My Planned Technology Activity

I feel like I have already blogged about the activity that I planned to implement this school year because I implemented it quite some time ago. What I had planned to do was a research activity that allowed students to construct their own knowledge on a subject through the research process. In doing so, students would be utilizing technology resources in constructivist methods because they are taking technology use beyond basic product formation to knowledge creation through the resources they utilize.

The research process was actually completed in December with my sophomores when they each had the task of researching an invention and creating an outline line that details what that invention is, the history of the invention, advancements in that invention, and how that invention has been influential. Some students chose to research very basic inventions like the car or the gun, which was equally interesting for many of those students because they happen to enjoy cars and hunting. Other students took it to more complicated research topics, like the invention of laser optics or the invention of the Internet. Needless to say, these students had far greater difficulty researching these more advanced and obscure topics--however, because they were truly interested in that topic they were intrinsically motivated to work through their research dilemmas.

Throughout this year I have noted how my seniors have responded to the topic of valid and reliable resources. When completing the research process, my sophomores were also very responsive to this topic. Because they are from the technology generation, they were able to identify with the different types of websites and explain why some are more valid and reliable than others.

The most difficult part for all of my students in the research process was the nitty-gritty citation and references. It seems that no matter how many times I explained to them how to do it, they still couldn't get it right. I do feel that my seniors, now in their second round of career exploration research, as I have previously written about, are finally getting the hang of citations. It clearly has to do with the need for multiple opportunities to be exposed to the process--only then do they start to remember and understand the purpose.

Lastly, the other area where many students struggled was with searching methods. Often times students would try searching information using a particular search phrase, but if no results appeared that they found beneficial they were not sure of how to problem solve that situation. With my seniors, I problem solved this during second semester by having an day where we, as a class, brainstormed multiple ways to search for a particular topic.

Overall, though, I do feel the research process has been helpful. I think it enabled my students to view technology as a resource to use whenever they are seeking information, and developed better skills on how to effectively utilize those technology resources (including the Internet, databases, etc.)

Seniors back at investigations

So, I've decided to have my seniors finish out the year with Career Investigations similar to what they worked on during 1st semester. For this last Career Investigation, they are to use the Internet to write 3 papers that detail their investigations on particular in-depth topics related to the career they plan to enter. Some of the topics they may choose to research include: how the economy will affect their career, how the upcoming election will affect their career, innovations in their career, a famous person in their career, how their career has been in the news, employment opportunities, etc. The reasons why I provided them with the option to choose between these different topics is because certain topics are easier for certain careers--it just depends on the career.

I was surprised to see how much they remembered from 1st semester when we did some review at the beginning of this revisited unit. For example, we reviewed topics such as works cited, citation, and valid/reliable sources. Of all the topics we covered last semester, they remembered the information we had discussed about valid and reliable sources more than any other topic. They were easily able to identify what the different url address meant (such as .com, .edu., .org). They also knew the difference between reliable and valid, and how to tell if a site is either of these.

They still struggle quite a bit with their ability to find resources on the Internet. Our first couple of days in the lab involved lots of students saying, "I can't find any information," or "I'm not finding anything." After working with them one on one, I was able to show many of these students the different ways you can re-word searches to find information...and how some topics are just harder for some careers than others. Now, just one day before the first paper is due, it seems as if most students have been able to find some pretty good information on their particular topic.

On another note, I have also been using United Streaming quite a bit to find educational videos to show my seniors. In between research and typing days, I've been sprinkling in what I call "Focus on the Career World," where we have studied topics such as effective communication, emotional IQ, and as we did today, teamwork--all important areas to become skilled in to work effectively in any work place. On United Streaming there are many videos that relate to this topic--and while they are very cheesy, they provide excellent real-life situations and valuable advice. They also provide the students with examples of appropriate dialogue to use when they are in those situations.

I was very pleased today when one of my seniors in my 3rd hour said, "Why can't all our English classes be like this--I feel like what we do in here will actually be useful to me." I would like to think that their investigations into the workforce have much to do with her opinions on this.

Getting back in the labs?

