Student Scribes

Welcome back!

This week we will focus on content from the third chapter of Who Owns the Learning, written by Alan November.  The title of this chapter is The Student as Scribe.

Also known as a writer, scribe, defined in the Merriam Webster dictionary, is the following:

• "a member of a learned class in ancient Israel through New Testament times studying the Scriptures and serving as copyists, editors, teachers, and jurists"
• "an official or public secretary or clerk"
• "a copier of manuscripts"

Newer definitions of scribe include the following from The Free Dictionary,

• "a public clerk or secretary, especially in ancient times"
• "a professional copyist of manuscripts and documents"
• "a writer or journalist"

This term refers to multiple methods and use of tools for the process of recording information.  Those terms include:

1. copying of information from and to documents
2. handwritten information in ledgers and books
3. typed information in a document 
1. shared via a newspaper
2. submitted as research in the classroom or at work
3. shared information through a webpage
4. shared information through a document

As a high school and college student, I used many notebooks in order to record the information shared by classroom teachers and professors.  In a few semesters, I would even use a tape recorder to gather all of the information shared by the professor so that I wouldn't miss the key details of those points.  It was a time consuming process, but the benefits of this process were that I could remember the information for longer periods of time.  And, if I had questions while reviewing the notes that I had taken for the day, I could refer to that section of my notebook when I needed to talk to a classmate, teacher assistant (TA), or even the professor.  Tedious to say the least, but also useful in the learning process  . . . .

You will find that the introduction to this chapter describes two different examples of the way that the scribe process works in the classroom.

1. The first example is executed by a high school math teacher in Canada.  Each of the students is responsible for their personal notes with the classroom scribe responsible for collecting and reviewing those notes.  After reading through the information created by his/her classmates, and reviewed by the classroom teacher, the notes are posted to the class blog for everyone to be able to view as they need.  
2. In the second example, a group of students work in the background as a classroom scribe while the remainder of the students are participating in Skype conferences with other students from different schools around the world.  Though the student scribes review and mark the information gathered for editing and "fact checking," the classroom teacher also reviews the student gathered information for accuracy before another group of students in the class uploads the information into their classroom blog.
3. The last example shared in this chapter informs us that all students in the THINK Global School take notes shared in the classroom lecture.  Of these students, a few are designated as the official note takers for the day.  The notes collected by these students are posted in the classroom Google docs.  This allows the remaining students in the classroom to review and compare the information they gathered to the "official" notes posted in the classroom Google drive.

Many of the students who function as a scribe in these classrooms benefit from this process.  The weight of this responsibility is felt by all of the students while they are taking notes because they understand their classmates use the information to make corrections in their own notes, and as study guides for class projects and exams.  All of the students in the classroom, at one point or another during the week, become a scribe for this process.   You can learn more about the student scribe program by listening to his podcast.  

Benefits of the Student Scribe Program

Classroom teachers who decide to implement a scribe program are able to assist their students in many ways to foster learning.  Some of those ideas are below:

1. providing every student with an opportunity to showcase their work
2. posting student work (written and oral) to the Internet, allowing for a worldwide audience
3. developing opportunities for students to expand their learning opportunities beyond the classroom

Tools that can be used to assist in this process include creating any of the following:

1. a classroom blog -
2. a classroom wiki
3. use of Google Docs
4. Links to these options are:  blogger.com, wordpress.com, docs.google.com

In the section of this chapter titled Things They Leave Behind, the classroom teacher mentions a student who shared information in a blog post about content he had learned in class.  Most of the teachers who viewed the information were not impressed by what they saw, until Kuropatwa also added that the student was not able to speak or explain his thoughts very well in English because he was from another country.  Twelve months later, Kuropatwa went back to the same blog to showcase the same post again, but was surprised to find that the content previously available had been edited by the student.  The thought process is that through this platform of sharing, students will go above and beyond to do their best work.  And if properly managed and executed in the classroom by the teacher, more students will eagerly participate.

Tools and Techniques for implementing the Students as Scribes Approach

So how does a classroom teacher plan to implement this type of program with the students?  Many classroom teachers are capable of handling the learning shift of the student as a passive consumer of information, to those who easily search for information and are excited about completing class assignments then sharing with their teacher and fellow classmates.

The key to keeping the students interested in this type of work is finding the right tools for them to use.  The teacher from this chapter, shares in his blog the step-by-step techniques of the methods he used to integrate the writing process with his students.  In addition to this resource, the students are encouraged to share information using VoiceThread to showcase understanding of academic concepts.  This tool allows users to not only record their thoughts in voice, but to create slideshows, documents and videos to show individual levels of learning.  A single educator license for VoiceThread is $79 per year, but if more than one teacher from a school wish to use this tool then a site license would be the most economical option.  Success for using tools such as VoiceThread develop over time.  Experiences of classroom teachers, collaboration of ideas, sharing of previous student work, and suggestions from other teachers who have successfully integrated these types of activities in their classroom are all key in the continued use of these tools to help students showcase what they have learned.  But perhaps the best suggestion provided is to just start the process of getting students to write.  Starting slow, allowing the students to become comfortable in the process, will eventually produce willing and confident participants.  And once you get the process of blogging started, don't get complacent in the process.  That is, teachers can share resources in an educational blog that they discovered while attending an workshop.  Also, faculty training sessions can be set up to share learning resources while allowing everyone in the session to be able to use the resources shared.  Doing so will allow faculty members time to become familiar with the resources and possibly find one that they could easily integrate in their classroom.  Last, joining and reviewing information shared through personal learning networks are also good ways of learning about tools and resources to help students develop confidence in the writing process.

Your Task for this Week 

So after reading Chapter 3 of Who Owns the Learning textbook and reading through this information, this week you are to:

1. Just for fun, review this YouTube video presented by Taylor Mali
2. Open and review the ideas on this site:   45+ Ideas for Class  Blog Posts 
3. Open and review the Sample Blogger Agreement document provided in Moodle
4. Open and review the suggestions provided on blogging in the classroom from Teachers First; be sure to watch the slide show at the end of the list provided
5. Then
• open the Blogger.com website
• login with your Gmail account address and password
• you will now create a blog
6. First review items 1, 2, 3 and 4 from above
7. Next review information from the bullet points below
1. Getting started using Blogger
2. Review ideas from Teachers First
3. Review this article on Blogging Ideas for Kids
4. Review the ideas shared in 52 ideas for blog posts by kids
8. Add an image at the top of your blog page
1. in the blog share your thoughts about
1. ways to use blogs with kids
2. ideas from blog posts for kids
9. In the section below, EDU311 Blog Posts, add the link to your blog so the rest of the class can see your ideas.

EDU311 Blog Posts - post the link to your blog below.  If you are not able to do so, then post the link in the Moodle under the Assessment label of the week of June 4.

I look forward to reading your blog!