Collaborative Technology in My Classroom

I have never used a wiki in my class but after developing a wiki in our spring class and writing a lesson plan for a wiki with this class, I am confident that I will be using a wiki this year. Wikis are a “convenient productivity tool, but there is nothing inconsequential about convenience and time saved in the classroom, or about a wiki’s ability to foster collaboration, review and revision among students” (Hendron, p. 175)
I have my students work with different groups on various projects many times throughout the school year. My kids do five major research projects during the year and four of these projects have some kind of group element to them. In the past, I have had students meet in their groups and they have to write things out on paper and then edit and revise. Then they have to rewrite it sometimes over and over again. With the use of a wiki, we will be able to save a lot of time and paper. Students will be able to go on the computer to type out their document. Each of the group members will be able to go in and add, delete, or change whatever needs to be done right there on the computer.
For this lesson plan, I used one of those research projects. The students work in city-state groups to research ancient Greece. Once each group member has completed their research, as a group they have to develop 20 multiple choice trivia questions. Each person has to write five questions for their topic that was researched. (These questions will be used later for a Greek Festival that we do.) My 6th graders always struggle with writing multiple-choice questions. It’s easy to write the question and answer but the distracter answers are always hard to write. Developing a wiki for this lesson, allows the students to go on and help each other write distracter answers for these multiple-choice questions. Each group wants to write the best questions, as these are the ones that will be used for the Greek Festival. The groups also have to go on the wiki to develop group cheers and costumes. I will check each wiki to make sure these things are appropriate for our Greek Festival.
The best part about using a wiki is they are free! I have done wikis on wikispaces and pbworks. Both programs work very well and they are pretty easy to use.

Video Multimedia Technology

Just as I have done at the beginning of just about every lesson so far, I didn’t think video multimedia was going to work for me and my classroom. I thought it would be way too complicating for my students to create and I have PowerPoints that I use to help me with my instruction so I didn’t see the need for video multimedia.
Once again, I started playing and experimenting with the new program. I have a Mac so I was using iMovie and iPhoto. I was shocked at how easy it was. I created an iMovie to use with the Mayan lesson that I teach. I have tons of pictures from a mission trip that I went on to Guatemala that involve the Mayan culture. I usually show these pictures from a photo album or from a PowerPoint but with iMovie I was able to create a video about the Mayans using my pictures. I think it would be cool to use iMovie as an end of the unit performance assessment. Students could use the knowledge gained over a unit to create their own iMovie. They could use pictures, videos, and writing in their movie. Then as a class or in small groups, students could present their iMovie. As Lever-Duffy & McDonald say on page 347, "the key to using motion video in instruction is to fully engage the learner in sensory experience that motion video offers." When students develop their own videos it will engage each student.
My school already has access to photostory so my students could do a similar project with that program. The school already has microphones and flip cameras that can be used for the projects. In order to use iMovie, like I did with my movie, students would need to use a Mac computer. MacBook laptops cost about $1000 a piece. These laptops include built in cameras, microphones, and iMovie would already be installed.

Audio MultiMedia in the Classroom

As I realized that this week’s lessons were on audio multimedia, I immediately thought that this wouldn’t realistically be something I could use in my classroom. However, the more I research the more and more ideas I started coming up with. I am not an auditory learner so for me these things don’t seem like great ways to teach but then I came to the realization that not all of my students are going to learn in the same ways I do. I have learned that many times throughout my teaching career but sometimes it’s easy to get into a rut of teaching the way I would learn best instead how my students might learn.
This week I decided to create a lesson based on a radio broadcast that the students will design through a podcast. In this lesson, they kids have to explain how Alexander the Great created the Greek empire. They must research and discuss whether he was a good or bad leader and explain the events of some of the major battles he fought. So for this lesson, children will pick a topic about Alexander the Great to report on for their radio broadcast. They must put this radio broadcast onto a podcast and then the class will listen to each other’s podcasts on Alexander and his major battles.
Currently, my school has all of the materials needed to do this project so it will be free. We have enough laptops for every child and there are microphones available for check out through the library. The kids can use windows media player to create these podcasts.

