Teaching and Technology
Monday, August 12, 2013
Friday, August 2, 2013
A Social Media Journey Through Eighth Grade Literature
In Pamela Carver’s article, “What Would Romeo and Juliet Say
to Jack and Piggy on Facebook?”, she tells about her experiment to review
eighth grade literature using role play and social media technology. The project, called Connecting through Time—A Journey
through Eighth Grade Literature, used Ning, a private social networking site,
to facilitate discussions between characters from each of the books the
students read. “[Carver] assigned a
character to each student and then put them into groups of four or five. [She] made sure that each group contained a
variety of personalities and a representative from each major piece of
literature” (pp. 26). The week long project,
which students later decided should have lasted a month, was meant to forge
connections between the different novels; it did that, as well as provided a
fun way to review for the final, opportunity for creativity, to practice
citations, do internet research, quote from the texts, format dialogue and hone
presentation skills.
I think that this is an ingenious use of technology for
working on all of the skills listed above.
Additionally, the students explored emotional themes of each character
as they portrayed them online which allows for deeper interpretation of motivation
and the literature. The exercise
satisfied the standards for creative thinking and innovation, communication and
collaboration, research fluency, critical thinking, digital citizenship and
fluency in technology operations; in short, it satisfies all of the standards
in at least some way. I would definitely
use this in my classroom just for the fact that it brought some students to the
table who may have been resistant to reading or needed extra review.
Read the full article here:What Would Romeo and Juliet Say to Jack and Piggy on Facebook
Carver, P. (2013). What would Romeo and Juliet say to Jack
and Piggy on Facebook? Learning and
Leading With Technology (40.5),
26-28.
Digital Driver's Licenses
In the article, “Students Need a Digital Driver’s License
Before They Start Their Engines,” authors Gerry Swan and Marty Park discuss The
Digital Driver’s License (DDL) project, which is designed to educate students
about digital citizenship. “The US
Children’s Internet Protection Act (CIPA) and Protecting Children in the 21st
Century Act emphasize schools’ responsibility to educate students about
internet safety” (pp. 26); the DDL is designed to help educators do just that
by tracking students’ progress on a set of self-paced cases. “The DDL has five core cases and one final
cumulative license case that captures the skill sets of nine elements of
digital citizenship, as outlined in Mike Ribble and Gerald Bailey’s book Digital Citizenship in Schools”
(26). Using two types of assessments,
the “practice-its” and “prove-its,” the DDL cases, or modules, expose students
to information regarding digital etiquette, digital communications, security,
digital access, health and wellness, digital commerce, media fluency and
digital law, rights and responsibilities.
I think that the DDL should be mandated in all schools which
allow students to use technology, in or outside the classroom. Exposing students to these ethical and legal
behaviors, which are expected of them in the NETS-S standards for digital
citizenship, at a young age will help to ensure ethical and legal behavior
throughout their learning and professional careers. In my future classroom, I would use this at
the beginning of the year to create accountability for internet and device use;
being sure that kids know that plagiarism, cyber bullying and online safety are
serious issues will probably help to deter immoral conduct.
I did see a couple of negatives within this particular article. I see the tracking of a student’s digital
citizenry by a private company as just one more instance of corporate profiteering
from student information. If these kinds
of programs either generated funds for the schools which implement them or if
these kinds of programs are developed for non-profit use, I would see no
problem with it. Another issue that I found
was blocking access to students who didn’t complete the modules; this seems
unethical on the part of the schools because it prevents students from learning
everything they might need to. I
understand that access would only be blocked on devices provided by the school,
but that could still alienate some students.
Read the article here: Students Need a Digital Driver's License before They Start Their Engines
Park, M. & Swan, G. (2012-2013) Students need a digital
driver’s license before they start their engines. Learning &Leading with Technology, 40(4), 26-28.
Technology of Choice: Go!Animate
Technology can be
a very useful tool in a teacher's arsenal. In today’s digital-age, teachers are being
given the responsibility to introduce and provide opportunities to students that incorporate technology and subject matter. Go!Animate is a very simple
tool that teachers and students can use to create animated videos. The website is very
easy to navigate and gives numerous options of settings, characters, and
dialogue. This allows the teacher or student to be more creative in expressing
themselves as well as the lesson or material. Teachers can use this as a quick
substitute for lecturing that adds an entertaining quality to any lesson plan.
Our group thought this tool would be a very inspirational tool for students. Go!Animate is a great way to introduce students to a safe digital
environment, while expressing themselves and their understanding of the
material. It can be used as an engaging tool that encourages students to
interact with the subject matter and collaborate with their peers. Lastly, it is fun and can inspire enthusiasm in learning.
