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Wednesday November 29, 2006 A web quest, according to Bernie Dodge, "is an inquiry-oriented activity in which most or all of the information used by learners is drawn from the Web. Web Quests are designed to use learners' time well, to focus on using information rather than on looking for it, and to support learners' thinking at the levels of analysis, synthesis, and evaluation." In other words, it is a kicked up version of the traditional research paper.
Don't get me wrong, I love research papers. As an English teacher, especially an eighth grade one, I feel that it is part of my professional responsibility to teach my students the proper way to research and compile facts in a logically organized fashion. The problem is that most eighth grade students fall way short in their knowledge of how to find information on given topics. I have struggled for many years in how to get students to go beyond printing out acres of paper in their quest for information. I had yet to come up with a viable solution until I read about web quests.
Dodge puts it best when he states "By doing part of the work for students, we allow them to go beyond what they would be able to do alone. Over time, we hope, they internalize the structures we provide until they can work autonomously" This is what it is all about, teaching students the skills necessary to succeed so that they can do the work by themselves. Sometimes this takes more than we had planned which is why I try to incorporate research into various lessons throughout the year.
There are six parts to a web quest: an introduction, task, process, set of resources, evaluation, and conclusion. Deciding on the task is easy. There are several avenues that you can pursue. One that I think would work well for research purposes is the journalistic task. In this task, students are asked to gather facts and organize them into an account within the usual genres of news and feature writing. In evaluating how they do, accuracy is important and creativity is not. This is a key point, that accuracy is more important than creativity. Teaching students to use facts and data to back up their opinions is more difficult to me than letting them loose with their creativity.
A good web quest takes a while to put together because the teacher needs to find the resources. As Dodge states, you need to find web sites that are readable and interesting, reliable and accurate, and come from sources that students wouldn?t normally encounter at school-no yahooligans. A great site that I plan to use is the Webcrawler. This is the best search engine that I have ever used
Since I already have a research project that I do for the Holocaust, my first web quest will be focused on this topic. Students will be given the task of finding out background information about the Holocaust. They will be asked to explain what happened during the Holocaust to Anne and others like her. A big part of their project will focus on the power of propaganda. This background information will help them connect to her story once we read it.
Web quests are a great way to teach students how to search out accurate facts. I have chosen to try the journalistic task approach, but there are many others that are applicable to my setting as well. Once I have designed a web quest, the possibilities are endless. The best part is that after having done several web quests, the dreaded research paper will no longer cast a shadow over the last grading period of their middle school years.
Tuesday November 28, 2006 I have long been a proponent for journals being an avenue for my students to explore their feelings about different things that are happening in their life. I tried to make sure that students understood their journals were for my viewing only. The thought was that I wanted them to learn to express their emotions freely so that they could then have plenty of content when they were writing. I didn't feel as though my middle schoolers would be honest if they thought their emotions would be put on display for every student. Middle School can be an even crueler experience than high school. This train of thought changed when I first discovered the power of blogging.
According to Richardson, blogging is becoming the new way for teachers and students to interact with each other about topics. Blogs serve several purposes. First, they are a way to tie a traditional instructional strategy, journals, to the technology revolution of today. One criticism that is often leveled at schools is that we are not doing enough to prepare our students for the work force. Another is that we are out of touch with what children of today are capable of in the realm of technology. Second, they allow teachers to foster higher level thinking skills. I speak from experience when I say that blogging requires more than just sending a cute email to someone. The third purpose that a blog can serve is that it can foster online learning communities. Classrooms no longer need to be isolated islands of learning. Students who may not have a kindred spirit in my class could quite possible find one in another, even at another school. Students would also have a larger audience to read and respond to their thoughts than just their fellow classmates.
One source that I found especially helpful was classblogmeister.com. This is a site just for teachers who want to utilize blogs in their classrooms. After perusing several of the classroom blog sites, I came up with a plan for how I wanted to use this site in my classroom. Because I want my students to actively engage in their world, I have decided to implement a current event blog. Every week I will post hyper links to news articles that are of particular interest to my students. Students will be given a choice of two to four news articles. They are to read the article then write a response to the article on their blog. They will also be required to post comments to other blogs written about the same article. Depending on the response, some students might need to be assigned articles as you always have those who claim they weren't interested in either one.
As I have mentioned before, research plays a big role in my eighth grade curriculum. I also like for students to make real world connections with the literature they are reading. One example is the novel The Weirdo by Theodore Taylor. This is a book set in the Great Dismal Swamp of North Carolina. One of the main conflicts in the book is that between environmentalists and black bear hunters. Just recently, there was an article in the News and Observer about a protest that is scheduled to take place in the next month about the annual bear hunt that takes place in the Dismal Swamp. I would have students read this article and respond to it. This gives a real world connection to our novel. For every realistic fiction piece we read, there is something to mirror the conflict that plays out in the daily newspapers.
