Using technology effective to assist students with higher level learning is a personal goal of mine. It is also a great challenge and creating the Personal Learning Artifact served as my opportunity to enhance my comfort level with technology and actually experience my students' perspectives. I have created a Lino virtual bulletin board. Lino is a free sticky and canvas site that only requires the use of a browser. Rather than simply asking your students questions and they reciprocate with verbal answers, Lino allows for the student to privately provide feedback, contribute ideas, and form connections among the sticky notes.
My middle school currently has an action plan with several goals we would like to accomplish within our PBIS team. One of those said goals was to increase the level of student feedback and participation. I scheduled an informal meeting with our student council members and also met with some of my 6th grade girls' counseling group members to focus on some Q + A about our current PBIS approach. While we did speak together initially, I offered the students a chance to shed further light on issues by visiting the Lino site and posting their thoughts anonymously. If I thought the orally shared responses were very insightful and revealing, the anonymously shared ideas were even more so! It was so exciting to see the notes being added, organized, and constructed over the past week or so. Currently my board represents the thoughts, perspectives, and ideas from approximately 15 students with very diverse backgrounds, discipline histories, academic data, and social networks. I plan to bring this Lino to my PBIS Tier 1 team to discuss how we can incorporate these ideas to improve our current model. The students I spoke with seemed surprised I was seeking their input. I hope they felt I was listening, valuing their comments, and took their feedback seriously.
Here is the link to my Lino:
http://linoit.com/users/shagen/canvases/Charles%20City%20Comet%20Character
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