Tag Archives: confer

Using Evernote to Confer with Readers and Writers

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On January 31, I shared with several teachers about the possibilities of using Evernote to document student learning in literacy. Led by Amber Garbe (@ReadattheEDGE), this group of reading teachers have a growth mindset. They did not get frustrated when the technology did not always work for them. I enjoyed learning with these teachers. The purpose of this post is to summarize our learning.

Do you ever feel stuck when using technology? So many possibilities, when you just want to accomplish one thing? The story Stuck by Oliver Jeffers nicely describes this sense of frustration. The main character throws everything he can at a problem (kite stuck in a tree) when he should have focused on the problem itself instead of the tools.

 

Evernote is one tool that can address our need to better document learning when conferring with readers and writers. (A rationale for this technology is recorded in this Voicethread.)

The point I made is we need to allow the students to take control of their learning. This can be accomplished by being a learner as opposed to a teacher when guiding students to become readers and writers. Our learning takes place when we are close to the source (the student). Evernote can help a teacher measure student learning with tools that help them see and hear what the students know and are able to do. They are not just a reading level.

Much of this information comes from Knowing Literacy by Peter Johnston (1997). Although it was published fifteen years ago, this resource feels like it was written yesterday. He states that as assessments become more standardized and distanced from the student, the less trust and ownership there is between the student and teacher. This graphic is a visual I developed to better understand this assessment relationship.

 

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Once we established why there is a need to use tools such as Evernote, it was time to discuss how. Instead of telling participants, I showed a video of one of my teachers actually using an iPad to capture student learning and inform her instruction. (This is when technology failed me. The video was choppy and we didn't get to watch it all. Even if it had worked properly, it would not be shown here to protect the privacy of the student.) As we watched, I encouraged teachers to notice how the teacher:

Embedded assessment within her instruction;
Acted as a learner rather than a teacher;
Asked questions on what the student did right as well as what needs improvement;
Focused on strengths; and
Showed understanding that literacy is not always linear.

At this point we dug into Evernote. After everyone got registered, we built mock notebooks and notes. From there I shared some different ways teachers could document their students' learning. Here were a few suggestions:

Student Interviews
In the beginning of the year, ask students questions about their reading and writing habits. Record the conversation. Later in the year, review the audio from this interview with the student and facilitate a new one to promote reflection and growth. You can find a good interview template in Janet Allen's Yellow Brick Roads.

Personal Learning Goals
Students could use the check boxes in Evernote to list what they would like to accomplish for the quarter, semester or year. Donalyn Miller's goal for her students from The Book Whisperer of forty books from a variety of genres would be a good example. When they reach a goal, they can check off the box (and set a new goal).

Anecdotal Records
Although a teacher could also house students' quantitative data such as running records in a note, it's important to also develop a story of each reader's progress throughout the year. This can be one note with just a running narrative of their current reality, where they need to go, and how to get there. One incentive for using Evernote is the ability to share information with colleagues and parents. What will be most useful for them?

Digital Portfolios
A teacher could feasibly contain a gallery of a student's writing within one note. Giving each image of their writing a quick title along with a few comments would be all that it would require. The rest of the work should be handed over to the student, in the form of looking at their own work while the teacher asks, “What are you doing well?” and “What would you like to work on?”

We ended our session with each teacher sharing one takeaway from the night's session. The word that seemed to be heard the most was “possibilities”.

What other ways do you or could you use Evernote to confer with readers and writers? Please share in the comments.

Examples of Practice: Using iPads and Evernote When Assessing Readers

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All K-12 teachers are reading teachers. The school, grade level and content area we work in does not matter. In every classroom, a random group of students will come in with varying degrees of reading ability. And their levels of ability can and do differentiate based on which skill we choose to focus on. That is why it is so critical that teachers have sound understanding of where there students are at in their ability to decode and comprehend text. When we know them as readers, we are better at helping them choose books for themselves, we tailor instruction to meet their specific needs, and we know when to release the learning responsibility to the student so they can become independent readers.

I share this because in a few days I am going to make a case to approximately 20 or so K-12 teachers that using Evernote on an iPad can enhance their abilities to better assess their students’ literacy skills. Two things I have learned through exploring technology is that a) the “why” needs to come before the “how” and the “what” (Sinek, 2010), and b) the technology should support best practices in the classroom. Form follows function.

The “Why”

Dr. Ruben Puentedura developed a framework to help educators understand the place of technology in the context of learning and education. It is titled SAMR, which stands for Substitution, Augmentation, Modification, and Redefinition.

SAMR_model
(Image retrieved from http://www.hippasus.com/rrpweblog/)

This framework shows how the various levels of learning can be raised with the appropriate integration of technology. This bears the question: Is a student not able to reach their potential in the absence of these tools? I don’t know that yet. However, if there are ways to enhance learning in the classroom and we choose to not leverage it, this may be irresponsible of us as educators.

The “How”

The iPad is a computer in the loosest of terms. Yes, you can use it to type a letter, email a friend, and post something on Facebook. What separates it from other computing devices such as the desktop is its mobility, the engagement factor, content creation and integration.

Mobility
Any teacher can use tools such as Evernote to store student information. What makes the iPad (and other mobile devices) a better fit is it can travel with the teacher. No longer do students always have to come to the bean-shaped table for small group and one-on-one instruction. The teacher now comes to them. If you think about it, this is big. The student is not singled out, the conferring and assessing can happen anywhere the student feels comfortable, and the technology allows the teacher to teach and assess concurrently.