Blogging is the best way to bridge the gap between what students want to do and what teachers need for them to do. The possibilities are endless when you are a language arts teacher who believes that the more students write, the better they will become.
After all the discussion about types of hardware, it seems only natural to move into the discussion of software. After all, computers are made great only by the programs they can produce. Anyone who has ever tried to wrestle with an outdated computer can testify to this. One issue is how do core teachers integrate software into their classrooms. I think that the key to choosing software for educators is seeing how the individual software can engage students.
I do not consider myself in any way an expert in teaching technology. My specialty is middle grades language arts and social studies, but I have learned so much in this course about the appropriate use of software. There have been several purposes that software can serve that never crossed my mind. For example, I used spreadsheets and databases when teaching about North Carolina Counties. I did this personally because I didn't feel that the students would benefit from making their own spreadsheets. I was completely wrong. When I think of the lost opportunity to engage my students in this level of thinking, I am dismayed. After seeing all of the possibilities for spreadsheets and databases, I have decided to make students design their own about the North Carolina counties. We will focus on competency goal 8 in the North Carolina Standard Course of Study. This goal states that the learner will evaluate the impact of demographic, social, economic, political, and technological advances in North Carolina from the 1970s to the present. Students will be required to create a database that includes demographic, economic, technical, and political information about a county. There are a hundred counties in North Carolina, so each student will conceivably have one county. There will be some overlap ,but students might be able to collaborate in teams for this project. The more advanced students will be required to work independently on the larger counties. After students have compiled their databases, we will move to the second phase of our project. Using spreadsheets, students will try to predict economic and political trends in the different voting districts. They will use the information from the databases to create a picture of the different regions of North Carolina. This will then allow for a final report on the regional diversity of North Carolina. During election years, students will write opinions about which candidates are offering the best solutions for each region based on the demographics, economics, and political leanings. Through this lesson, I hope to see my students gain a better understanding about the state of things in North Carolina. I want them to realize the impact of textile mills closing and the return of cotton as a major crop. By allowing them to learn and come to these conclusions on their own, I foresee them becoming better informed citizens in the future. One added benefit of using these software tools is that the eighth grade computer test is basically a test on using spreadsheets, databases, and word processing. While I am certainly not advocating that we teach the test, I think allowing these students to use these tools in a core class will have a positive affect on their ability to do well on this state test. At the very least, it will show them how useful these tools are in reality.
I do not consider myself in any way an expert in teaching technology. My specialty is middle grades language arts and social studies, but I have learned so much in this course about the appropriate use of software. There have been several purposes that software can serve that never crossed my mind. For example, I used spreadsheets and databases when teaching about North Carolina Counties. I did this personally because I didn't feel that the students would benefit from making their own spreadsheets. I was completely wrong. When I think of the lost opportunity to engage my students in this level of thinking, I am dismayed.
After seeing all of the possibilities for spreadsheets and databases, I have decided to make students design their own about the North Carolina counties. We will focus on competency goal 8 in the North Carolina Standard Course of Study. This goal states that the learner will evaluate the impact of demographic, social, economic, political, and technological advances in North Carolina from the 1970s to the present. Students will be required to create a database that includes demographic, economic, technical, and political information about a county. There are a hundred counties in North Carolina, so each student will conceivably have one county. There will be some overlap ,but students might be able to collaborate in teams for this project. The more advanced students will be required to work independently on the larger counties.
After students have compiled their databases, we will move to the second phase of our project. Using spreadsheets, students will try to predict economic and political trends in the different voting districts. They will use the information from the databases to create a picture of the different regions of North Carolina. This will then allow for a final report on the regional diversity of North Carolina. During election years, students will write opinions about which candidates are offering the best solutions for each region based on the demographics, economics, and political leanings.
Through this lesson, I hope to see my students gain a better understanding about the state of things in North Carolina. I want them to realize the impact of textile mills closing and the return of cotton as a major crop. By allowing them to learn and come to these conclusions on their own, I foresee them becoming better informed citizens in the future.
One added benefit of using these software tools is that the eighth grade computer test is basically a test on using spreadsheets, databases, and word processing. While I am certainly not advocating that we teach the test, I think allowing these students to use these tools in a core class will have a positive affect on their ability to do well on this state test. At the very least, it will show them how useful these tools are in reality.
