Using Technology to Enhance Conceptual Understanding of Elementary Students

On October 7th, this article in Innovative Learning will be linked within the blog.  View the Fall 2010 issue, page 12. 

Please share your ideas for podcasting in the classroom via the comment tool. 

Happy podcasting!

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2010 ISTE Poster Presentation 11:00-1:00 Lobby A-Table P10

View the links to the Voice Threads that were made between fourth graders and expert collaborators during our animal inquiry project this year.

Introduction for Expert Collaborators

Biologist

Parasitologist

Ichthyologist

Local Scientist

Student Introductions

Student Reflections

Bird Group Inquiry Questions

Fish Group Inquiry Questions/Answers

Reptile and Amphibian Inquiry Questions

Parasite Group Inquiry Questions

Mammal Group Inquiry Questions

Insect Group Inquiry Questions


For more information, please check out the article in Innovative Learning, pages 8-9.

Feel free to post a question to my blog or send me an email (lauraslowder@yahoo.com). I'll be happy to respond with ideas that you may be able to emulate in your own classroom.

I am also in the process of setting up collaborations for the 2010-2011 school year. If you are interested, please contact me. I look forward to our future collaborations!

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Using Google Sites or another child-friendly, safe, online web publishing tool, student portfolios can be created in the form of a personalized web site. The beauty of this tool is that it can potentially be taken with the child throughout their schooling and will result in a digital collection of learning artifacts. Multimedia projects can be housed on these sites using podcasts, Voice Threads, screen casts, and other multimedia creation tools.
When setting up sites that will be used by students, and showcase student work, care must be taken to ensure safety and privacy of students. Check with your local governing body regarding regulations enforced in your district before implementing digital portfolios via student websites at your school. With careful planning, a lifetime of learning can be preserved by setting up these tools for learning.

Collaboration Request: I am currently researching the effects of student websites on students' attitudes and motivations towards learning. I am wondering if students are motivated by knowing that they work will be shared with a real audience made up of their peers, family, and experts through their websites. I wonder if this potential motivation might lead to increased performance in the classroom. If you are currently using student websites with elementary school learners, or might be interested in participating in this study, please contact me.

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(copied from notes made during November of 2009)
Problem: Strengthening the home/school connection to provide support for student learners
Question: Can wikis be used to strengthen the connection between home and school in support of student learners?

Idea: Initiate a class wiki as a tool for communicating between the classroom and home.
Students are the predominant authors of the information within the class wiki and update the content regularly to keep parents informed about what they are learning in our classroom.
I have met this goal through the successful launch of our class wiki. Students beg to be chosen to update the content each week and parents are pleased with the connection between the classroom and home. In an effort to encourage parents to check out our wiki and learn to navigate through the pages I also sent home a guided questionnaire for them to use as their child showed them around the tool. There was a place for parent reactions and suggestions that has been informative for my efforts in making this site as useful as possible as well. Overall, this initiative has been effective already and I predict that it will continue to help bridge the home/school connection throughout the remainder of the year (as well as motivate students to create content to be shared).

Link to our class wiki

I have used a parent-student questionnaire to help me to evaluate our class wiki. This survey includes questions that guide parents through the different pages of our class wiki and provides a scaffold for interacting with the content with help from their children. Suggestions are also given as well as general reactions. The following comments were received through this questionnaire…

“I liked that there was student work on there. I wish there had been more writing on there. I enjoyed reading them (the student stories).”

“It enables parents and children to share school information.”

“I think the wiki is great. Very well organized and a good bit of info. Great job!”

“Very helpful when looking to see what the class/grade is doing.”

“I loved it! I loved reading all the stories.”

“This is a great way for students to help each other while each is at home doing homework, etc.”

“Very useful tool. Animal inquiry domain site down on wiki page.”

“I think this is an awesome idea, and is a great way to keep you in touch with the activities/work in the classroom.”

“It is amazing…so informative! I am impressed, Mrs. Lowder!”

“I really like the wiki page. It gives us insight as to what’s going on in class. I give it a thumbs up!”

“That it lets us know what the children are learning in class.”

“We can see what the children are doing in class. Suggestion: Do no use yellow print on a white background, we could not read the animals some of the children picked.”

“I like being able to see at any given time what my child is doing in class in all subject areas.”

