My first screencast!

I did it!  I made a screencast.  Whew!  I made this video about how to use the AR Bookfinder website to choose books at a child's independent or instructional level or to "level" a personal library of books for classroom use.  I will share this video with pre-service teachers in my undergraduate class as a resource.  In the past, it takes about 10 -15 minutes to go through the site in class.  Now I can "flip" it and have the video to share as a resource for students when they need it rather than adding it to the class lecture.  

I will admit - it took much longer than I thought to figure this out but now that I have done one it will be easier next time around.  I used Quicktime - screen recording option - to make my video.  Then I uploaded it to YouTube and used the YouTube "annotations" to add a few notes.  My next project is to use the EduCanon website to add questions and reflections to a couple of videos on YouTube that demonstrate guided reading - for use with pre-service teachers in undergraduate classes. 

Great Multi-ethnic Literature Picture books for Older Students (3rd-5th)

This week I had the opportunity to read nearly two dozen books for my multi-ethnic literature course.  Here are two that I just loved.  These books have been around a while but were new to me:

Title: ENCOUNTER                                                  

Author: Jane Yolan

Illustrator: David Shannon

Publisher: Harcourt Brace & Company

Copyright: 1992

Genre: Historical Fiction

Ethnic Representation: Taino (Native tribe of San Salvador)

Summary:  Encounter is the story of Christopher Columbus landing on the island of San Salvador from the perspective of a native Taino child whose home is on the island.  It begins with the young boy awakening from a bad dream about three great-winged birds with teeth only to find three great-sailed canoes arriving to the island he calls home.  These are the ships of Christopher Columbus and his crew. Considering his dream a warning, the boy tries to alert the chiefs not to welcome these men. He is unsuccessful in his attempt, however, and the story continues by offering examples of how he is alternately intrigued and then scared of these strangers.  In the end, the boy has become an old man whose dreams, culture and soul have been stolen by the strangers and he is still offering a warning to others.

Critique: This book would be a terrific companion to textbooks and/or social studies curriculum that omit the voice of the people most affected by Columbus’s arrival.  I appreciated Yolan’s author’s note in the back of the book that gives us the historical details she found in her research.  I thought one of the book’s strengths was its use of dreams and imagery to portray the crew both metaphorically and visually as evil.  The illustrations include details that are historically accurate, but add deeper meaning to the text in portrayal of the conflicting emotions the boy has about the strangers.  They are rich in feeling and emotion - good and evil are evident.  There is no hint of sympathy for Columbus in this story - it would be a great opportunity for students to consider point of view when learning about historical events.

Title:  THE CIRLCE UNBROKEN                

Author:  Margot Theis Raven

Illustrator: E.B. Lewis

Publisher: Melanie Kroupa Books

Copyright: 2004

Genre: Realistic fiction and Historical fiction

Ethnic Representation: African American (Gullah)

Summary: A young girl settles into her grandmother’s arms to learn the art of sweetgrass basket weaving and as she learns the craft, her grandmother tells her the story of her ancestors.  As they weave, the young girl learns about the generations of her family who also weaved by listening to stories of her ancestors from villages in Africa, to slavery in a new land, through wars and finally to the “sacred place” the little girl and her grandmother share. This story celebrates generations of of the craft with pride. 

Critique: This book was one of my favorites.  The language is full of love and almost poetic like a song.  There are places of rhythm and rhyme in the text as grandmother’s voice both tells the story of ancestors and speaks to her granddaughter. The illustrations are beautiful watercolors that show both joy and love of family and the sadness of slavery and war.  They complement the text by showing the changes in setting, but the continuation of culture through the weaving. The basket weaving becomes a metaphor for the knot that ties this family together. It is both a vessel that holds the past and the future.  It is a tribute to the treasured ethnicity of this family and inspires us to consider the traditions that have sustained time and change in all cultures and families.  Lovely book!

More Technology in the Classroom

I had the opportunity to observe technology in use in an ELL classroom recently and came away with a new appreciation for the ways that technology can engage a student in learning.  It lets students share new knowledge, learn from others and connect their learning in school to their home through "sharing" it with parents.  I helped a student choose pictures to accompany his report on cheetahs.  We used the Shadow Puppet app to organize these pictures (collected by searching with in-app resources and by taking photos of his artwork) and then record his voice reading the report over the slideshow.  Later, his teacher dropped his new creation into his Seesaw Journal.  Seesaw is a terrific app for saving examples of student work over time.  There is a learning curve with any new app, but now that I "get it" the options seem endless!