First Meeting with AR kids

I met 2 times today with Artem and Niki. During the first meeting I talked about the project and Niki was very excited. She had an idea for a story right away, and wanted to get on the computer and start writing! She has an older sister who has her own apartment, and her story is about staying over at her sisters house. I asked her if she would be able to write the story in Farsi, and she said it would be hard, since Farsi has different letters and goes in a different direction! I am not sure if she would be able to speak the story in Farsi... So I will have to think about this...possibly get a differernt subject.

Artem wanted to write about video game monsters at first. He went to the Internet and showed me a Russian game site with pictures of the monsters and was very excitedly talk ing about this game for almost the whole time. We only had a half hour for the first meeting, but I asked them to come back for lunch.

At lunch I showed Artem and Niki the video I made with Cheri that showes kids telling stories. Artem then got the idea to talk about the "railroad park" ...or in other words, the Roller Coaster! I have digitally recorded both meetings and will transcribe Artems story.

Write up of meeting

Write up of meeting w/John 10/08/2005

• We are using purposeful sampling by chooing EL subjects who are 1-2 points below grade level in Reading
• We have to put the purpose of our sampling in context within the Lit Review.
• John likes that we are honoring native language

(Check with Mary on this...)
John was worried that we might be making a weak argument that reading (or literacy) will improve...We should be making a strong argument on HOW it improves

We have to show validity by checking and triangulation:

• Critical friends...Share conclusions with other teachers such
• reading teacher
• classroom teacher
• EL teacher
• Ask Georgina
• Member checking: "is it the attention?
• or the technology?
• or is it the whole dang thing?
• Continue to document everything!

In the literature review there should be no statement of conclusion. Just, :This is what we did, this is what happened, and it suggests that further research needs to be done.

Reflections on the Literature Review process.

I spent a lot of time going over what we had already gathered and reading about what exactly an outline for a literature should have. I looked at the CSUS advice page. I googled "How to write a literature review" and limited the search to the .edu domain.

I read the article that Mary found "Using Storytelling Trays to Scaffold for Young Writers"

I read the narrative bibliography I had written before.

I tried grouping the research into logical catagories...

• "Storytelling and Literacy"
  
• "Storytelling and Technology"
• "Video and ELL"
• "Video Production"
  

I found some new keywords...I "Generated a list" and used the new words to do some more research.

Using the new keywords of "Oral History" "Biography" "Language" "Learning" I was able to find a whole new area of research. There is even a scholarly journal called "Language, Learning and Technology"

This is great, because while I was willing to pat us on our collective back for coming up with something so completely original, I was at the same time reluctant to make a stance that there has been so little research on the subject. The article that I first found that ended up pointing me to the "LL&T" journal was written by Lorie Hammond of CSU Sacramento.

I still need to read it. I found at least 3 more articles that seem to more directly deal with some of the issues we are running accross in our project.

Speaking of issues, Mary is running into something that we anticipated somewhat, and that is the issue of building trust with the subject.

OK I have reading to do...Remember, take notes and look for patterns.

First Meeting - AR

Gardener
Originally uploaded by mphoenix.

Yesterday I had my first meeting with Georgina. During this first meeting which lasted about 45 minutes, we explored different subjects in her life (from her cultural background) that could be the basis of her story. I had technical difficulties with the voice recorder (pilot error). It will be working for our next session on Tuesday. The discussion was good from the standpoint of getting started and also for building rapport with the student. However, it is obvious at this point that some direction and some scaffolding will be required in order to help the student stay on track and to make sure that relevant details are included. Non-relevant details also need to be identified in order to keep the story focused enough to understand. A graphic organizer of some kind, along with direction as to elements of a story seem a necessary addition. Part of the process of recording the story will be to guide the student to the understanding that their life is indeed a story. Georgina seems to think that nothing of relevance has occured in her life. A thought that just occured to me is that perhaps having her make a timeline of her life would be appropriate. This could be a drawing project that she would do. I see this taking perhaps a session or two. At any rate, meeting with Georgina has brought up some intriguing questions.

Busy times!

Yesterday was the first day of school at my LOC. I had a typically busy day, but did manage to touch base with the EL teacher and the interim principal about my AR project. Both offered their support.
This year I may be in the bizarro situation of having too many hours! I am currently funded for 30 at one site and 5 at another. Additionally both sites have allocated 3 hours to support the EETT grant, so that all adds up to 41 hours per week!

I am hoping to use some of this extra time to provide computer support for our Title 1 population. I also hope to be able to do some of the AR project during this time.

It is all in process!

ALSO got a message from Mary last night that she is good to go on our test subject. I hope we can standardize the process/procedure soon.

ALSO I have been reading some more in the qualitative research books. But I will save that for a different post.

Minimum Maintenance

It was so nice to see everyone at the F2F...We are giddy with anticipation of actually graduating and at the same time wary of all the work ahead of us.

Tonight I need to do some minimum maintenance for the semester...Things like putting this semester's schedule link on my bookmark toolbar, figuring out the schedule for the next few months.

I appreciate the way John C scaffolded the assignments so that if we stay on course we will finish. It is started the final push to the end.

Part of MM (Minimum Maintenace) is making sure at least 5 hours of movement a week. Keeping balance. Eating right. Following the steps. Taking time to reflect.

I really appreciate our cohort. Yay and congratulations for Sue, Tricia, Diana, Ben, Mary and everyone with new opportunities.

This post is written after midnight after a very long day...

Oh, and Mary updated the Lucky 7 pix page.

One very cool thing that Mary did was download the actual pictures, so that she was able to re-create the page. This is a good example of what John was talking about with backing up your files...Mary was able to re-create something because she had the raw data on her own HD. Note to self: make sure I have my own copy of EVERYTHING!

Another thought...It is good to have a copy of the project that I actually worked on, also. For example; if there is a project that the webmaster feels need to be improved on or updated, doesn't it make sense to have a copy of the part you actually worked on? I know when I worked on the Birch Lane page it looked very different, but I definitely had something to do with that page..

Time for bed.

Ciao

Another Great F2F

We had another great F2F this weekend, with everyone presenting their web resources. As ususal it was great to see the other Lucky 7's. I do really feel that our group is extra special. As someone said, "We're the best!"

I have a few more assignments then I should be done by next weekend. The reflections assignment, the staff development workshop on Thursday, then the write up about that. I should then be able to throw myself into the AR project.

After an intense F2F weekend, it would have been nice to take Sunday and rest, but no, today was the USRowing Southwest Regional Junior Championship at Lake Natoma.

My daughter was the stroke for the Novice Women's A boat for River City Rowing. They did great, their best time of the season, and came in 4th for their race. What a Mother's Day!