This week we started the novel Whale Rider by Witi Ihimaera.  Our first activity was to read the legend  “How Maui Fished up an Island” which documents the formation of the lands known as New Zealand.

Using Susan Augstyn’s method for summarizing, students choose three key words in each sentence of the legend.  The key words were then used a guide words during the students’ retelling of the story.  Of course, the legends were retold using the Livescribe pens!

The recorded pencasts have been transferred to My Livescribe account and embedded into the “Livescribe Pens and Grade 10s” wiki.  I notice considerable improvement in my students’ ability to paraphrase.  A few students have included transition words and their own words/phrases  in their retellings; Moses uses the words ” According to the legend… ” and ” The people believe that…..”  My plan over the Easter weekend is to assess the recorded retells using our co-created rubric as I have only briefly listened to the pencasts while uploading them.

Shameless plug for Livescribe Smartpens!

I have found the Livescribe pen to be a wonderful tool to use in my English First Peoples 10 class. We worked out a few kinks in the process but my students and I are very skilled at using them now.  I am getting very proficient at downloading and embedding pencasts into a wiki and have even uploaded the pencasts to each of my students Evernote e-portfolios.  My students are getting better at using the pens and are no longer needing to record or re-record a session. I think this means two things– they have mastered using the pens and they are getting better at retelling.

If you are considering ways to use a Livescribe pen visit this googledoc  I have been watching a number of Livescribe tutorials and have found one that has piqued my interest!  Naturally it is tied in with assessment and feedback! It involves embedding a pdf pencast over top a students work. This would enable me to provide written and audio feedback and embed the pencast over a jpeg image of the students written work.  Sounds confusing right?  I am going to figure this one out.  Fortunately, I have located a website that has a distance education professor using this technique in his English courses.