Hoping for the final pieces soon!

I have emailed the students to get their final pieces added to Ning and Voicethread. I am still waiting to hear back from most of them. They have responded slowly but not completely. I liked their reflections that are posted on the Ning. I have made a voicethread and this is the link but it is still in the works!

http://voicethread.com/#u339426.b446476.i2399602

Copy and paste if the link doesn't work when you click on it.

This is a copy of the email that I sent the students:

Hey Ning folks!

MY PROJECT IS DUE FRIDAY!!!!!!!!

So I need your help! First go to Ning.com and sign into the Ning we have been working on. I actually had one person ask me what the Ning was. It is the social network or discussion forum we have been using to discuss the book Feathers!

Please follow the steps closely. I have to do a final presentation and I need "pieces" from you.

1. Complete the responses on Ning. There are three I REALLY NEED FEEDBACK ON! It is the "What if," "A Silent World," and "Reflections of your experience with the Ning." If you have completed it, thanks!

2. I need your picture of you reading Feathers or pretending to be working on the Ning on your computer. Make sure the Ning website is in the picture too! Then email it to me at clsteine@ncsu.edu!!!! Then these pictures will be put onto voicethread which is my slideshow. Thanks Christal, Nicole, and Sunny for getting the pictures to me. For those of you who haven't email them to me ASAP or I can take your picture, just email me with a time.

3. I am sending a link here: http://voicethread.com/#u339426.b446476.i2399602 click on it and make a free account with voice thread. It only takes less than five minutes to do. View the slide show. You will see at the bottom, it says comment. Click it! Then you will see the options of record or type. You can record by talking into your computer or type your comments. What are the comments of? Your answers to the reflections on the Ning. For instance, if Sunny doesn't mind me using her responses, this is what hers will look like in the comment box. Of course, I would prefer that you comment on your picture. If you don't plan to have your picture on there, you may comment on the page where is there a layout of the Ning.

From Sunny-
What did you like about the Ning? I liked how the information was organized- forums and messages in easy to find places.
What drawbacks did Ning have? Ning's main drawback was probably that you don't have face to face interaction with other students and the teacher/moderator. When you are in a real classroom setting, it is easier to express and clarify what you mean.
If you cuold manage this discussion forum, what would you do differently? I would set more deadlines for responses and chapters to be read.
Did you feel like you could express your thoughts better on a discussion forum or would you prefer a face to face discussion? I prefer face to face discussion because you get to know who you're talking to better, and you can observe a person's facial, body, and verbal expressions.
Did you learn more about the book Feathers than you would in a classroom setting? I don't think that I necessarily learned more than in a classroom setting. That would all depend on the teacher and format of the class, but I would say that a forum has an advantage in the way it presents information. A forum post can list additional information about the book and its time frame, instead of a teacher trying to hold everyone's attention and express the information verbally.
Do you think role-play (writing a script, filling someone else's shoes) is an effective teaching strategy on Ning? The script writing was a little uncomfortable for me, personally, but it did make me think about being in a deaf person's situation. Pretending to walk in a different person's shoes is very effective to teach, on Ning and in a traditional classroom. Overall, I would say that role-play was a good way to teach on Ning.

4. That should be it! PLEASE do this ASAP before Friday! I would REALLY APPRECIATE IT!:-)

It sure is hard to keep in contact with the students especially when they are not my own. I made a VoiceThread slideshow of the students participating in the Ning and also I had a PowerPoint of my question, design, implementation, and evaluation of the ALP. Check it out here: (if you have a voicethread account) http://voicethread.com/#u339426.b451069.i2400063 (revised 4/19). The Ning has had some good responses but I am sure I can get better responses if I had a classroom full of students. The voicethread is looking good and am hoping to get more pictures on it soon as well as the student's comments. I need two more students on there with their pictures. One is out of town so it's been hard to get a hold of him.

To check out the Ning go to www.youngadultsrule.ning.com.

Slowly Progressing

A few students have responded to Ning. Check out my Ning page at www.youngadultsrule.ning.com. You will need an invitation by me to join it. I had changed the requirements of my ALP. I am hoping to use some form of role play using a discussion forums. To use role play without the face to face format, expressions, and gestures, the participants in my Ning will use expressive writing skills to view other character perspectives. They will write from another perspective and write a script between characters and themselves in the book as if they were one of the characters. I chose a book called Feathers by Jacqueline Woodson which has perspectives on race (in the 70s era) and perspectives from a silent world of a deaf teenager. At this time, there are a few responses from some participants. I do have some that have seem to disappear off the face of earth. This Ning would be sucessful if they were my students so that way I can have some face to face contact with them. Most of these students, I never see at all. Therefore I have a difficult time motivating them in person to get pysched about this project. However there are some responses on there that I could use for the ALP project. I would like to thank my colleague Katie from ECI 521 for letting me borrow three of her students to participate in the Ning. She is giving them credit for doing this for me. Hopefully this will motivate them to respond to the discussion forum (Ning).