Online Diaries

 

Reflection is a vital part of a students learning experience.  It allows for important metacognitive growth.  One way to integrate reflection and technology is by using Weblogs or blogs.  Blogs are online diaries that students can construct.  The diaries are posted into cyberspace, allowing others to respond and comment to the posting.  Blogs can be set up individual or by groups (like classrooms).  They can also incorporate various multimedia elements, like graphics and videos.

In The Educator?s Guide to the Read/Write Web Will Richardson discusses the many uses of blogs in the classroom.  The can be used to tap into cricitcal thinking and langurage skills.  They can be used by teachers to grow professional by discusses educational resources and their uses.  Students can use them to design ?online, reflective, interactive portfolios of their work?, to share not just with their parents and each other, but with the world.  Richardson personally uses blogs in his high school classroom in a variety of ways.  His students use their blogs to collaborate with experts like autors of the books they are reading.  They also communicated with students in Poland as part of a holocaust unit.

Of course being able to reach a worldwide audience also has its drawbacks.  The decision to use blogs needs to be addressed with administrators and parents.  Students need to be informed of the safe use of the internet (which is part of the curriculum in most states) and what to do if inappropriate material is encountered.

The benefit to using blogs would be to open up the possibilities of reflection.  One aspect of the guided reading program is to reflect on books that you read.  With a blog that reflection can be shared with interested others.  Students will have the unique opportunity to respond to other students reflections as well, asking questions or providing support. Teachers and parents can respond to a posting as well, offereing supoort or opportunities to dive deeper.  If a student expresses an interest in a particular topic, the teacher could suggest other resources/sites to visit. 

      As Richardson pointed out, blogs could be used as portfolios, one more way to evaluate the learning of our students.  The unique aspect of this electronic portfolio, is that parents could check in periodically and have insights into their students learning.

Blogs could also be used by groups within the school, like Student Council, to share club minutes and the projects that the club is involved with. 

David Warlick is an expert in this area and has written the book Classroom Blogging: A Teacher?s Guide to the Blogosphere.  He also has a useful blog site at www.davidwarlick.com/2cents/. He also runs a website to help set up a classroom blogsite for free at www.classblogmeister.com.  

 

Adventures IN Cyberspace

               

        Webquests have become increasingly popular with classroom teachers.  A webquest, as Bernie Dodge defines it is ?an inquiry-oriented activity in which most or all of the information used by learners is drawn from the Web.  Webquests are designed to use learners? time well, to focus on using information rather than looking for it and to support learners? thinking at the level of analysis, synthesis, and evaluation?.  You can think of a wequest as a way of scaffolding knowledge on the internet.  By using organized webquests teacher can ensure that students are using authentic information and drawing meaningful conclusions.  Not only can the level of scaffolding differ from the student perspective, but from the teaching perspective as well.  Some teachers new to webquests may be comfortable choosing from the many webquests available on the Web that were designed by experts.  There are links to some of these at the end of this blog entry.  Some teachers may be veteran users of the Web and wish to design their own webquests.

        In Focus: Five Rules for Writing a Great WebQuest, Bernie Dodge outlines the necessary steps in designing an effective webquest.  The first step is (F)ind great sites.  Since one of the benefits of webquests is that it streamlines the research process for your students by directed them in the direction of authentic and usable sites, it becomes an imperative first step for you to find those sites for them.  As you find the sites a bookmark manager can help you save and organize the sites you find useful.  The next step is (O)rchestrate learners and resources.  This means organize not only computer use and online resources, but offline activities as well.  Students are often organized into social structures akin to other cooperative learning activities.  The third step is (C)hallenge your learners to think.  Don?t make your assignments too easy, bump it up to the higher level of Bloom?s, your students will rise to the occasion.  The next step is (U)se the medium.  Your webquest should not be flat and a simple retelling of facts.  The Web represents a conversational, collaborative, and multimedia network extravaganza, have fun!  The final step is (S)caffold high expectations.  Don?t fail to ask your students to do great things, just make sure you provide the necessary tools for them to experience success.  

        In my own classroom, I think webquests are a great way to cover social studies and science objectives.  Often these topics can be enriched by visual and auditory support on the web.  By structuring the information using the guidelines of FOCUS, I can ensure that my students learning experiences are enriched in a meaningful way.  While the content may be social studies or science, many math and literacy skills can be integrated through the tasks that are assigned as part of the webquests.  In a lot of ways, webquests socially mirror the inquiry projects and similations I have used in my class before, I just think using the internet takes the content level to a whole new dimension, and adds the motivation increase that comes with most techonological based activities.

 

Sites of interest?

Bernie Dodge?s site: www.webquest.sdsu.edu

Webquest Portal: www.webquest.org

Best Webquests: www.bestwebquests.com

 

 

 

Making Meaning Visually

        Concept mapping is a great way for students to identify and explain relationships among main ideas and topics.  They can be implemented in a variety of ways.  The basic idea is that a list of topics are either supplied by the teacher or generated by the students.  The topics are then organized in a web with directional arrows indicated the nature of the relationships between various topics.  The arrows are then labeled with propositions that further explain the nature of the relationship between the two topics.  This activity taps into a higher level of knowledge and understanding typical at the synthesis level of Bloom?s Taxonomy.

