Saturday, November 01, 2003
I also worked with Janine's class with the sequencing activity she created with PowerPoint. Aside from the cognetive skills built into the lesson, it's amazing to watch the aquisition of tech skills. At first, the majority of students struggled with the drag and drop skill needed to move the slides around in the slide sorter mode, but with small group and individual help, it was like watching one light bulb after another light up.
All week long, the teachers have been cranking out simple acitivities to post to the StarW site. I think this is wonderful. This material was created from scratch. Next year, less will have to be made from scratch and much of material that we are posting now, will be polished and improved upon.
This is an e-mail I sent to the StarW folks a few minutes ago...
Hi Ladies,
One of the workshops I present from time to time is titled, "Time is a Four-letter Word". We all know how little time there is in a day to get things done. When it comes to infusing technology into the curriculum, there are a million additional things that suck up more time than we have. We must learn how to deal with that situation. As teachers, we have probably already been taking some short cuts without even realizing it. When we create new lessons, the words that may best describe what we do are, Ready, Fire, Aim!
The nature of our work is such that we get a great idea, but seldom, if ever, have the time to develop and polish the lesson before we present it. We put the lesson together, present it, and then revisit it with an eye on improving and polishing it. What you are doing with the activities you are posting now, is a perfect example.
You have been cranking out some great activities. I know your kids are loving it. The activities are motivating. They encourage reading and build comprehension skills. They are a success in many ways. The nice thing is that technology lets us bring the practice of Ready, Fire, Aim! to a new level. If we have enough time to evaluate and revisit them, we can find ways to make them even more powerful. We can very simply add a critical thinking component to it that will promote a few higher order skills.
For example, most of what you have posted so far would be classified as an Internet fact hunt. It is a valid and valuable activity that promotes the skills I mentioned earlier. You can easily take it to the next level and turn it into a knowledge hunt by doing nothing more than adding one more question that is designed to promote some sort of higher order thinking skill. In a fact hunt, students are sent to web sites to gather factual information and in the process, practice other reading and writing skills.
To turn it into a knowledge hunt, all you need to do is to ask a question that forces the student to use the facts they gathered to synthesize or analyze something. For example Jennifer's Veteran's Day hunt can be kicked up a notch by posing the question, Why do you think it is important to celebrate Veteran's Day? There are probably a dozen other similar questions that could be asked with this same activity.
If this makes sense to you, then keep it in mind as you create more of these hunts. I'm not suggesting that anyone go back and change anything that you have done so far. There's plenty of time for that later. Remember, this is a three year grant. As the MLK database of activities grow, you won't have to spend time building the activities. You can polish them for the next round.
One other thing I'd like you to think about for the next round of activities. I know, you are all supplementing the online portion of the activity with printed material and verbal instructions that you have thought out and are locked in your heads. If we want this to become a model for other teachers in your school, your district, or the nation to use, we have to make the printed material and the "how to" material available to them so that they can duplicate what you have done without reinventing the wheel.
In every sense of the word, you folks are pioneers in your district. The trails you blaze will determine how many settlers will follow you to make technology homesteads. How clearly you mark the path will determine how easy their journey will be.
So for the time being, if you are using printed material, please hang on to it so that at some point we can begin to create teacher pages to accompany the online material. If you have notes about how you are conducting the lesson, hang on to them and file them with the printed material. We aren't going to worry about creating material for others just yet. We have to make sure you are comfortable with what you have created for yourselves and you have it at the point where you want to pass it on to others, before we do that. That process can begin the next time around.
I met with Patty Weeks yesterday and she asked me if I was happy with the way things were going. I told her that I could be happier with the state of the technology, but I couldn't be a happier with the quality and enthusiasm of the teachers I'm working with. In the past few weeks the technology has stabilized quite a bit. I know Marilyn is working behind the scenes to make it even better, and with the new techs she brought on board, I'm sure it will continue to improve.
This week is the Teachers' Convention and I won't see you until the 13th. Have a great week!
Art
Monday, October 27, 2003
For me, email and online support is a critical tool that makes my job and that of the teachers much easier. We have had numberous exchanges already and today's simple two message exchange with Janine typifies what transpires during these sessions and stands as an exemplar of how it facilitates the face to face component. If email was not used, this activity, which we will cover on next week's visit, may well have taken two to three weeks to complete, which would be unacceptable under most conditions.
Janine's original message to me
Hi Art.
I have attached a story I wrote over the weekend using Powerpoint. I have scrambled the slides, and would like to use this as the demo. lesson for my students. Maybe we could set up my laptop, and I could read them the story, in order, first. Then I can show them the scrambled version and you can discuss how to work with Powerpoint to put them in order. What do you think? I would also like for you to show them your picture prompt piece. That's a great writing activity. I want to develop one w/ watercolor pictures as the prompts, since we just had an artist as a guest speaker last week, and also they've been studying Georgia O'Keefe in art. So, I'll be working on that today. I'll email it asap.
For now, here's my story and also here are 2 links I would like added to my student page. Thanks!!
http://www.dltk-kids.com/crafts/cartoons/dragontales_printables.html
http://www.edhelper.com/ReadingComprehension_Grade1_12_1.html
Janine
My response to Janine
Hi Janine,
Great stuff! All of it is posted on your StarW page. I'll be happy to work with you and the kids to demo how put things in order.
I know you would probably like to get started. Feel free to do whatever you like and let me know what you want me to do. Here are some thoughts of things you might want to do (or not).
1) You can show them the story using your laptop and projector in preparation for the activity.
2) The mixed up PowerPoint is a link on your StarW page. Different versions of Windows and different browsers will act differently when you click on it. Can you go to in on one of the student computers and let me know how it acts and decide what you want to do? Here are some possibilities if you click with the left button. It might open as a PowerPoint Presentation inside Internet Explorer, or it may offer you the choice of Open, Save, Cancel. If you choose Open, it should launch PowerPoint allowing students to work with it immediately (to be saved later). If choose Save, you can save a copy to the desktop of the My Documents folder to work with it later.
3) If you click with the Right mouse button, you can select Save Target As... and save the PowerPoint to the desktop or My Documents. This would be a way for you to load all the student computers ahead of time. Let me know what you want to do.
You said your kids were comfortable with searching, but I think I'll be presenting some things they don't know. If you don't think it will be too much, let's still plan on doing combined lessons on searching, because that will only take part of the day and doesn't require immediate follow up. I can easily do the Pumpkin activity with your class.
Over to you. ;->
Art