The last post I made commented that I was taking some time off from the labs to allow other teachers the opportunity to use them--and boy I couldn't have been more right about the need. What I ended up discovering throughout the month of March is that every teacher in the school was fighting for labs that were simply not available. Two of our four labs were booked up for the SRI electronic reading test, and everyone was elbowing for the other two labs. At the end of the month I needed to get all of my classes into the labs for just a couple of days to type up some documents, but there were virtually no labs available. I was able to get one day for my sophomores, and a few more for my seniors (who really need about 4 days), but with my seniors I had to get the labs for the hours on different days, which basically meant I had 2 different calendars running for those hours. Talk about confusing for me! So it's a good thing that I backed off the labs for that time period.

I hope that I can get in the labs more during this month, though, because I have some more technology based activities that I would like my students to engage in for these units. For example, I plan to have my seniors re-engage in the Career Exploration unit they had been doing during second quarter. When we had done it second quarter, though, I had all the students work in lock-step completing the same assignments at the same time. I think that this semester I will do it in more of a work-shop fashion. I case I had not mentioned it before, my seniors have serious attendance problems--most of my seniors miss at least one day a week, with several of them missing 2-3 days a week. When doing assignments where everyone is working in lock-step this becomes hard to keep everyone informed of what is going on and how to complete assignments. So, I think I want to have this semester be very open ended in terms of what they can explore. I will give them several different topics for exploration and they can then choose when they explore which items. In doing so, each item will have a formal write-up they must create, and the only expectations is that they have the write-ups by a certain date. And although each of these explorations will be very different, the overall goals for these explorations will be the same, and thus, I will be able to use one rubric for all of the assignments.

For example, of the options is to research your career in the news. Where is you career present in the news? Is it in any current events? Have there been any controversies regarding your career in the news? Etc. They will then engage in research related to this topic and complete a write-up. They will be able to use the skills we addressed last semester when we went over valid and reliable sources in research, citations, bibliographies etc. The only problem is that I have a lot of turn-over in terms of students. About 33% of my students are new this semester, so I will need to find some way to do mini-lessons to teach them this info that they missed last semester, or I will need to change the requirements for them slightly. I'm not quite sure how I plan to address this issue yet. I do know, though, that I think they will enjoy this method a lot more because they will get to pick the options that apply to them, interest them, and that are more readily available for their particular career. While I feel that all of this career exploration stuff has involved very authentic research--because this is info they need to know before entering the work force next year--I think this semester will be even more authentic because it provides the students with more options for choice.

blustering through...

Wow, totally forgot to blog...oops! I guess it's just that time of the year when we are all chugging along trying to make it until spring break...11 school days?

Unfortunately, we've only been using surface level technology right now. By that I mean that technology is primarily being used for word processing purposes, not for the construction and sharing of new knowledge.

Well...I suppose that's not true for everyone. I am doing end of unit projects with my sophomores right now over the play Othello by the good ol' Billy Shakes. For these projects students must complete three types of projects: 1) a creative visual project with a metacognitive reflection that explains rationale behind project, 2) a creative written project withe metacognitive reflection, and 3) a formal written paper. For each of these options, students have several options of project types to choose from. For example, for the creative visual students could create a drawing, painting, collage, comic strip, MovieMaker composition, extensively digitally altered pictures, etc. As you can see, some of the options allow for technology use. The same is true for the other project options. One of the formal options requires students make use of technology in constructing knowledge if they choose the option of researching a topic related to the time period and relating it to the play.

Interestingly enough, my students that really enjoy using technology are finding ways to integrate technology into the project in ways that I would not have thought of doing. For example, many students have chosen to make a collage, and are doing so by pulling images from the Internet. A couple of students have chosen to write a song for the creative written project and have set their lyrics to actual music that they are then recording on the computer so they can turn it into me. I believe one of those students is using that song for his creative visual because he is setting the song to a MovieMaker background of images. Very cool, very creative, and within their comfort level and realm of technology experience--yet still pushing them to think critically about the text of Othello.

website makes life easier

Not a lot on the technolgy front right now. Both of my classes have been focusing a lot of energy on reading from good ol' fashioned books. My seniors are currently participating in literature circles groups, so each week they work to complete their required reading, a journal, and their group role for their discussion groups. My sophomores are reading Independent Reading Books (IRBs) and we are also reading Othello in class as a group. Needless to say, everyone has pretty much had their noses in a book rather than pressed against the computer screen.