Friday November 24, 2006 One of the first activities I always do in my classroom is an classmate interview. I do this for a variety of reasons. First, it is a good ice breaker activity. Second, throughout the year, my students are involved in a variety of research projects and the interview is a good way to introduce good questioning techniques. It sounds like a good idea, but so far, I have had only marginal success. This is due partly to the fact that I teach at a small rural community school. My students have known each other for years so they see no relevance in this activity. I have toyed with taking this activity out of my lesson plans, however, I still want the students to learn good questioning techniques. Imagine my delight when I read Curriculum-Based Telecollaboration by Judi Harris. The answer to my dilemma was clearly spelled out with her interpersonal exchanges.
Because my rationale for interviews was good questioning techniques that would assist my students in various research activities, I decided to focus on the electronic appearances and the question and answer structures. Electronic Appearances offer students guest speakers who are experts in their fields. While students would not be actually interviewing the participants, per se, they would still be able to compose good questions and see how to get the answers from a real person instead of an encyclopedia. The woman of Nasa site was interesting, especially for my girls. It is still difficult to get most girls to agree that being interested in math and science is a cool thing.
I am thinking particularly about the problem-based learning activities in which students list the facts about a subject, write down what additional facts they need to know about the subject, and then write down new concepts that they need to learn about. For instance, students may know that the tiger is a big cat. They may understand about endangered species. They may not know how to define a shrinking habitat. After a few times of the whole class watching an electronic appearance, students could then add this to their repertoire of research skills and pursue other appearances independently. This would also be a chance to get the science teacher involved with the research. Since science teachers do not always have the time to instruct students on how to get information from other sources, this would be a great way to collaborate.
The question and answer structures are a way that students can both practice writing questions and see how other questions are answered. Pitsco's Ask an Expert Site is phenomenal!!! My students will be able to ask questions in just about any category that interests them. Students could still practice their questioning techniques, they just wouldn't have to use each other. Students could choose from venues that interested them, within reason. Finally, students could learn how to glean information from non-print sources. Since my students already have gaggle.net accounts, they would be able to access the information at school. The only drawback is the time involved in waiting for a response, but careful planning on my part should alleviate that.
Although I have long known that students need to be able to get information from a variety of sites, I have fallen into the print trap of many educators. I required my students to find information from web sites, magazines, newspapers, and nonfiction books, as well as the encyclopedia, but I left out the human equation. Now, with these great telecollaboration sites, I can put the humans back into research. My students will certainly benefit from this lesson, both during my year with them and in the future.
Sunday November 19, 2006 Okay, this will show my age, but the one simulation software that I was familiar with before this class was The Oregon Trail. The only thing I really knew about it was the fact that everyone in my party always died before reaching Oregon. Needless to say, I was a little wary about the simulation software as we began reading about it. Now, however, I can't wait to apply this in classrooms.
So, what's so great about simulations. For starters, they are a great way to bring outside realistic, practical problems into the classroom. Second, the self-regulated learners can do well independently. Third, they can be used before or after instruction, depending on the group, teacher, and purpose. (Dwyer, 2001) Finally, they would be very useful in looking at improving higher order skills necessary for the EOG.
As a teacher, the way I would like to implement simulations in my class would be to help those higher level students, those labeled AIG (Academically Gifted), move onto more advanced concepts independently of the rest of the group. Too many times, these kids sit idle while other students play catch up on the knowledge level. In this case, the students must acquire knowledge before they can apply it to problem solutions. They must also have developed organizational skills or they will not benefit. These simulations would allow for these students to work alone or with a group on a single computer if need be.
In my classroom, the simulations would add a much needed component to my annual problem-solution research paper. Students are already required to research environmental problems and devise a solution. This activity falls in line with NC Competency Goal #3 in which learners are asked to refine the understanding and use of argument. In the past, students have had issues with understanding why global warming, over-population of species, or overuse of resources are problems. With a simulation, they could see precisely what would happen if these problems are not addressed.
One in particular that was mentioned in class was the Explorelearning.com gizmos. On ExploreLearning.com, there are a variety of situations that really show students what could happen in given scenarios. I looked at several, but the most impressive for me were the science gizmos. Admittedly, I am not a science teacher, but I knew enough of the concepts to work through the exploration guides. Take the one on photosynthesis. Just being able to manipulate the gizmo helped me to understand and remember about how light increases so does the production of oxygen. While I couldn't tell you why the production of oxygen increases as the light increases in photosynthesis, it makes me want to know why.
