everything else

Oh no! Yahoo! buys Snip.it; Iserotope Extras in limbo

Posted on by Mark Isero

favicon What am I supposed to do now? Is this the end of Iserotope Extras?

Today, Yahoo! bought Snip.it, my favorite curating and digital scrapbooking service. Snip.it hosted Iserotope Extras, one of the most popular features of this blog, where I shared some of my favorite articles about education.

I know this is silly, but I’m a little bit sad. And a bit angry.

Sad: Snip.it was great. It was beautiful, it was easy, and it helped deepen the conversation about teaching, reading, and technology. My friends and other loyal Iserotope readers routinely referenced articles I’d collected.

Angry: Everything is gone. If you go to Iserotope Extras now, you’ll get Snip.it’s farewell letter. Snip.it is allowing users to export their articles to HTML or download them to PDF, but I’m nervous about whether my collections will import correctly to another service.

I know this is a typical thing for startups, particularly those whose products are free. One minute they’re there, and the next minute they’re either gone or sold.

One more thing, though. I’m appreciative. Snip.it not only helped me share articles, but it was extremely supportive of Iserotope and The Kindle Classroom Project. Thank you, Snip.it, for donating the Kindle and the subscription to The New Yorker.

As far as next steps, I’d like to rebuild Iserotope Extras and find another home for all my articles. Maybe the answer is Annotary or Bundlr, two semifinalists when I chose Snip.it. Or maybe I’ll move to Scoop.it or Learnist or something similar. There are plenty of options, but not too many great ones. If you have ideas, please let me know! favicon

teaching/technology

grmr.me makes essay grading easy for English teachers

Posted on by Mark Isero

gorillasfavicon Most English teachers agree: The worst part of the job is grading students’ essays.

And when I say “grading,” I use that term interchangeably with “assessing,” “giving feedback on,” “reading,” and “evaluating.”

Let me be clear: I love looking at a student’s writing and offering suggestions for improvement. But I don’t like looking at 150 students’ writing. It takes way too long.

Plus, commenting on a student’s essay (whether it’s actually on paper or on Google Docs or even on EssayTagger, which is cool but expensive) doesn’t teach the student anything about writing.

I can correct run-on sentences all day, but that doesn’t mean that my student will magically avoid them in the future. Or I can spend time writing a little note explaining the three ways to fix a run-on sentence. But that takes way too long, and who wants to read weird tidbits about random grammar rules?

This is why I’m really excited about grmr.me, a relatively new service by Kevin Brookhouser, an English teacher in California. Check out the intro video:

See how neat? Instead of making tons of corrections, you focus on your students’ main grammar challenges and direct them to watch a video that actually teaches them how to improve.

Mr. Brookhouser’s videos are short and funny, and students can take a quick quiz to see if they get the concept. Right now, I count 18 videos, including ones covering big-ticket items like subject-verb agreement, literary present tense, its vs. it’s, and comma splices.

It’s possible, of course, that watching a video won’t immediately cause a student to eradicate a longstanding grammar issue (follow-up practice is necessary), but what I love about grmr.me is that it reminds me that I’m a writing teacher, not a copyreader. And it tells students that grammar is actually a thing that can be learned, not just silly little inconsequential red squiggly marks on an essay.

Check out grmr.me and let me know what you think! favicon

reading/teaching

An impressive classroom library

Posted on by Mark Isero

favicon Take a look at this impressive classroom library.

Classroom Library - Erica Beaton

This library comes from the classroom of Erica Beaton, a teacher in Grand Rapids, Michigan. For more information, please check out her blog: B10 Loves Books.

Here are some reasons I like it:

1. Look at all those great books!

2. The shelves are tall, wide, and not too deep.

3. She has multiple copies of many titles.

4. There are tons of forward-facing books.

5. The books look new.

I’m very impressed. Maybe someday, I’ll have a classroom library that looks like this! favicon

reading/teaching

The “Reading for Pleasure” high school elective course

Posted on by Mark Isero

Is this for real? This can’t be for real!

There’s really a high school English teacher in Oklahoma whose full-time job is to teach a course called “Reading for Pleasure?”

And it’s really true that 300 students take the class every year?

It seems too good to be true, but apparently, Claudia Swisher really does exist.

I’m very impressed!

Ms. Swisher’s blog — Fourth Generation Teacher — gives details about R4P, an elective that she founded more than 15 years ago. In the class, students read a lot and then respond to what they’ve read. Ms. Swisher reads during class, gets to know her students, promotes books she likes, and responds to her students’ writing.

That’s pretty much it — there’s nothing too fancy. And that’s what I like most about Ms. Swisher and Reading for Pleasure. There are few distractions. The spotlight stays fixed on the students and their reading lives.

Maybe I’ll be fortunate someday to teach a class like Reading for Pleasure. Please check out Fourth Generation Teacher and let me know what you think!

reading

When it comes to reading, more is more

Posted on by Mark Isero

favicon Ted Sizer, founder of the Coalition of Essential Skills, believed that “less is more” — that teachers and schools should focus on depth rather than breadth of curriculum.

Instead of learning a massive number of standards (for example, there are 50 standards for 10th grade World History in California, according to Kelly Gallagher), students should focus on just a few and learn them deeply.

Though it’s controversial to say so, that’s part of the goal of the Common Core State Standards. The CCSS will reduce the number of standards in English Language Arts to 10 per grade level. As students get older, the standards get harder, but they don’t change.

What also won’t change — despite much consternation — is the amount of nonfiction being taught in English classrooms. (Please read this article by Carol Jago.)

But what will change is the difficulty and the amount of reading — in two ways.

First, Common Core demands that teachers assign more challenging texts. Second, the standards require students to devote much more time to reading.

Ms. Jago sees both changes as good ones — that when it comes to reading, more is more. Instead of fearing that students won’t read for homework, assign it. Rather than viewing a video, give students a reading. Be passionate about reading and your students will follow, Ms. Jago says. And if you don’t believe her, just remember the one thing she knows for sure: “The teenagers I taught were always hungry (for literature).”

Though I sometimes bristle at Ms. Jago’s confidence (perhaps from jealousy?), I tend to agree with her. Students like to read, but they like to whine first and say they don’t like to read, knowing that we’ll succumb to their complaints. But it’ll take a significant shift for reading to become a substantial part of the typical high schooler’s day. In my observations this year, I’d estimate that students spend an average of 20-25 minutes per day reading.

For more to be more, for reading to be emphasized, for students to improve their reading skills, and for students to achieve the Common Core standards, that will have to change. favicon