House on Mango Street Project

I think this is a good place to share writing ideas and projects that were successful. In that vein (am I using the right vein? Vain? Anyways...), my students are finishing reading The House on Mango Street. As part of the project, they wrote vignettes in some way related to their neighborhood or to themes in the novella. They composed their vignettes using Google Docs, shared them with me and their peers for editing/revision purposes, and ultimately "published" their pieces into web pages.

After they published their pieces (and thus creating individual URL's for their stories), we created a collaborative Google Map, plotted the location for each Vignette, and then hyperlinked our vignettes. Now you can scan the map, click on a push pin, and read student stories related to the novel. Next week we're going to discuss our collection much as we did Cisneros' book.


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Google Docs

From a productivity/activity standpoint, Google Docs significantly altered the fabric of my classroom this year (not quite as much as Blogger). For those of you who don't know, it is an online word processor that allows students, teachers, clergymen and vivisected animals to create "Word" documents and edit them anytime and from any computer. Students can also share their work with teachers by inviting them as collaborators (handing the work in) and even collaborate with other students. Better yet, it's free and there is significant support for educators.

For those of you already wading in the pristine waters of Google Docs, I happened upon a few useful sites today. The first is a blog post from ICT in My Classroom entitled "Making Work in Google Docs." The article outlines some practical ways that Tom Barrett, the author, has used Docs in his classroom. He focuses on such things as commenting, revisions, and organizing work. Very useful.

Google Docs also has a nice little article explaining it's usefulness in the classroom, titled Using Google Docs in the classroom: Simple as ABC.