Here is how the four schools executed the homework debate:
Melissa Butler, the 6th-grade ELA teacher from South Orange Middle School was looking for a way to teach argument writing to her students while infusing technology. When Melissa and Elissa Malespina (the librarian/media specialist) started working on this unit they were looking for a way to make the debate process a little more exciting and authentic to their students. Melissa came up with the idea of debating another school and tweeted her friend Dana Sirotiak, a 7th-grade Social Studies Teacher at the Frank R. Conwell Middle School #4 in Jersey City, NJ. She said she was willing to do it and then we decided to open the event up to Pennsylvania. Melissa and Elissa had recently connected with Thomas Murray, the director of technology for the Quakertown School District at the NJASA conference and asked him if he had a teacher in mind for the debate. He connected us with Shawn Storm who teaches 6th grade ELA. The teachers then decided it would not be fair to have one PA school vs 2 NJ schools, so Melissa tweeted Joe Mazza the principal at Knapp Elementary School in Landsdale, PA. Both Melissa and Elissa had recently spoke to his teachers via Google Hangout during an Inservice day on the benefits of being a connected educator. Joe asked Gabby Morrison a 6th-grade ELA teacher if she would also participate. Now the 4 schools were set to debate. The first Google Hangout session took place for the flipping of the coin to see which state would be arguing each side of the homework debate. New Jersey won the toss and assumed the side of Pro (Homework) and Pennsylvania took the side of Con (Homework). Let the research begin.
Here is the recording of this here: http://youtu.be/l8sDshpR6m4
They also set up a shared Google Doc between the four schools where they could plan the event. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1w0fyB_J2zZL-SRtgLpADnxu6hG6i7QbJZ-wUqqC7ruw/edit
After the coin toss and SOMS assuming (Pro) Homework, the SOMS teachers set up an Edmodo group, so the two NJ schools could communicate and collaborate together. This was the main way that the students and teachers communicated. The teachers also set up a Google doc that the students could post the research they were finding, and also a place where, we as teachers, could communicate some ideas we had with the students. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ADctcwrJItlNvm_gasOLuMVzwpQ_LjfDQsKOoQ90fKc/edit?usp=sharing
After the students compiled some of the research onto the Google doc, Elissa thought it would be easier for the students if they had a Livebinder http://www.livebinders.com/play/play?id=818758 filled with websites and articles the students found. As you can see Elissa made the tabs into groups, so that all the (pro) homework articles were in one tab etc. It helped to organize the websites and made it easier for the students when they were looking for information. We password protected it so that PA could not obtain our research :-).
The teachers also put a link to the binder on the Edmodo group so that the students could access on this platform too.
The next goal was to try to find experts to talk to our students about homework. After doing research one night on the topic, Melissa saw that her Twitter friend Jerry Blumengarten (@cybraryman1) had an entire page on his website devoted to homework. She tweeted him to see if he could Google Hangout with the students the next morning. He agreed. Here is the link to the video of the hangout: http://youtu.be/i8ka4rnulaU
The students learned a lot from Jerry and the teachers posted the video on our Edmodo group, so that the Jersey City students could view it as well.
We also reached out to Dr. Harris Cooper who has done extensive research on homework. He could not join us via Google Hangout because he was traveling but he did email us back with an article that we added to the Livebinder.
The students spent the next few days working on researching their parts of the debate. All the teachers divided the students up into groups. Some worked on the introduction statement, some researched the affirmative side of homework and others worked on the counterclaim/rebuttals. See the attached pictures for the debate format.
Melissa and Elissa realized that judges were needed for this. Elissa tweeted her PLN and asked them if they would come on the Hangout and act as judges. She received more than the six virtual judges needed! Melissa had previously sent them all a email with a debate rubric that we asked them to fill out while watching the debate.
The debate judges:
There was also a need for a moderator, so Elissa asked the Village President (aka Mayor) of South Orange, Alex Torpey to moderate the debate.
The teachers also decided it would be great to backchannel the event so they started a hashtag #hwdebate on Twitter.
The students were so into the project that almost all of them stayed till 4:00 PM on both Thursday and Friday when school dismisses at 2:45! Melissa and Elissa also worked with a number of the students via Google docs over the weekend helping them to publish their speeches. Melissa also made up charts with all of the speeches on them, so that the students did not have to memorize what they wrote. We have a number of classified students in the class and these modifications were needed. See the attached pictures for examples of the charts. The students were also waiting for us at 7:30 AM, the day of the debate, ready for last-minute preparations.
At 10:45 AM on Monday, Elissa invited all 10 people into the Hangout and at 11:00 we started the recording of the debate.
Mrs. Butler also had a number of her students tweeting the debate live to the #hwdebate via the class twitter account that we set up for the students @msbutlerclass .
There was an issue with Dana's class dropping off the hangout because she had to use her own personal hotspot due to Google Hangout being blocked in her district, but her connection persevered in the end. Even though Dana's students missed part of the debate they did not miss a beat and came out strong with their arguments.
After the debate ended, we opened up a Edmodo group to all of the students from all four of the schools to join and meet each other. They also put a link to the debate video on it so that the students could re-watch the debate.