        In Computers as Mindtools for Engaging Learners in Critical Thinking by David H. Jonassen the role of technology in semantic mapping is explored further. Concept mapping is one way for learners to construct knowledge using technology.  The use of a semantic network, like concept mapping, requires students to have an in depth understanding of course content and actually construct knowledge, not just reproduce it.  Students, in essence, teach the information to the computer instead of the other way around.

        Many elementary schools in Wake County use the software program, Kidspiration.  This is a concept mapping program.  This is an excellent first step for developing concept mapping abilities in your students.  This program can be used as a traditional concept mapping program, where topics can be generated and links established from a wide range of content areas.  Kidspiration also has the unique ability to transfer the concept maps into a writing format.  The map generated by the student is transformed into an outline type format.  In this view students can add more details to transform their map into a written document.  This written outline can then be sent to a word processor for final publishing.  The possibilities are endless.  The program is flexible allowing for a wide range of scaffolding opportunities.

        The maps in Kidspiration are also great for prewriting activities.  A traditional concept map would be beneficial to narrative formats.  The map format encourages students to stay on topic, while fully developing each component of the narrative.  Then program capabilities make it easy to transform the maps into an outline.  There is also tool called SuperGrouping, which allows for mapping in a classification type format.  This would be great for prewriting an expository piece. 

Teachers can design and store mapping activities that can later be accessed by students.  Students can access the activities, perform the tasks, and save their data to later be assessed by the teacher.  As Jonassen points out, concept mapping is a very effective means of assessing students, since it requires the students to interact with information in a way that mandates a deep level of understanding.  Most schools already have this program, even though some teachers are not aware.  Check with your technology person. 

Site of interest?

Kidspiration software  www.inspiration.com

Cmap Tools free download  http://cmap.ihmc.us/

The Theory Underlying Concept Maps and How to Construct Them

        By the Institute for Human and Machine Cognition

http://cmap.ihmc.us/Publications/ResearchPapers/TheoryCmaps/TheoryUnderlyingConceptMaps.htm

Digital Stories

A great application of technology in the classroom is the use of digital stories.  A digital story is a series of still images set to a narrative story recording. 

In Constructing Digital Stories, Sara Kajder, Glen Bull, and Susan Albaugh lay out an organized road map for implementing digital stories with students.  Students should first write a concise script.  The script should be less than a page in length, which requires the students to be parsimonious and only focus on essential information.  The next step is to plan the storyboard. In this step images are prepared (a dozen or so) to relay the main ideas of the stories.  These images can be downloaded clips, files, or videos.  They can be photographs or images prepared by the student.  Each image has a caption highlight its focus.  Student?s then participate in a small group meeting called a story circle where they elicit feedback from other students.  Next, a video editior such as imovie or Movie Maker is used to sequence the images.  Students then record a narrative track.  Students record each line of their script in a different file.  This allows for students to be able to control the pacing of the track with the images.  Finally students dress up their digital stories with special effects, transitions, and a musical soundtrack.  This last step can be omitted if time is an issue, but allowing students this time for perfecting and fine tuning their digital story can increase focus and ownership. 

Kajder et al. suggest making the scripts and storyboards a prerequisite for using the computer.  You don?t want students to waste time at the computer.  As with all computer based projects, students should save their work often. 

I see digital stories as having unlimited possibilities in the K-12 classroom.  One use would be to have 3^rd and 4^th graders use it in preparation for the state writing assessment.  By using digital stories students can focus in on skills such as sequencing of events, main ideas, problems/solutions and transitions.  Obviously since the goal of a digital story is to be succinct, this would not be the best method for teaching elaboration.  But students, could watch a digital story as a class, and then use it as a springboard for writing a personal narrative.  It would be very interested to hear how different students took the same ?skeleton? and created a story.  This would then allow the students to focus on the different ways a story can be elaborated. 

I also think digital stories would be an excellent tool for self reflection.  If the students were participating in a more complex project, like putting on a class play, a digital story could be constructed to document the process allowing students an opportunity to reflect on the learning that has taken place.  This could be used as a culminating project as well, students could take photos from the entire year and set them to story as a way to sum up their year.  This could be shared with parents at the final parents night, as well as with the next group of kids coming up. 

 

 

Sites of Interest?

 

A History of Digital Storytelling

        www.storycenter.org/movies

Resources for Stories

        www.creativecommons.org

Digital Stories by students and teachers

        www.digitalstories.org/

More examples

        www.mcli.dist.maricopa.edu/learnshops/digital/examples.php

 

Tablet PCs

Giving the Laptop a Push to the Next Level

            Tablet PCs are laptops with a twist, quite literally.  They have one hinge instead of two, allowing the user to flip the screen around, fold it back and create a clipboard.  It doesn?t just look like a clipboard, it acts like one too.  The user can use a writing stylus to actually ?write? on the laptop through the use of ink-enabled applications.

