I just found out that a conversation I had with my principal some months ago bore some fruit. I had mentioned Voice Thread to her, and said that I think it was unreasonable to have this tool blocked by our district. She asked me to email her the link for this program, and then I did not hear anything more about it. Since my students are working at the moment on research projects with multimedia products, I thought that I would see if Voice Thread was still unavailable: it was finally available, and today I was able to show my students how to use it. For some 6th graders, creating a podcast from Garageband or even a Powerpoint was daunting, so they were happy to have an alternative that was somewhat easier, yet just as creative. This is another way for them to collaborate as learners, thinkers, and writers engaged in the writing process; what this means for my Game plan is that I have gained an effective tool to utilize with my goal of having students work cooperatively. I still need to become better acquainted with the program and become better at using it.
I also subscribe to the We Are Teachers feed, and read ideas there; this week I joined a competition with the objective of coming up with a lesson plan that incorporates visual arts with language arts.
(http://www.weareteachers.com/ideas/partnerask?grantId=49). I feel this moves my GAME plan forward because it motivates me to read about the ideas of other teachers who are integrating technology into their lesson plans, and at the saem time share my own ideas.
New questions that have arisen in the course of working on this project with my students are that, while two classes are highly motivated and have become used to thinking more independently, one class needs far more scaffolding in terms of developing "inner" timetables because they are more intimidated by the prospect of constructing their own work, and at the same time they find it difficult to work together collaboratively. I am going to have incorporate some small group activities that have nothing to do with their projects; what Ertmer terms "posthole" activities. It almost seems that I am going backwards, but this may be the only way to go forward.
Ertmer, P., & Simons, K. (Spring 2006). Jumping the PBL implementation hurdle: Supporting the efforts of K-12 teachers. The Interdisciplinary Journal of Problem-Based Learning, 1(1), 40-54. Retrieved from http://docs.lib.purdue.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1005&context=ijpbl.
Laurie
ReplyDeleteSomething that you may have to do with that group is start with them doing small projects in pairs and slowly working their way into larger groups. It may also take providing samples that they can easily refere to. This could help build their confidence. Give a rubric that would help guide but make working together part of the grade to stress the importance of being able to get along with one another. Good Luck!
Jonas
Laurie,
ReplyDeleteThe measures you may take with the one class you mentioned may ultimately prove to be critical. Although it may appear that devoting more time to supplemental activities may be taking a couple steps back, I have found that emphasizing a particular ability during this can be very effective for students who are struggling with a specialized skill. In my opinion, if you feel the need to extend the amount of time for these students in order to ensure that they are on the same level of understanding as the other group, then continue as planned. My classes recently constructed wikis, and this necessitates a couple of days of specialized instruction of how to use them. I was satisfied that I spent an extra day helping one of my classes with some of the more obscure actions in the wiki because they ended up creating quality projects.
I have also enlisted the help of parents ,so that they are aware of the progress their children are making. Also I am assigning students who have already complete their projects to work together with their peers who need assistance. Yes, I will need to spend more time also working with students to overcome their main obstacle - knowing what to do with their research information, instead of simply copying and pasting; even though I spend a few hours on this lesson, I think once again they need one-on-one help from their peers to understand ow to take notes and re-state information in their own words.
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