That Monday night, I received all of the judges' rubrics and tallied the votes and NJ won 8-3. The judges thought that all of the teams did really well and were very prepared.
Elissa announced the winners on Tuesday morning during morning announcements and the students were very excited.
Both Melissa and Elissa felt that this was one of the best teaching days we ever experienced as educators. It was amazing to watch four classes of students so engaged in the project. This could not have been done without having access to technology like Google Hangouts, Edmodo, Google Drive, Livebinders and Evernote.
Here is the recording of this here: http://youtu.be/l8sDshpR6m4
They also set up a shared Google Doc between the four schools where they could plan the event. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1w0fyB_J2zZL-SRtgLpADnxu6hG6i7QbJZ-wUqqC7ruw/edit
After the coin toss and SOMS assuming (Pro) Homework, the SOMS teachers set up an Edmodo group, so the two NJ schools could communicate and collaborate together. This was the main way that the students and teachers communicated. The teachers also set up a Google doc that the students could post the research they were finding, and also a place where, we as teachers, could communicate some ideas we had with the students. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ADctcwrJItlNvm_gasOLuMVzwpQ_LjfDQsKOoQ90fKc/edit?usp=sharing
After the students compiled some of the research onto the Google doc, Elissa thought it would be easier for the students if they had a Livebinder http://www.livebinders.com/play/play?id=818758 filled with websites and articles the students found. As you can see Elissa made the tabs into groups, so that all the (pro) homework articles were in one tab etc. It helped to organize the websites and made it easier for the students when they were looking for information. We password protected it so that PA could not obtain our research :-).
The teachers also put a link to the binder on the Edmodo group so that the students could access on this platform too.
The next goal was to try to find experts to talk to our students about homework. After doing research one night on the topic, Melissa saw that her Twitter friend Jerry Blumengarten (@cybraryman1) had an entire page on his website devoted to homework. She tweeted him to see if he could Google Hangout with the students the next morning. He agreed. Here is the link to the video of the hangout: http://youtu.be/i8ka4rnulaU
The students learned a lot from Jerry and the teachers posted the video on our Edmodo group, so that the Jersey City students could view it as well.
We also reached out to Dr. Harris Cooper who has done extensive research on homework. He could not join us via Google Hangout because he was traveling but he did email us back with an article that we added to the Livebinder.
The students spent the next few days working on researching their parts of the debate. All the teachers divided the students up into groups. Some worked on the introduction statement, some researched the affirmative side of homework and others worked on the counterclaim/rebuttals. See the attached pictures for the debate format.
Melissa and Elissa realized that judges were needed for this. Elissa tweeted her PLN and asked them if they would come on the Hangout and act as judges. She received more than the six virtual judges needed! Melissa had previously sent them all a email with a debate rubric that we asked them to fill out while watching the debate.
The debate judges:
- Shannon Miller - A librarian, author, speaker and consultant from Iowa
- Will Richardson -- Author, speaker and consultant from NJ
- Jeff Bradbury - Music teacher, speaker and the man behind the Teachercast website and podcasts from NJ
- Sandra Paul - Technology Director, speaker from NJ
- Kyle Calderwood - Adjunct Professor and IT director from Stockton College, NJ
- Jay Eitner - Superintendent of Schools
- Bill Krakower - Technology Teacher, speaker from NJ (he watched the video of the debate)
There was also a need for a moderator, so Elissa asked the Village President (aka Mayor) of South Orange, Alex Torpey to moderate the debate.
The teachers also decided it would be great to backchannel the event so they started a hashtag #hwdebate on Twitter.
The students were so into the project that almost all of them stayed till 4:00 PM on both Thursday and Friday when school dismisses at 2:45! Melissa and Elissa also worked with a number of the students via Google docs over the weekend helping them to publish their speeches. Melissa also made up charts with all of the speeches on them, so that the students did not have to memorize what they wrote. We have a number of classified students in the class and these modifications were needed. See the attached pictures for examples of the charts. The students were also waiting for us at 7:30 AM, the day of the debate, ready for last-minute preparations.
At 10:45 AM on Monday, Elissa invited all 10 people into the Hangout and at 11:00 we started the recording of the debate.
Mrs. Butler also had a number of her students tweeting the debate live to the #hwdebate via the class twitter account that we set up for the students @msbutlerclass .
There was an issue with Dana's class dropping off the hangout because she had to use her own personal hotspot due to Google Hangout being blocked in her district, but her connection persevered in the end. Even though Dana's students missed part of the debate they did not miss a beat and came out strong with their arguments.
After the debate ended, we opened up a Edmodo group to all of the students from all four of the schools to join and meet each other. They also put a link to the debate video on it so that the students could re-watch the debate.
That Monday night, I received all of the judges' rubrics and tallied the votes and NJ won 8-3. The judges thought that all of the teams did really well and were very prepared.
Elissa announced the winners on Tuesday morning during morning announcements and the students were very excited.
Both Melissa and Elissa felt that this was one of the best teaching days we ever experienced as educators. It was amazing to watch four classes of students so engaged in the project. This could not have been done without having access to technology like Google Hangouts, Edmodo, Google Drive, Livebinders and Evernote.
