the end of the slide show. |