Happy Thanksgiving to all my readers- Dr. Sam Bommarito
I am taking this weekend off to be with friends and family for the Thanksgiving holiday. I will be resuming the Literacy Leaders Video interviews next week.
In case you missed them, here are links to the interviews I have done so far. Upcoming interviews will include educators from Australia. I am attempting to include ideas from all sides of the question of how to best teach reading. BTW- thanks to all of you for all you do and all you are going to do in order to help children find their best path to literacy.
The Doc Camera Revisited- Still more ways to enhance your distance learning using this versatile tool
By Doctor Sam Bommarito
I am putting the Literacy Practices Series for this blog on hold until after Thanksgiving. This gives me some time to make arrangements to talk to two different educators from Australia about their literacy programs. Today I want to revisit the Doc camera. I have done blogs about the doc camera before. LINK1LINK2LINK3. Here are some new things I’ve learned since the last time I wrote on this topic.
Remember that a doc camera is not the same as a web camera. This is a picture of my doc camera.
As I described in my previous blogs, the doc camera allows me to do real-time activities with my students. For instance, I can share a book, make & break magnetic letters, and even create language experience stories.
As I indicated in those blogs having the doc camera allowed me to move magnetic letters in real-time as the students I tutored watched. It allowed me to help students create their own stories, stories that they dictated to me based on pictures and other prompts. I then typed their stories into a publisher doc that made their story into an actual book. There was a great deal of reader interest in all three of these blogs. Readers wanted to know where I got my camera and what brand it was. Some readers loved the idea but expressed concern about the cost. Let me briefly address those two issues.
I got my doc camera online. It was an InSwan. At the time I purchased it, the cost was about $100. Like many things in 2020, doc cams are periodically in short supply. My particular model is sometimes not available or available only at a much higher cost. But there are a number of different doc cams out there. When shopping for them, look for easy connectivity (mine was plug and play), high definition, and make sure the display is instantaneous (some older models lagged in the display picture). But what if you don’t have $100 to spare?
If you have a smartphone, you can use that as a doc camera. You read that right. The simplest way to do that is to use the EpocCam Pro app ($7.00). Load that onto your phone, follow the three-step setup process, and within two minutes, your smartphone becomes a doc camera that you can use with Zoom or other similar platforms. Search YouTube, and you’ll find any number of videos on how different teachers make contraptions that they use to mount their smartphones for use as a doc cam. The most interesting one I found was a teacher that used a stack of textbooks. She made the stack high enough to hold the smartphone in the air at the proper height. She then placed her phone in the stack so that it stuck out. She put a couple of more textbooks on top of it. Voila- a free smartphone holder. When I created a doc cam for my wife, I spent $30.00 for a smartphone holder. Just look for an adjustable phone holder on Amazon or any similar website. Here is a picture of the one I got.
So, if you have a smartphone, it is possible to have a webcam at low cost. I spent just under $40 for my wife’s stand and the software to connect her smartphone to Zoom. Or you can create your own phone holder and use your smartphone to join Zoom as a separate participant. If you turn off the audio for the phone, the phone can be used as a Zoom camera. Here is a link to a pdf I found online which tells how to do that LINK . This method gives you a no cost webcam.
My latest use of the Webcam for literacy involved using my doc camera in a sketch note activity. I found out about sketch notes during recent sessions of the Write to Learn Cyberconference. They were given by Tanny McGregor.
Sketch notes can be created in many ways. Tanny’s book is full of ideas on how to do them and what they can look like. Here is a LINK. The book includes research demonstrating the use of sketch notes as an effective instructional technique. For my class, I did a live read of a book. As we did that, we constructed a simple sketch note about the book in real-time. The format I used in this particular lesson allowed me to talk about the main ideas and details as we make our sketch note of the book. The students watched me in real-time. They made their own sketch note at their seat as I did mine. I was Zooming into the class, and they could see my sketch note on their classroom’s smartboard.
Afterward, I asked them to make sketch notes about the next book they were reading. All this was done in a whole class distance learning setting. I couldn’t have done it without a webcam. Here is the sketch note we made.
So these are my latest idea on doc cameras, how to get them and how to use them.
Dr. Sam Bommarito (a.k.a. the doc camera guy)
Copyright 2020 by Dr. Sam Bommarito. Views/interpretations expressed here are solely the view of this author and do not necessarily reflect the views of any other person or organization.
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Write to Learn Conference Announcement:
Open Mic at Write to Learn is back, and it’s free! It’s Thursday, Dec. 3, at 8:00 p.m. at the end of Michael Salinger and Sara Holbrook’s final workshop session.
Come to read, come to perform, or just come to listen.
