Week 13: Glogster

Check out my first ever Glogster.  The topic is Diversity in America's Suburbs:

http://www.glogster.com/hbodvd/wide-glog-by-hbodvd/g-6kanp6rg5etqo7uib0f4v63

Introducing Glogster to students is a great way to tap into their 21^st century digital abilities, familiarities and interests.  Upon learning the easy to understand format, today’s students can utilize this site to express their research and knowledge in many creative ways.  They can incorporate static visual elements like text boxes, pictures and charts but also include videos, audios and links to other sites.  This Web 2.0 tool is a neat platform to engage the students in capturing, collaborating and presenting their work.

As an option to a traditional paper book report, teachers can encourage students to create their own Glogsters to summarize a story, highlight details and generate interest among their fellow classmates.  Students can connect their writing with images, videos and audio clips they find on the internet or create on their own.  This will support student learning of ELA concepts by inspiring their creative minds to synthesize and express their comprehension.  As they research artifacts to include in their Glogsters, they will also enhance their digital research skills which will require effective writing and reading skills.  As students incorporate information and different elements in their Glogster,m they are developing important visual literacy and information skills.  Their original Glogsters can be assessed by the teacher and presented to the class in an interactive, multimedia presentation.

Besides book reports, teachers can challenge students to create Glogsters around students’ personal narratives or original poetry.  Teachers can connect with parents with their own Glogster that includes materials that have been used in the classroom.  This could include videos, images and sites that the teacher shared with students.  Parents can stay connected with the teacher more than ever before.

The possibilities of using Glogster as an educational tool are only limited to one’s creativity.  Here is one teacher who found a very engaging way to use Glogster with her fourth grader students:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HiS-Mdm3ZXc

Features of Glogster	Affordances
Ability to create a digital report with multiple media.	Students gains valuable digital skills including research and visual literacy.
Ability to perform real time collaboration.	Students can develop effective teamwork skills.  Teachers can monitor and assess student participation.
Ability to give interactive presentations.	Fellow students and teachers can be engaged.  Students can gain important presentation skill using ICTs.
Glogster is a social network with many users around the world.	Students and teachers can view many different Glogsters to learn and gain ideas.

  

Applicable DiAL-e learning designs	Pedagogical affordances available through Glogster
Stimulus activities (designed to engage or motivate learners)	Experiencing the multimedia elements of original Glogsters created by fellow students will engage learners.  The curiosities of the students may motivate them to learn more about a subject matter on their own.
Collaborative (working in groups to construct knowledge)	Utilizing Glogster as a platform, students can collaborate on a digital book report or poster from different locations like their home, library or school. Teachers can also provide immediate feedback to guid the students' work.
Conceptual (developing higher order thinking skills)	Glogster can be used to research information to enhance problem solving skills.  Students can be challenged with creating a Glogster to solve a mystery or a complex problem and show how they employed critical thinking skills.
Empathy (encouraging learners to see the world from alternate perspectives)	With over a million Glogster users from around the world, teachers can search for relevant and appropriate creations to share with students to expand their understanding of a subject matter.
Representational	With the ability to incorporate a large variety of elements including other Glogsters in their own design, students can create a Glogster with information and challenge fellow students and teachers to determine the objective of the new creation.

Keystone Assignment: Lesson Plan, Reflections on the Project Implementation

Lesson Plan - ELA Practice Through Jeopardy

Reflections on the Project Implementation

Integrating technology into a classroom lesson was a very engaging task that required some creativity, a comfort level with software, and technological skills.  The creation of this lesson started with defining a relevant and meaningful learning objective and determining ways I can assess the students’ understanding.  I then considered which platform I could utilize to reach that objective given the available classroom technology and skill level of the students.   Another consideration was to create a vehicle that can be versatile, transferable and reusable to increase its value as an educational tool.  I also wanted to maximize but also control the level of student engagement as they reach the learning objective.

During my observations of a third grade class, the importance of quality English language arts skills was very evident when the students were writing personal narrative essays.  The range of writing quality varied widely depending on the students’ skills including their knowledge and use of proper spelling and vocabulary. These essential skills are reinforced daily through instruction, classwork and homework.  However, the students are presented with a new set of 25 spelling words each Monday which then become the focus of ELA activities for that week.   Despite such exposure to these skills, I felt that a good learning objective would be further practice of recent spelling words to reinforce phonics, vocabulary and spelling skills.  By utilizing words they learned recently but not currently practicing, I also hoped to impart on the students the importance of retaining past knowledge.

With this relevant and meaningful learning objective, I then considered how I can assess their knowledge utilizing the available classroom technology.  The idea of an interactive SMART Board game show came to mind as a good way to assess students’ knowledge in an engaging way that capitalizes on their competitive spirits.  With its long history and enduring popularity¹,  Jeopardy is almost synonymous with trivia game shows.  Given the simple rules and familiar format, I also felt this could be easily adapted for future use with other spelling words and for almost any other subject like math, science and social studies.