“Everybody shares their work and opinions.”

“This is awesome. I love the way this wiki is set up-I enjoyed looking at it with Brittany and it is great for her to see her own work there.” –“Dear Mrs. Lowder, I love our class wiki!!! Brittany”

“I enjoyed using it. The layout was good and it was very easy to navigate through the pages. The only problem was not being able to access the customized search engine. May suggest some graphics on the pages to spice them up some more.”

In reflection, I have followed the suggestions from parents concerning the updating of the customized search engine link, the text color/background on the related page, and have made time for students to add more of their stories. In have not yet added graphics but am looking more into copyright practices and acceptable graphics that I may be able to add. Overall, the wiki is already proving to be a powerful tool that is getting parents more involved in their child’s learning. It is also motivating students to produce high quality work in hopes that they will be able to add it to our wiki for their peers and parents to see. In the future, I will take more time to check to be sure that all links are working before publishing for parents to see. The customized search engine link on our wiki was not linked properly and would not work. Most students remembered using this from our class web page the previous week so they used this to complete this question on the questionnaire but parents were not aware of this.

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I am constantly amazed at my two and four-year olds' abilities to navigate through various apps on my iPhone. Not only can they find and choose games, but they can select the options that they desire without even being able to read the words on the links. The motivation that these little hand helds offers is enough to prompt even these young children to use deductive reasoning to navigate through these apps in an effort to get what they want.

During this same phase in the life of my children my oldest, Haley, is learning to read. Although we often use digital books (she LOVES these) we usually find ourselves snuggling up with paper books. The benefit that the digital books have over those in print is that they are interactive. The downfall is that it is simply easier to grab a little book than to lug a computer on her lap (even a laptop). This makes me wonder, why not develop apps for digital readers. I know, I know, there must be a million of these already. But, why not focus on those for preschool-aged children. These can be read together using a hand held (small enough so as not to inhibit the cuddling that children so often desire while reading together with a loved one). Actually, digital books, with the capabilities of being interactive, can also be read independently by the preschool-aged child much like the games that are played by my two-year-old independently now.

So, whay might make an effective digital book for preschoolers and early readers, that can be read both independently or with a loved one?

-personalization (the ability to insert the child's name into the story)

-differentiation (the ability for interaction to support the reading ability of the child) pronunctiation guides, audio, text that can be read or listened to, the child controls the speed in which the pages turn by sliding the screen to the next "page" when ready, definitions and pictures to provide more information about key vocabulary words, etc.
(Many of these ideas are present in the raz-kids.com interactive storybooks.)

-interaction (giving the child the ability to control the actions and effects of the characters in the story-embed character education traits into the stories)

-progression through reading levels (either phonics-based on DRA-based) with credit given to the child as encouragement to move onto the next book

How might this tool impact learning for early readers?
The creation of such an app will presumably encourage the love of learning and of reading for young learners through use of engaging text. The built in rewards will build the users self-confidence with reading and with learning, even at such an early age. The scaffolded progression of reading skills embedded within the program will help young children to develop pre-reading skills and early reading skills that are likely to lead to success in school.

Another idea (more to come): an app for science readers (informational readers) and an app for multiplication concept development and practice towards mastery

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How might a teacher begin the process of implementing a distance education component to a face-to-face elementary school as an alternative to paper-based homework?  What might need to be considered prior to the development of such a distance education program?

Audience

            The audience that will serve as the context for the work in this class will be a face-to-face elementary school.  Although the teaching and learning that currently takes place at _____________Elementary School is face-to-face, there are times when distance education options would be tremendously beneficial to have.  This work will focus on the development of a plan for such an environment and serve as an example of how and why such an environment might be feasible and useful as an option associated with the face-to-face classroom. 

Needs of _____________School

            There are several needs within _____________School that can be served best by implementing a distance education component.  Many students within the school do not currently complete their homework.  It is either not seen as important by the students and/or parents, or it is simply not engaging enough to entice participation among students.  So, there is a need to find a motivating, engaging, worthwhile way to aid in bridging the gap between home and school for Rockwell’s students.  There are other needs including a way for chronically ill students to engage in learning from home, but for the purposes of this project, the focus will remain on the need for a home-school connection through the use of a distance education component to learning used predominately after school hours.  Despite being a “Title I School”, 100% of students surveyed in one third grade class had Internet access during the 2008-2009 school year.  If such is the case, why not take advantage of the motivation associated with Internet-based assignments and use an online learning component to enhance students’ learning outside of regular school hours.  Implementing such a component is likely to help bridge the gap between home and school, build the community of learners, and potentially even increase the probability that students will actually participate in their homework activities (Mcgrath, 1998). 