I will say, though, that in attempting to meet diverse student needs, I have found a website that has made everyone's life a little easier. In class, we are reading the No Fear Shakespeare version of the play, in which the left side of the page is the classic Shakespeare text and the right side of the page is a modern translation. Using this version has been very helpful for my high number of special needs students (to whom I recommended they just read the modern text), allowing them to follow along with the class and engage in discussions. What is convenient is that you can find this text on the web at www.nofearshakespeare.com . Once at this site, you just click on the play you want to read, and the text appears on the screen exactly like it is in our book, pagination and everything. This has been really great for catching up students who are absent, assisting students who need extra help or are working with a learning specialist, or simply to allow students in "In-School-Suspension" to stay caught up even if they are not physically in class. This online resource has also helped students as they work on their projects for this unit (a series of three different projects that really provide students with a great deal of choice in the medium and project they develop). However, these projects require students use quotes from the play. So when we are down in the media center having project work time, the students find great ease in going to this site to find the quotes they need.

Projector, yay!

Yay! We finally got a projector in my room! What's nice about it is that it is hooked up to a separate computer that sits in the back of the room and also serves as a student computer. So if/when students want to do presentations or show something on the projector I don't have to worry about them being on my computer (which is against school policy).

So far I have found the projector useful for several purposes. First, I have used it as an overhead quite a bit, so I am glad to be saving the environment in the reduction of transparencies I waste. Of course, that is surface level use. Second, I was able to use the projector to share with my students high and low quality project examples and we scored them together using a rubric. Specifically, I opened up the rubric on the computer and used the highlighter feature in Microsoft Word. As the students told me what to quality indicators were satisfied on the rubric, I would highlight that section. I found this to be particularly helpful with some of my low level learners who are still struggling with figuring out how to use a rubric. Having the highlighting up on the screen showed them how to highlight the rubric and breaking that down verbally in class helped them to understand what that means.

Other than that, not much technology use right now. We've been spending a lot of class time reading the play. I had wanted to use some media clips in a Jack Daw we did to start the unit off, but for some reason I could not find the small film clips and was running short on time. So the students did the Jack Daw using other forms of media I had gathered already (such as images and articles, etc.).

I did just get my eThemes request back. I asked them to find resources that I could use when teaching the novel Night. I haven't had a chance to look at those items yet, but a skim at the resources looked really good. I'll probably end up using a lot of the resources for pre-novel introduction activities to help students become familiar with topics and interested in reading the novel.

WebQuest & Tribune Website

My students did the Othello WebQuest yesterday and I was surprised by the amount of difficulties some students had and the ease other students had. In the 50 minute class period, some students only completed 1/3 of the assignment despite the fact that they worked hard all hour. Of course, I did not punish them for this...rather, I scored the assignment by looking at what the majority of the class was able to complete during the class time. However, I was still very surprised to see that many students struggle with basic Internet research skills. For example, one of the questions ask students to look up the images of 3 different people who have played the role of "Othello" in film or in live theater and copy that image into the Word document. It also asks them to note the actor who played that role and the year they played it. Many students were easily able to do the copy and pasting part, but it was the searching part where they struggled.

At the same time, I had some students who did remarkably well on the assignment. In fact, it was almost like polar opposites. Students either completed nearly all of the assignment, or only 1/3 of the assignment. Either way, I think all students benefited. Those who were able to complete more obviously benefited from more knowledge gained and more exposure to the topics. Students who completed less learned much less in terms of the content, but the practice with search the Internet will benefit them in future assignments. Students need to become much more skilled in this area, and I'm glad this activity served that purpose as well.

Just wanted to make the note...I use my super cool projector with seniors everyday in replacement of an overhead...but today I was able to use it to make the content more relevant to the students. We have been doing daily mini-lessons on the importance of reading, and have been focusing on the aspect of improving vocabulary through reading (particularly in the way you learn words simply by reading them in context, like a sponge soaking up information). During the warm up I logged onto the Columbia Daily Tribune website and we read a news article searching for new words with which they were not familiar. They really like looking in the news paper because the info was fresh off the press, and thus, more relevant to them.

Anyway, not much technology use this month...will let you know what in store for the future, though.