With a proficiency in Powerpoint gained through experience in my corporate marketing career, I customized a previously-designed Jeopardy game file for this third grade class.  To simplify scorekeeping for these young students, I replaced the multiple point values generally found on Jeopardy gameboards with letters and added colors for each column of clues.  I used large, clear fonts in bold white lettering on a solid blue background to maximize visibility of the clues for students who may have vision impairment.  I also included sounds for each clue and answer to further engage the students.

I worked with the classroom teacher, Mrs. Moeller, to determine the content of the clues.  She provided me with the spelling words from each of the previous nine school weeks. With each set of weekly spelling words grouped by a phonics sound pattern, I selected four (long “a”, long “e”, short “e”, short “u”) for the Jeopardy game and added a column of “No Excuse Words” which are included with each weekly set of words.  I then selected five spelling words from each category partly based on the relative commonality of each word as determined by Google Books Ngram Viewer². 

I created clues using a mix of sentence completion and definition clues because both are commonly used in summative assessments.  I designed the clues to be meaningful and relevant to the third grade students even including their teacher and teacher aides as subjects.  To introduce interdisciplinary skills, I included a few clues that called upon the students’ math and foreign language skills (the class has a weekly Spanish period.)  I made the Final Jeopardy clue specifically for the teacher to conclude the game.

After several rounds of testing and revising clues with my own family including my 4^th and 7^th grade children, I finalized the game board to present to the students. 

When I presented the game, objectives and rules to the students, they were quite excited even though the clues were going to engage their spelling, vocabulary and phonics skills.  Gameplay on the SMART Board went smoothly with just a few unexpected but minor technical glitches.  I had brought my laptop in case of major technical issues.  Having a backup plan to such a technology-dependent activity is highly recommended. Quick thinking helps, too.  For one student, the answer appeared instead of the clue.  Not wanting to skip this opportunity, I asked the student to identify the part of speech and to use the word in a sentence to demonstrate comprehension.

After students provided answers, I would highlight key strategies to help identify, pronounce and spell words correctly.  To differentiate instruction, I gave extra time and clues to certain students. For example, I had to remind a few students of the phonics sound pattern that should be represented in their answers.  The twenty students were constantly engaged as the game progressed steadily through the 26 clues.  The Final Jeopardy question was an interdisciplinary clue and the only answer that was not one of their weekly spelling words.  It was actually a word that I helped Mrs. Moeller pronounce and spell correctly several times during my observation.

When the Jeopardy game concluded, I asked the students to share how such a fun activity helps them learn.  Their responses hit all the salient points including using phonics, spelling patterns, and context clues to come up with the correctly spelled and pronounced answers.  The students enjoyed the relevancy and challenge of the clues and were appreciative that the game was customized just for their class.  Several interested students asked me how I was able to do that.  I encouraged them to come up with their own game to serve an educational purpose even if it’s just for their own benefit.  In the future, I may produce a brief video to show how I created this particular game to further educate students and engage their own creativity. 

The Jeopardy game fulfilled the learning objective in a fun, engaging way in the planned 40 minute class period.  The students were excited that they were able to apply their previous knowledge and several literacy strategies to come up with answers to the clues.  This activity triggered their excitement to learn and the students look forward to similar opportunities to apply what they know.

References

1 Syndicated TV Ratings for Week Ending November 17, 2013,

http://tvbythenumbers.zap2it.com/2013/11/26/syndicated-tv-ratings-judge-judy-is-number-1-in-households-wheel-of-fortune-wins-total-viewers-dr-phil-top-talker-for-week-ending-november-17-2013/218112/

2  Google Books Ngram Viewer, https://books.google.com/ngrams

Keystone Assignment: A Teacher's Understanding and Use of New Literacies

Interview language arts teacher to find out their understanding of new literacies and how they practice new literacies in the classrooms.

I observed a third grade teacher, Mrs. Moeller, and asked her about her understanding of new literacies and how they are incorporated in her students’ education.  Not surprisingly, she has learned a lot of how technology is transforming our everyday lives through the experiences of her own children who are age 12 and 9.  She has learned the type of knowledge today’s students need given the increasingly technology-driven world they are growing up in.

Mrs. Moeller realizes the critical need for her students to be comfortable, knowledgeable and eventually proficient in using the classroom computers and common software applications to read text, express ideas, and research information.  While she wishes there was more time and resources for more formal instruction on computer and software skills, she exposes and encourages students to use the classroom’s five desktop computers.  She finds that her young students are mostly familiar and comfortable using this technology and that they sometimes rely on each other to learn new skills on the spot.

The experienced teacher selects software applications and online sites that are suitable for her young students.  For example, they have used Microsoft Word to write personal narrative essays and Microsoft Powerpoint to organize and present information for classroom presentations.  At this stage of third grade, Mrs. Moeller finds that her students can navigate through these applications with little instruction as long as they don’t get too ambitious in utilizing each program’s many design elements.