          Lyndon Godsall, Linda Crescimano, and  Risa Blair were part of a Tablet PC trial program at Pine Crest School (K-12).  They wrote about some of their findings in Exploring Tablet PCs.  Some of the uses they uncovered for this new technology include the use of One Note.  This program allows teachers to ?write?  on actual electronic documents, such as PowerPoint presentations (much like a smart board).  Teachers can also write on student generated documents to provide feedback.  Pine Crest also found Tablet PCs useful with math applications like MathJournal, allowing students to write out formulas and symbols that were previously difficult with just a keyboard.  They also used them for handwriting exercises at the elementary level. Science applications include programs like Physics Illustrator that allows students to draw shapes and through the use of animation discover the effects of different forces on the shapes.

          I think a Tablet PC would be a great addition to a Writing Workshop Program at the upper elementary level.  The teacher could have organizers, planning sheets, and other scaffolds downloaded to the tablet.  Students could complete planning and write a rough draft on the tablet.  Then students and teachers could revise the work using the writing capabilities.  Then students could work on final drafts.  The Tablet PC would allow the students to store not just their work, but also the revisions and lead to an entire new level of reflection and evaluation.  This would be a great addition to an electronic portfolio.

          As with all new technology, they are a bit pricey right now ranging from $1000- $2500, but in the not so distant future, Tablet PCs could replace composition books, allowing students to carry their tablets to classes and take notes, tests, etc on documents downloaded from a teacher?s site.  Many textbooks can be downloaded to the Tablet PCs as well. 

 

Some sites of interest?

School-wide Use of Table PCs: http://computertimes.asia1.com.sg/ctkids/story/0,5104,2674,00.html

Tablet PC Comparison and Reviews: www.tabletpc2.com/

Video of Tablet PC Use in Higher Education:

http://www.studenttabletpc.com/2006/02/excellent_video_on_how_a_teach.html

PowerPoint of Tablet PC Use: http://media.centerdigitaled.com/Gateway_Seminar_Presentations/Solsky.ppt

GEOCACHING

 Exploring our world with GPS

 

          One of the newest ways to integrate technology in the classroom is through the use of GPS (Global Positioning Systems).  GPS units are navigational devices.  Longitude and latitude coordinates are entered into the device, which then gives detailed directions for finding the location entered.  This technology, once used only by NASA, has become recently available for public use.  It works through the use of satellites.  A minimum of three satellites is needed to triangulate your exact location.  GPS has given rise to a new sport ? Geocaching.  Basically someone hides a cache, a ?treasure?, and posts the coordinates on a website.  Geocachers download the coordinates and the hunt begins.  The caches often have log books for recording journeys and assorted ?treasures?. 

          In Hide and Seek: GPS and Geocaching in the Classroom, Lynn Lary introduces several uses for GPS in the classroom.  One idea she explains is to hide content related caches in various locations in the schoolyard, or in some other open area.  Students can work in groups to solve the clues and find the caches.   Teachers could also hide caches in nearby communities to find out more information about a given locale.  Some caches also have travel bugs.  The travel bugs have directions on where to take it, and its locations and travels are tracked on the web.  Students can track the journeys of travel bugs on a website.  This is an interesting twist to the idea of sending a stuff animal to different classrooms around the area and tracking its route through letters or email.  One twist on geocaching, Lary explains, is to have one cache lead you to another cache, kind of like solving a mystery as you go, a process she calls ?multi-site caching?. 

        One idea I had, that was springboarded by Lary?s article was to conduct a scavenger hunt in downtown Raleigh.  The social studies curriculum in fourth grade centers around North Carolina.  Every year our fourth graders have a walking tour of the downtown area, including the various museums, the State Capitol, etc..  I thought it would be great to have a questionnaire on various topics related to the downtown area.  Each question would have corresponding coordinates.  When the teams of students entered the coordinates they would have to go to the secret location to find the answer to their question.  The questions could be content specific to the Standard Course of Study.  For example, one question could read, ?Which three presidents were born in North Carolina??  The GPS coordinates could guide them to the ?Presidents North Carolina Gave the Nation? statue on Union Square outside the State Capitol where the students could find the answer (Andrew Jackson, James Polk, and Andrew Johnson for the history enthusiast). 

 

Some site of interest.

 

Geocaching: www.geocaching.com

Geocaching With Kids: www.eduscapes.com/geocaching/kids.htm

Geocaching With Kids:  www.geocachingkids.com

Lynn Lary?s Site / Lane ESD: www.lane.k12.or.us/insttech/vtc/gps.html

Travel Bugs: www.geocaching.com/track/

NCDPI Division of Instructional Technology: www.tps.dpi.state.nc.us/geocaching/

Powerpoint of GPS Integration: www.vickiblackwell.com/GPS/GPS%20power%20point.ppt

Guide to Purchasing a GPS unit: www.geocaching.com/articles/gps_buying.asp