Engagement
I don’t know what it is about these devices that just captures the students’ attention. An example: I was using the Reflection app to mirror the iPad screen to the whiteboard. Second graders and I were using Notability to compare and contrast the book and eBook version of The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore. I started the Venn diagram, then handed off the writing responsibility to the closest student. With the iPad on their lap and stylus in hand, he wrote one of his ideas down on the screen. There was no hesitation on his part. This might have been different had I asked him to go to the board and write in front of peers. What was also interesting was that the entire class was reading the words as this student wrote them.

Content Creation and Integration
The compare and contrast notes the second graders and I made together could be a start to other projects. We could use these notes to write a persuasive essay on Pages and then publish it on a classroom blog. We could create illustrations on Drawing Pad and then use them in an iMovie to highlight the elements of a story. I could go on and on. The possibilities that come with the iPad are multiplied because so many of the applications work in concert with each other. With a simple multi-finger swipe, I can switch from one app to another as I put together a project.

The “What”

Here is how I see teachers using Evernote on the iPad to assess readers. For a framework, I am using the “Assessment to Instruction” steps outlined in The CAFE Book by Gail Boushey and Joan Moser. After each step I also identified the step’s level on the SAMR ladder, based on how the technology would be used to enhance practice.

Two things before getting started:

  • I recommend setting up an Evernote account prior to using it in the classroom. Create a notebook for each student. Also, find out what your Evernote email address is so you send information to a specific notebook with ease.
  • With each step, put the step’s description in the title of the note. Create a new note for each step of the assessment process.

1.  Assess Individual Student (Augmentation)

Take a running record of a student. Then take a picture of it with the iPad and email it to Evernote using your Evernote email account. To put the image of the running record into that student’s notebook, put the notebook title in the subject line of the email message preceded by the @ sign (i.e. @Mike). To add tags, use the same process, only put a hashtag in front of each key word (i.e. #September #BB16 #GR18). If your assessing skills are a little rusty, I highly recommend Peter Johnston’s Running Records as a quick resource.

For older kids or when a running record is not enough, Janet Allen offers a variety of ideas that could also be used to assess readers in her resource Yellow Brick Roads, such as surveys, observations, checklists and sentence completions.

2.  Discuss Findings with Students (Modification)

What Evernote provides is the ability to record audio while taking notes. A teacher can go back to this recording and listen again for what the student said. The student could also be given an opportunity to listen to your discussion of the findings later in the year. Seems like a great opportunity for both teacher and student to reflect on their growth as a reader.

3.  Set Goal and Identify Strategies with Student, and

4.  Student Declares Goal on Menu (Augmentation)

With a copy of The Literacy CAFE Menu in front of you, create a new note to document this information. If the strategies and goal are also included as tags in the note, they will be more easily accessible when needed. Also, as a teacher plans for guided reading, he or she can quickly search among tags for a specific strategy to work on. This could greatly enhance the concept of flexible grouping. The same process might take a bit longer with a three ring binder. In addition, snap a picture of their goal and add it to the note for a visual component.

Quick iPad tip: Tags are added by selecting the circle button with the “i” in the middle, located on the top right.

5.  Teacher Fills Out Individual Reading Conference Form (Augmentation)

Again, using tags to note the students’ strengths, goals and strategies will make his or her information easier to find later. Once conferring commences, I could see a teacher using this one note six times before creating a new one. This would involve adding the categories outlined in the CAFE Reading Conference template each time (date, touch point, observation and instruction, next steps).

6. Teacher Fills Out Strategy Groups Form (Modification)

If a teacher is looking to start strategy group instruction based on similar skills (found through tags), he or she can pull students together based on need by creating a Notebook Stack. As far as I can tell, this can only be done on a PC. Just drag one student’s notebook over another and a stack is created. Once a student has shown proficiency in that strategy, he or she can be pulled out of that stack to another group.

But where do the strategy group notes go? My suggestion would be to create a whole new notebook within the stack to house these notes.

7.  Instruction (Redefinition)

This is where Evernote can be a real game changer. The whole point of assessment is to inform instruction in order to impact learning. If I were still in the classroom, I could imagine pulling up my students’ notes as I planned for future literacy instruction. Instead of hunting for each student’s individual goals and strategies, a quick search in Evernote will pull up what you need to know in a matter of seconds. Groups are quickly formed. They aren’t based on reading level either; instruction is tailored to meet specific needs. Students can receive guided reading instruction at the appropriate complexity level without feeling like they are in the “low” group.

Embedding formative assessment in the planning of instruction tends to get lost in the process when everything else needs attention too. Evernote and the iPad are tools that have the potential to both increase productivity and enhance the instructional practices of teachers.

Resources Cited

Allen, Janet (2000). Yellow Brick Roads. Stenhouse: Portland, ME

Boushey, Gail and Moser, Joan (2009). The CAFE Book. Stenhouse: Portland, ME

Johnston, Peter (2000). Running Records: A Self-Tutoring Guide. Stenhouse: Portland, ME

Puentedura, Ruben (2012). Building Upon SAMR. Slideshow retrieved from http://www.hippasus.com/rrpweblog/

Sinek, Simon (2010). Start With Why. Video retrieved from http://www.ted.com/speakers/simon_sinek.html