To provide her students with practice opportunities to develop and reinforce math skills, Mrs. Moeller gives them time on the classroom computers to utilize IXL.com.  This interactive website, whose subscription is funded by the school district, engages students with lively activities, real time feedback and clear instruction.  Additionally, she uses an interactive application called Kidspiration on inspiration.com to build and reinforce her students’ literacy and comprehension skills.  Not only do the children develop critical math and ELA skills, they are learning new literacy skills by reading and solving problems through the computer and these educational websites.  

Mrs. Moeller also utilizes the classroom SMART Board several times throughout the school day.  To start every school day, she writes the homework assignments on a template shown on the SMART Board. This template mirrors the students’ agenda books to facilitate easier transcription.  For each math unit, she displays a publisher-provided multimedia and interactive instructional piece that engages her students.  She then utilizes the SMART Board to teach math concepts and models effective strategies to solve problems. 

While there is much more the students will learn as they progress through this school year and beyond, Mrs. Moeller is utilizing the available classroom technology and resources to teach valuable new literacy skills. Her third graders are already reading, writing, organizing, presenting, learning, and problem-solving using technology.   Her goal with new literacies for this school year is to transform a pen-pal program with a nearby third grade class from a traditional pencil-and-paper exchange through postal mail to an ICT format delivered through email.  This will expand the forms of expression available to students in both schools and engage them with more timely delivery.  I asked Mrs. Moeller if real time video chatting is in consideration for future pen pal exchanges and she said, “Absolutely!” 

Keystone Assignment: Reflecting Upon Foundational Print and New Literacies

Reflecting Upon Foundational Print and New Literacies

In an increasingly expanding global economy with rapidly evolving technologies, the importance of literacy proficiency has grown significantly.  More than ever, students need to learn literacy skills to read, write, speak, listen, and visually represent their knowledge and opinions across numerous platforms and media to prepare them for college education and careers.

Throughout modern history, teachers have developed their students’ literacy through of a variety of printed texts including classic literature, contemporary fiction, poetry, nonfiction stories and informational articles.  With massive collections of printed material still in existence and more produced and used every day, the need for today’s students to comprehend text in this format remains critically important.  For example, 17,000 American public libraries¹ still contain large volumes of printed books and magazines that still make up about two thirds of the 2.5 billion materials that are circulated annually².  The top two newspapers continue to have daily printed circulation near 1.5 million in the US while dozens of local newspapers average in the hundreds of thousands³ each day.  Even in today’s increasingly technology-laden world, we are still immersed in printed material.

However, today’s students need to be exposed to a broader range of information that will expand their knowledge and perspective of the world.  To be college and career-ready, they will also need to be proficient at comprehending text and expressing knowledge and ideas through an expanding variety of information and communication technologies (ICTs).  Skill development in new literacies is becoming more and more essential as technology continues to transform the world and impact our lives in many ways.  There is a critical need for today’s students to develop proficiency in new literacies in order to learn, evaluate, communicate, collaborate and succeed with available and future technologies.   With the rapid introduction and adoption of new technological tools, students need to learn a dynamic and growing set of new literacy skills that includes researching information through the internet and determining relevancy, validity, objectivity and purpose of such information among a virtually endless supply of data. 

Proficiency in literacy of text and information presented in printed and digital forms is fast becoming equally important given the rapid adoption of ICTs in our everyday lives.  For example, while millions of newspapers are still being printed and circulated daily, millions of daily digital editions of the same newspaper are now being circulated^1.  While e-books remain a small percentage of circulation in the libraries, their use is growing extremely rapidly².  Their increasing popularity is evidenced by the over 30 million e-book readers sold in the U.S. in just three years⁴.

Today’s children will need literacy skills to understand and communicate in various ways besides traditional pen and paper.  They will utilize a wide range of tools including email, chat, video and other quickly emerging technologies. As tools are introduced in schools to prepare students for college and careers, many are already utilized in industry.  By learning new literacies, today’s students will be better prepared to succeed in an increasingly-global and connected environment.

References:

1 Every Library and Museum in America, Mapped, http://www.theatlanticcities.com/neighborhoods/2013/06/every-library-and-museum-america-mapped/5826/

2  Materials Mix: Investigating Trends in Materials Budgets and Circulation,  http://lj.libraryjournal.com/2013/02/publishing/materials-mix-investigating-trends-in-materials-budgets-and-circulation/#_

3  Top 25 U.S. Newspapers for March 2013,  http://www.auditedmedia.com/news/research-and-data/top-25-us-newspapers-for-march-2013.aspx

4  E-Reader Market Shrinks Faster Than Many Predicted, http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/12/20/e-book-reader-tablets-cannibalized/?_r=0