One of the negatives that we
found about Go!Animate was that a membership costs $8 per month. It's free if teachers want to
make their own, but the only way to guarantee safe and
appropriate use is to purchase it. The other downside is that older high school
students may not find this tool as challenging as other video options on the
web. Those very minor details aside, we recommend Go!Animate as a useful
teaching tool. Listed below are links to Go!Animate, our Go!Animate example,
and a how to use Go!Animate video from You Tube.
Here is an example of a Go!Animate we created to
discuss World War II:
WWII by conno035 on GoAnimate
Like it? Create your own at GoAnimate.com. It's free and fun!
WWII by conno035 on GoAnimate
Like it? Create your own at GoAnimate.com. It's free and fun!
Friday, July 26, 2013
Conquering the Frankenbook
The article, “Conquering the Frankenbook,” is about two
teachers’ efforts to use digital books in the classroom. The author, an instructional technology
integrator, and her colleague, a literature instructor, used iPads to assign the
book, Frankenstein, to a tenth grade class. They developed a set of technology goals and
a set of content goals: “on the technology side, [the author] wanted to make
sure students could actively read on an electronic device”; while the
literature instructor wanted to be sure they “could meet the objectives of a
literature unit” (32). They first
introduced the students to the technology, exploring apps and websites relevant
to the task. In implementing the iPads,
they discovered some great sites and apps for free digital books in the public
domain, though they also learned that some of the digital copies were superior
to others. As the project moved forward, they assigned more traditional
literature assignments with modern twists; for example, using themes, each
student researched an individual topic relevant to the period of the book,
wrote a paragraph and emailed their assignment which was assembled into a
collaborative Wiki-style e-book and shared on the iPads.
There were more problems, however, besides the superiority
of certain e-books over others. They
found that moving between devices presented a problem; iPads are designed for
individual use and so return to the last user’s settings and place in the
book. They also found the lack of page
numbers made referencing and citations difficult; this also made the task of ‘turn
to page…’ during class discussions extremely difficult without using a word or
phrase search. Taking notes was
difficult for both teacher and student, though students were more open to
exploration than the teachers admittedly were.
The author concludes that “perhaps much of the resistance we and our
students experienced was because we knew how to actively read a paper copy…while
[the author is] still looking at new app releases and waiting for that game
changer, at this stage, a hard-copy book is preferable for active reading and
discussion of a text” (33).
I think that nothing beats a hard-copy for active
reading. I use my Kindle mostly for
downloading PDFs and travelling; e-books prevent the user from knowing how
thick a book is, from the tactile sensations of turning a page, from being able
to doodle in the margins. I can see how
using e-books in the classroom could eventually save a school money over time,
but I agree with the author that active reading requires a hard copy almost
always.
This article addresses both NETS-S standards and NETS-T
standards of technology operations and concepts and professional
development. The e-book was a great
example of communication and collaboration, and the students were also taught
about digital citizenship and plagiarism (this was part of the discussion and trouble
with citing the materials).
Read the article here: Conquering the Frankenbook
Barrett, J. (2012-2013) Conquering the Frankenbook. Learning &Leading with Technology, 40(4),
32-33.
Creative Professional Development
The article, “Design Creativity!” argues that teachers must
develop critical and creative thinking skills in order to be able to teach
their students to use the same skills.
The article’s authors propose that through the combination of technology
and thinking skills, “educators can better prepare students for the world of
industry and innovation” (17). The IDEAStudio, a section of the Institute for
Creativity, Arts, and Technology at Virginia Tech, first established a set of
criteria for projects to be based in: projects had instructional potential,
they made creative use of technology, and they included products of the
arts. They then worked with teachers to
“define the direction of projects and to design and develop instructional
materials to support the products” (17).
Two workshops were held to develop and evaluate the materials. The workshops focusd on the four basic
components of critical and creative thinking: idea generation, reflective
judgment, self-regulation and attitudes and disposition. By developing the creative process, teachers
found that they could make “surprising uses of everyday, affordable
technologies” (19).
I firmly believe that creative thinking is one of the most
beneficial, yet undervalued, assets to our society and it should have a much
more prevalent role in education at all levels.
By helping teachers to develop their own creative processes, the authors
and those at the IDEAStudio are doing
a great service to the children who will be affected by this down the
line. I come from an art background and
thoroughly understand the value of imagination, ingenuity and innovation; each
of these characteristics should be nurtured in children especially. The article examines both NETS-S and NETS-T
standards dealing with learning and creativity.
Though the article focuses mostly on NETS-T standards of professional
growth, leadership, and the development of digital-age learning experiences, it
also focuses on the NETS-S standard of critical thinking, problem solving and
decision making.
Read the article here: Design Creativity!
Baum, L. & Newbill, P. (2012-2013) Design creativity! Learning &Leading with Technology, 40(4),
16-19.
Saturday, July 20, 2013
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