Data Projection

As I was getting ready to write this lesson I thought it would be really easy. I use data projection in my classroom multiple times during a class period. Data projection systems can display your computer image and “can also display a videotape, a TV program from the school’s cable connection, or the images from your digital camera” (Lever-Duffy & McDonald; p. 148). I typically use this projection for displaying notes, projects, and showing videos.

As I was writing this lesson plan, I wanted to try something different. Since I teach ancient civilizations, I thought it would be cool to use the projection to take a virtual field trip with my class. I found an awesome webquest on the Great Wall of China. (http://www.chinavista.com/travel/greatwall/greatwall.html) This website has lots of pictures as well as information. At times I have had students explore websites like this on their own, but this one looks a little bit challenging; however, it has great information. I decided this would be great to go through as a class. As we do it together, I can point out key information and the students will fill out a worksheet as we go over it. I thought this would also be a great way to utilize the airliner. As a page pops up with an answer on it, I can have a student use the airliner to highlight where they found the answer on the website. This will be a great visual for all students.

The reason I choose a lesson like this is that I am able to use it this year. I already have the projection and the airliner so I would not need to purchase any extra technology for this lesson.

Decision-Making Process for GPS Lesson

I really struggled with this lesson early in the week when I first learned that I would have to develop a lesson using a handheld technology. First of all, I don’t have much access to handheld technologies in my classroom. Secondly, I couldn’t figure out how to make a handheld technology applicable to a lesson on ancient civilizations. However, as the week went on and the more I researched, the more I started seeing how handheld technologies do fit in my classroom.
I started researching lesson plans that other teachers have used and I began to see how the GPS could be a great tool for social studies lessons. Many of the lessons were about geography and mapping which makes sense. I teach about the geography of the different ancient civilizations but I was still struggling with this idea. Then I started thinking that we do a lot of stations where the kids have to analyze artifacts or pictures of things that represent that civilization. I normally have these artifacts already sat out on a table. But then the more I researched, I thought it would be great to hide these artifacts and have the students use the GPS to find them. This helps them with geography, science, and finding the artifact, which makes the lesson even more exciting for the kids. After I wrote the lesson plan, I decided I want to ask for GPS’s for my classroom. I can really see how this could benefit my curriculum now.
I started researching prices so I can present this plan to my teaching partner and principal. The TomTom, Garmin, and Magellan all ran about the same price. All brands run anywhere from $80 to over $1000.

Future Implementation

As I was researching some of the technologies, there were many that I found that would benefit all of my students. Here are the ones that I really liked for my content:

Google Earth: free (would allow my students to visit the ancient civilizations we study by viewing satellite imagery, maps, terrain, and 3D buildings.)

Google Earth Lit Trips: free (would connect the civilizations that are studied in my classroom to literature that goes along with the content.)

This year I had a student that really struggled with dysgraphia. He was not on an IEP but he had a 504. There weren’t very many resources for me to use to work with him. I thought that this guide would have offered some great advice for me:

Handwriting Solutions Problem Guide: $34.95 (offers resource guides and Handwriting Solutions equipment, resources, and teaching strategies for kids with writing disabilities)

Dilemmas in Applying Research to the Identified Needs of Students

Following research is a great way for teachers and the general population to develop and implement strategies; however, there are some dilemmas that come with applying research to the identified needs of students. One of the biggest dilemmas is the cost of such research and the funding it takes to implement many of these programs and/or strategies. Schools are really struggling with all funding right now. It is nearly impossible to start new programs at this time unless they are free because there simply just isn’t any money to support these programs. The Internet often provides free access to some of this research but that doesn’t help if you need money to apply the research. Another dilemma that goes along with that is time. As I said, the Internet often provides free access to research but it is really hard to find the time to search for that research. The biggest complaint I hear from teachers is there is never enough time. Sometimes we learn of new programs that are available but when you don’t have the time to figure out how to make that program beneficial to your individual classroom, the program never gets utilized. Another dilemma is that the research and technologies are always changing. About the time a district, school, or teacher analyzes the research and finds ways to implement it in a classroom, the technology, program, or maybe even the research changes. Then a whole new process begins before the old process has fully reached it’s potential.