Firefly Allows Chatting with Others Visiting the Same Website
By Ben | May 14, 2008 - 11:22 am - Posted in By Ben, By Chris, By Kevin (dogtrax), By Nancy, For Lower Grades, For Upper Grades, From other Sources, Lessons, Literature, Lower Grades, Technology, Websites, Writing, Writing in History, Writing in Math, Writing in Science, by Eric, by Natan, classroom, hacks, study tools

Okay…so, what does that mean for you? It means having students write their thoughts instead of speaking them, which is, as we all know, an important skill when one depends on the internet/email to communicate. Below I give a very basic explanation of how it works and how you can use Firefly in your classroom.

HOW IT WORKSfirefly.jpg

When you visit a firefly-enabled website, you can click anywhere on the site and start typing. When you do, a bubble will pop up with whatever you are saying. Pretty interesting.

 

WAYS IT CAN BE USED IN THE CLASSROOM

  1. Have your students look at different documents. Set a timer and do virtual stations. Each time the timer sounds, students would go to a different virtual station (or page of your website) to discuss via firefly.
  2. You could anonymously post various students’ work for critique. Then they can print screen when they are done.
  3. Put pictures of various advertisements your website and have students evaluate it for bias and/or method of using propaganda.
  4. Have students do something like a word cluster.

I like this site because it allows for quiet evaluation of materials while giving a the assignment an edgy feel.

I would love to hear from you regarding ideas for using firefly.

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Personal Writing- Regardless of Content Area
By Natan | April 29, 2008 - 8:48 pm - Posted in Writing, Writing in History, Writing in Math, Writing in Science, by Natan

There are many books about the value of writing in the classroom – regardless of content area. We know that students make better, deeper connections to material when they commit pen (ant thoughts) to paper, and their overall understanding usually benefits greatly from writing.

I have discovered that my students benefit in yet another way when they write in my history classes – I get to know them better. And they get to know me better. I know I am not the only teacher who has realized this, but it is something that the experts never mentioned to me in my Master’s program.

I have found that using a personal writing prompt that connects a student to an emotion can be a very powerful form of communication. On September 11 of this past year, I assigned a nice, short writing assignment when the students came in. Read The Full Story…

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