An Interview with David Harrison & Mary Jo Fresch about their new book: Empowering Students’ Knowledge of Vocabulary
Today I am continuing my series on effective educational practices. This week I was able to interview two good friends, David Harrison and Dr. Mary Jo Fresch. We discussed their new book Empowering Students’ Knowledge of Vocabulary. David and Mary Jo make quite the team. David is a long time Missouri Literacy Association supporter and a prolific writer. He is best known for his extensive collections of poetry writing and his children’s books. These books often take topics from science and turn them into engaging children’s stories. Dr. Mary Jo Fresch is a professor emeritus from The Ohio State University. She has an extensive body of work in academic journals, but she has also collaborated with David in order to create professional books for teachers. These books are the best of both worlds. They combine David’s innovative practices informed by Mary Jo’s extensive knowledge of the research. The net results are books that give practical advice informed by the latest research in literacy. Here are is a link to the interview.
Here is the cover page followed by a link for ordering the book.
This has an extensive collection of lesson plans. David and Mary Jo tried out many of these lessons using students from all around the country. Here is one lesson plan that David and MaryJo shared during the interview along with a sample of student work as students carried out the lessons.
Here is an example of a word origin tree
Here are some bullet points about what was said during the interview. I have provided time stamps for each point, so if you wish to jump ahead to selected parts of the interview you can do so.
In the beginning I introduce Dave and Mary Jo and they talk about themselves. Some highlights- this is their 7th book together; this is Mary Jo’s 20th professional development book, and this is David’s 100th book. WOW!!!! Congrats to David on that. (starting at minute 0)
During the Middle Part of the interview David and Mary Jo talked about chapters one to five of the book. The topics included Nymes are Names, Planting ideas about Similes and Metaphors, Raining Cats and Dogs (idioms), Using colorful language. (starting at 10:46)
At the end of the interview David talked about chapter 6, tips from popular authors. David is friends with many of the most popular children’s authors today. He was able to prevail on many of them to give writing tips. Among these authors are Jane Yolen, Nike Grimes, and Obert Skye. (starting at 17:30)
The appendices of the book include: a list of Lessons, Lesson Resources, Electronic Resources for Teachers, Electronic Resources for Students and Resources about ELL Students. I’ve placed my order for the book and can’t wait for it to arrive. It is sure to become a “must have” resource for all teachers of writing. I want to thank Mary Jo and David for taking time from their busy schedules to do the interview.
Over the next few weeks, I will be continuing to interview folks about best literacy practices. If all goes well technically, I have two educators from Australia lined up to talk about the literacy scene “down under” and to talk about successful practices that they are using. Fingers crossed!!! Until next time, happy reading and writing.
Dr. Sam Bommarito (aka the guy who is getting by with a little help from his friends).
Copyright 2020 by Dr. Sam Bommarito. Views/interpretations expressed here are solely the view of this author and do not necessarily reflect the views of any other person or organization.
The book Empowering Students’ Knowledge of Vocabulary is copyrighted by David Harrison and Mary Jo Fresch
P.S. If you found the blog through Facebook or Twitter, please consider following the blog to make sure you won’t miss it. Use the “follow” entry on the sidebar of the blog.
Part two of the literacy practices series: Video interview of award-winning performance poets/master teachers Michael Salinger and Sara Holbrook by Dr. Sam Bommarito
As reported in this excerpt from the Write to Learn blog, I recently interviewed award-winning performance poets and master writing teachers Michael Salinger and Sara Holbrook. You can check out the video on YouTube.
In the wide-ranging interview, Michael and Sara talk about what they do when working with student writers and how teachers can employ these same strategies to get students engaged with writing.
Some of the topics they talk about are:
How they use poetry across grade levels and content areas, virtually every day of the school year—not just during National Poetry Month!
Why they prefer to use the term “versions” rather than “drafts” when having students revise their work.
Strategies for keeping kids engaged during virtual writing lessons.
Why they choose to teach writing through elements (metaphor, repetition) rather than through form (sonnet, essay).
Michael and Sara have developed an approach to teaching writing that gets kids started quickly in a very non-threatening way by using simple frameworks to start, then building complexity through revision (versions) as they go, and they will walk you step by step through this process in their upcoming workshop, “Jump Start Writing for Striving and Thriving Writers (And Everyone in Between).”
The first session takes place on November 12, followed by session two on November 19, and concludes (after a week off for Thanksgiving) on December 3.
We look forward to seeing you there!
Posted by Willy Wood Write to Learn Conference Coordinator
The connection between reading and writing is well researched. Helping your students view themselves as writers and developing a writerly life is an important way to help them become lifelong readers. There were many practical tips given during the interview (e.g. teaching writing elements rather than writing form) Michael and Sara’s upcoming sessions will give you lots of new ideas to help you help your students. I’ll be attending, hope you will be too. Next week I will continue this multipart series on literacy practices. Till then- Happy reading and writing!
Dr. Sam Bommarito (aka the lifelong learner, still seeking new ways to improve my teaching)
Copyright 2020 by Dr. Sam Bommarito. Views/interpretations expressed here are solely the view of this author and do not necessarily reflect the views of any other person or organization.
P.S. If you found the blog through Facebook or Twitter, please consider following the blog to make sure you won’t miss it. Use the “follow” entry on the sidebar of the blog.
