6 Word Memoir

My 7th and 8th graders are working on a 6 Word Memoir project. We are a part of a collaboration that was put together by Kelly Gallagher.  In Kelly's words:

"The basic idea of this project is to tell the world who you are in SIX words. It's actually much more difficult than you think. This project was inspired by Smith Magazine but I think that it's a great way to get students thinking about who they are.

Once you accept this mission, students could create interesting individual ways or a class way of showing who they are (illustrations, podcasts, video, text, etc.) that best shows who they are. This will be displayed on a wiki that has already been created."

To introduce the project, I showed the students a slideshow of 6 Word Memoirs by NPR.  Each student received a worksheet to jot down words that they felt described themselves (adjectives, nouns, goals, favorites, verbs).  Once they had a batch of words ready, they headed to the computers to create "fridge magnets".  These were manipulated until they had a 6 word phrase for themselves which they wrote on the back of the worksheet.

Imagine, if you will, these middle school students searching for 6 words and ONLY 6 words that come together to describe the very essence of self.  This was fascinating to watch as the activity progressed.  To bring their creativity out even further, I wanted them to express their memoirs visually.  What better way to do this than with lots of motion, pictures, and loud music?

Now the fun part.  I have an Educator Account with Animoto in which the students and I get free unlimited full-length video creation  accounts with an all-access pass (the sign up process is not immediate, so leave yourself some lead time of a week or two before utilizing the service with students). Using the old gmail trick to make student accounts (teacher account + student name), each of my students has a login for Animoto.  Better yet, everything they make gets emailed to me.  This keeps everybody on their toes!

My 6 word memoir is:  Technology geek Mom striving for balance



To keep everything uniform, I assigned the students to find 2 images per word (we are using copyright correct pictures & sources).  Along with their 6 words, they have a total of 18 objects each in their Animoto projects.  They were to choose music from the Animoto gallery and create a video.  Students are still working on them, but a few have been posted on the 6 Word Memoir wiki under the Hampstead Academy page.  The project process is also outlined on the wiki.

We would love to hear what you think about their work thus far - and keep checking back for more submissions once we are back from winter break.  I am thinking about adding one more activity in which we look at all the 6 word memoirs with something like Wordle.  Stay tuned!

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48 Hours of Blogging Wisdom

What an evolution! All I wanted was to start a blog, how hard could that be? HA! My gift to you, the blogger wanna-be’s, the novice bloggers… is my 48 hours worth of blogging wisdom (I don’t think this lifts me out of the novice category yet, there must be more dues to pay or something).

Wordpress.com was my original choice. I need free and this option looks professional. Edublogs (the free version) highlights random words and makes it look as though I am emphasizing them. I don’t like that. Blogger has a limited range of themes to choose from and I wanted more “oomph”. Off to WP I went and made my blog.

All was going well and I began to write my first post. Wait, I can’t seem to embed the Twtpoll I need. No problem, I’ll just screenshot it and make it an image. Hold on, I can’t embed the Animoto video for a school project I want to tell you about. Umm, why won’t this Eco-Safe widget load, it’s a cool one that lets users save the page as a PDF or email it to save printing. The journey between point A and point B just took a detour and I’m off researching and talking to my Twitter PLN. Guess what? Wordpress won’t let me use JavaScript.

My vision for my blog is largely based on showcasing various educational technology ideas, projects, etc. I need to embed JavaScript and preventing me from doing so is a dealbreaker. Sorry Wordpress, I’m outta here. Now what?

After taking a look around at other Blogger blogs from my PLN (education & technology, Not Enough Coffee) I knew that there was more to this than I originally believed. More research and I found some great free themes and free headers to upload along with the directions on how to proceed. I needed to focus and chose to look at 3-column designs that have an affinity to water. Some are cute (I can only take cute in small doses) and I ultimately choose BizFresh. Keeping in mind that I always tell my students, “impress me with content over your graphics”, I stay away from cute and head for function. I do add some fun stuff - a ReTweet button for posts and some fun widgets (the aquarium clock is a favorite). Soon I will try changing my favicon too.

Happily, the theme I chose has built in code for tabs to create “static pages”. Blogger does not do separate pages like WP does and you need to hack your way around it. That is why my About Me post appears at the bottom with a date from last year. It actually links up to the tab to create its own “page”. This is one of the unprofessional items about Blogger that I do not like. My template of choice also automatically got rid of the nav bar at the top, but there are online directions on how to do it yourself too.

Thankfully, one of my summer graduate courses was on HTML and I am comfortable enough (or is it dangerous enough?) to poke around and mess up some of the code on my own (yes, I backed it up often!). I changed the header size, some of the font colors, and I am in business. This will always be a work in progress and I like to change things up now and again so don’t be surprised to see something new the next time you visit. I'm still finding little glitches (like why does the blog name disappear when I am on a separate post page?), but will work through them as time progresses. Always learning.

Whew! Maybe my detour will help shorten your own blog journey as you begin! Good luck.

An Overthinker Chooses a Blog Name

Finally, I get to the point where there are pockets of time to use for writing blog posts. I can start that blog that has been in my mind for such a long time! Wait, what will I call it? I tend to overthink things and this stalls me for more time than I care to admit.

In this era of self-branding, something as simple as a login name or a blog name become eminently important choices. After all, this is how you identify yourself in the digital world. It is how others will view and judge you. What if I choose a name that is too nebulous, that doesn’t effectively encompass the vision I strive to project? What if it is the same name as some creep on MySpace that I would never wish to be affiliated with? How do I choose a name that is not too playful, too serious, too bizarre, too cliché, too random? This is serious stuff.

OK, a little dramatic (I have a 6 year old daughter drama queen). However, these are valid concerns. If I wish to be taken seriously (and I do), then I need to adhere to some facts of life in the digital world for choosing a blog name:

1. Your blog name should be indicative of your vision without being incomprehensible
2. Do your homework to ensure someone hasn’t already chosen the name
3. Further your homework to ensure that the name isn’t associated with alternative lifestyle choices you are not comfortable with – what will a Google search of your blog name turn up?
4. Choose a name for the long term – plan for a future associated with your choice
5. Ask for help from your PLN (you have a strong PLN, right?)

Eventually, there were 3 contenders for my new blog name (Bold Think, Digital Daring, and Brave the Deep) and I made my first ever poll for Twitter. This was exciting stuff, I was on the move and things were finally happening! I put out the URL for my poll on my Twitter feed and got 11 votes! OK, 1 vote was mine, but 10 votes on my poll made me ecstatic. Getting feedback, even anonymously, from the global community validates oneself. It sends the message that people are listening, or at least watching. I tuck away these feelings to reexamine when I design lessons for my students.

The final choice is, obviously, Brave the Deep. My vision is to write about my wayward path through the waters of educational technology. This includes efforts to push teachers, staff, admin beyond their comfort zones to engage and excite ourselves as well as our students in the learning we do every day.

I’m new at this and ask that you bear with me as I am a mediocre writer at best with hideous grammar and punctuation skills. But I have some interesting ideas, insights that may get you thinking, and a desire to pull us all out into the deep where some of the best learning happens. Comments, criticisms, interactions are always welcome - now that I have 3 kids, my ego has taken a back seat in life so feel free to speak your mind!