That is the whole point of simulations-the why factor. Students, especially the high achieving students, usually want to know why something happens. These simulations remind me a more realistic Magic School Bus. Remember the show where Mrs. Frizzle took her science students on out-of-this-world field trips where they explored the human body as germs, water erosion as rocks, and rain as, well, rain? While Mrs. Frizzle was obviously a fictional character, with simulations, the field trips can now be within reach. How cool is that?!
The trick with simulations is that even though they can be used to apply newly learned concepts into different contexts, you still need the teaching. (Dwyer, 2001) Studies show that inadequate teaching methods can hinder the simulation. This goes right along with what Draper found in her study of CRS units. (Draper, 2004) Pedagogy should come first, then technology. Students need to be taught the subject matter that they are trying to use in a problem-solution simulation.
This is where close collaboration with the science and/or knowledge of the science curriculum for eighth grade would come into play. Even if students have learned the concepts, it might have been earlier in the year. Everyone needs a refresher course. Also, with the advent of yet another standardized test, this could be a way of having students review concepts that they will need for the end-of-grade science test. It would be a win-win situation for both of us. My students would practice reading informational text.
I can foresee a center in my classroom where students would go for a week to review the simulations for their paper. The beauty of Explorelearning.com is that there are enough varied simulations that students can still have a choice on their topics. My research requirements in the past have been for students to use a variety of print sources. Now, I am going to add the requirement of a simulation. This way, I know students have used data to arrive at their solution.
References
Draper, S. W. & Brown, M. I. (2004). Increasing interactivity in lectures using an electronic voting system. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 20, 81-94.
Dwyer, W. M., & Lopez, V. E. (2001). Simulations in the learning cycle: A case study involving 'Exploring the Nardoo.' Proceedings of the 2001 National Educational Computing Conference (NECC), Chicago, IL.
Draper, S. W. & Brown, M. I. (2004). Increasing interactivity in lectures using an electronic voting system. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 20, 81-94.
Dwyer, W. M., & Lopez, V. E. (2001). Simulations in the learning cycle: A case study involving 'Exploring the Nardoo.' Proceedings of the 2001 National Educational Computing Conference (NECC), Chicago, IL.
As a language arts teacher, I have always loved computers. Not only are they great for research, they are a lifesaver when it comes to compositions. Students are much more motivated when they can type their papers and they are much easier for me to read and grade.(No more late night deciphering of someone's strange handwriting.) I especially like the way I can sneak in a final edit by requiring my students to handwrite their paper before they type it. The problems I have faced have always come from availability or lack thereof. I have often thought that it would be easier to schedule diplomatic appointments than it is to schedule the computer lab. Imagine my delight when my school purchased four wireless laptop carts that housed fifteen computers each. I was especially thrilled when ELA teachers were given priority scheduling privileges. The ELA department doesn't always get the breaks, you know.
However, our problems were just beginning. Sure, we could use the laptops whenever we wanted, but it was not smooth sailing. In a computer lab, the time constraint helps you. In a classroom with unlimited use, there is not as strict a time constraint. You cannot imagine the stress of a classroom of twenty-six or more students working on their final drafts of compositions. We are talking about middle school students to whom fast means the speed of light, spell check means never having to reread your paper, and finished product means the craziest font you can find at 72pt. Add to this the technical glitches such as printing problems, batteries going dead, and sharing one laptop among three classes. Remember, this is middle school where 'accidents' happen frequently, friends change daily, and confidentiality is as foreign as moon rocks. Although most students had been exposed to computers via their exploratory, laptops were relatively novelties. There had to be another answer.
The answer to most of the problems came when reading Research: What it says About 1 to 1 Learning, a report compiled by Apple Computer, Inc. This report details an initiative done in Maine and Virginia whereby each student at a school is given a laptop to use for the year. By this I mean the students actually get to take the computers with them wherever they go. Of course there are insurance and parent training issues, but the bottom line is that kids take ownership of the laptop. This automatically defuses the problems with other students tampering with projects.
In my classroom, individual laptops would fit nicely with the reading/writing workshop that I already incorporate. This is a strategy based on Nancie Atwell?s In the Middle. The concept is simple. Students spend their class time working on independent projects. Students decide what type of project they want to complete. In the writing version, everyone has a certain number of projects they must complete to get their grades. Instruction occurs through fifteen to twenty minute mini-lessons, then students spend the rest of the time working on their projects.
Without individual laptops, all students had to be finished with their projects at the same time so that we could type their final products. This put quite a damper on the ?work at your own pace? atmosphere that I had strived to create. With each student having their own laptop, this would not be a problem. The other benefit that I could see in my classroom is that the more advanced students could go further without the constraint of waiting for ?computer week.?