Tying Mission Statement to Distance Education Solutions

            Part of the mission of _____________School is to inspire, challenge, and empower students to meet high academic standards.  In order to do this it is important to design purposeful activities that will challenge, empower, and inspire students both during school and once they leave for home.  Activities that encourage collaboration and that are created for a real audience (possibly parents, peers, and outside experts) empower students to create worthwhile products for a worthwhile audience.  This is much more empowering and engaging than the typical worksheet that is currently assigned for homework.  The implementation of a distance education component that is engaging and seen as purposeful for learners can help to do this.  Ideas for such use of distance education include a blog space for communication and collaboration, access to digital learning material to supplement the learning that takes place at school, and a location where digital artifacts can be stored and shared with those who are not in the face-to-face classroom.

Current Opportunities for Distance Education at __________

            The current opportunities for distance education at _____________School are virtually non-existent.  There are a few teachers who build in access to online tutorials appropriate for our elementary learners as both classroom activities and extra resources to support the curriculum.  Other than this, we have no access to formal online learning, telecourses, or any other well-known form of distance education (Moore and Kearsley, 2004).  Despite this fact, we do have access to online learning tools such as blogs, websites, and the variety of learning sites available through use of the Internet.

Building Relationships

            I feel strongly that the parent-child and parent-school relationship would be enhanced if the bridge between home and school were strengthened.  The more that we can do to get parents involved in the learning of their children, the stronger this relationship will be.  Additionally, the better sense of importance parents gauge about their children’s learning, the more support the children will receive in their academic journeys.  The possibilities for distance education to help get parents involved in the learning that is going on in the classroom are powerful.

Guidance from Distance Education Organizations

            The North American Council for Online Learning, NACOL, is a distance education organization that is likely to be able to provide support through guidance, resources, and other ideas, in how to successfully implement a distance-learning program to be used as an alternative to paper-based homework for our school.  The NAOCL website alone provides numerous resources that will serve as guidance as plans for implementation of such a program are underway.  Resources include publications with information relating to K12 distance education, national standards, promising practices in online learning, relevant literature recommendations, as well as other links that may be of help.  

References:

Mcgrath, B.  “Partners in Learning: Twelve Ways Technology Changes

Teacher-Student Relationship,”(1998).   THE Journal.  25.

Moore, M, & Kearsley, G, Distance education:  A systems view, (2004). Wadsworth

            Publishing.

 

 

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This past week I decided to take literature circle discussions and book clubs to a new level.  My students typically lead their own discussions in a face-to-face format.  This week, I decided to try out the iChat tool on our computers in the school's lab.  I had some hesitation when I first thought of doing this.  I am unable to set up groups at school (a feature that is blocked by our tech. department).  I was unsure of my young students' abilities to manage multiple conversations at once.  I decided to start by giving each student two additional group members.  They would have to individually select each member of their group and and carry on two separate conversations using the questions being projected on the screen as a guide for their discussions.  I was amazed at the ability of these novice typers to manage and keep up with both discussions simultaneously.  Not only this, but they also discovered during the second iChat session both the video camera tool and the screen sharing ability of the program.  Talk about motivation!  The expectation for these students to maintain focus on the discussion questions was clear.  They didn't dare vary from this in fear that they would loose the opportunity to participate in these chat groups.  I didn't even have to remind them once to stay on task.  Not only this, but the detail that I saw in these discussions was at least as good, if not better, than the details that they say in their face-to-face discussions.  They had to think of ways to succinctly verbalize, through typing, the thoughts that they wanted to get across to the other members of their group.  They have limited typing skills so it is important to them that they say what they need to say succinctly, even though most do not know what the meaning of the word "succinctly" is.  The power of this chat feature is huge!  We will be using this in our classroom as often as we can get into the lab for these last few weeks of school.  I also plan to implement the use of this tool early on next school year!

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