On the Trails to Teaching and Learning

Common Core Standards App

2011-12-14T08:51:00.001-05:00

I have been using an app with my lesson and unit plans called the Common Core Standards App available for iPad and iPhone/Touch - get it here.

Harry Potter & the Half Blood Prince Lessons

2011-08-14T14:20:00.001-04:00

It is possible to teach English Language Arts, Math, Science, Social Studies etc. with the Harry Potter books. If you are looking for some ideas, try some of these lesson developed by Buffalo State graduate students. - click here -

Let's get great literature in our classrooms and use our brains to think about Pedagogy instead of relying on a publisher.

Here is an example of a Science lesson:

Professor Slughorn's Mystery Potion

1.) Objective:

Performance Indicator- MST4.E.PS3B: Students describe chemical and physical changes in state of matter
Major Understandings - 3.2c : Changes in the properties or materials of objects can be observed and described.

2.) Materials
Teacher

Borax (powered soap)
Glue
Water
Food coloring
Measuring cups
Measuring spoons
Plastic spoons
Plastic bowls
Graphic Organizer for students to record results
Three potions and their descriptions on large poster paper

Product: The students will be able to observe an endothermic reaction when turning a liquid into a solid.

Assessment: The students will be able identify states of matter by correctly labeling the ingredients

3.) Procedure

Welcome to Potions! Horace Slughorn left us four ingredients and recipe. I have three potions and their descriptions on the board. Our task is to follow the recipe to determine what potion we have created. The ingredients are:
- 1 tsp of Borax (powered soap)
- 1 cup of Glue
- 1 1/4 cups of Water
- Food Coloring
While we mix our potion, we need to pay close attention to its physical characteristics. The three different potions that are on the board are in different states of matter. One is a solid, one is a liquid, and one is a gas. (Review with the students each state of matter)
As we are mixing our potions, I want you to write down some observations on our graphic organizer. You can write bulleted observations and draw pictures during each phase of our experiment. Think about how it looks and feels? What state is it in?
Before we start, identify and label what state of matter each ingredient is in. *Notice: none of the ingredients are in a gas state.
The first step of our experiment is to make the borax and water solution. Once you have made the borax solution, record you observations. What does it look like? How does it feel? What state of matter is it now? (Liquid)
- Measure 1 teaspoon of borax and add 1/2 cup of water into one bowl
- Mix until borax is dissolved (it doesn't have to be exactly half, as long as it dissolves the borax)
- Squeeze two drops of food coloring into the solution
The next step is to combine the glue and the rest of the water into one bowl. As you do this write down some observations. What does it look like? How does it feel? What state of matter is it in now? (liquid)
- Measure 1 cup of glue and put it in a bowl
- Pour the left over water into the bowl with the glue
- Stir the glue and water with a spoon
After you have created the two solutions, slowly stir the borax solution into the bowl with the glue and water. What is happening? What does it look like? How does it feel? What state of matter is it now? (Solid)
When it starts to form a ball, you can pick it up and work work it between your hands.
Identify what you have created by comparing its characteristics with the descriptions of the three potions. (We have first created two liquids, mixed them together, and made a solid)
Now look at the board and compare your results to the descriptions of the three potions. What potion did we create?

Rachel's Challenge

2011-07-31T09:30:00.002-04:00

These are a collection of chain reactions of kindness started by graduate students from Buffalo State College and the University at Buffalo during the summer of 2011

Graduate Student Podcasts

2011-05-11T21:01:00.000-04:00

Here are few of my grad students podcasts:

Geographic Landforms - middle school

Raising 6 Kids - general

A Conversation about Weather - young child

The Adventures of Jen and Ryan 2 - a personal story

Technology Word List

2011-04-17T07:25:00.002-04:00

Two of my third grade students were recently asked by some fine folks from a local school district about words they had to learn in my class. This is a list of words that they DID NOT KNOW prior to coming to third grade. (I put this list on my blog because I am going to have my whole class add to this list).

NB - these lists are from only 2 of 25 children.

Words Kids Might Not Know: 1.) export, 2.) import, 3.) Garageband, 4.) Scratch, 5.) Safari and 6.) NLVM

Technology Word List: 1.) Export, 2.) Audacity, 3.) Microsoft, 4.) Photo Booth, 5.) Earth Browser, 6.) Garageband, 7.) Wikispaces, 8.) Scratch, 9.) Safari, 10.) Skype, 11.) Download, 12.) QuickNote, 13.) Highlighter, 14.) Brain Pop, 15.) Brain Pop jr., 16.) Read Write Think, 17.) Google, 18.) Diffy, 19.) Cone Crazy, 20.) Math Baseball, and 21.) NLVM

Queen Elizabeth II by Brooke S.

2011-04-03T06:31:00.002-04:00

Queen Elizabeth II

Presented by Brooke Theresa Caroline S.

The person I researched was Queen Elizabeth II of England. I picked her because I learned from my mom that Queen Elizabeth II was one of my grandmother’s favorite people.

My birthday is April 21, 1926. I was born in England. When I was young, I did not go to school, I had a tutor. A tutor is somebody that teaches you at your house. When I went on field trips, I went to museums like the British Museum. Before I became Queen, I struggled like everyone in England during World War II. One day my parents took me to Windsor Castle and all you could hear was WeWoo, WeWoo from the ambulance sirens. England was being bombed by the Germans and almost lost the war to Germany. This is when I decided to help my people.

I am famous and special for many reasons. When I became queen, 20 million people watched my coronation on TV. A coronation is a ceremony that makes people kings and queens. I was the first Queen to send their kids to a public school. I also went into the military to help my country and have also been on the throne the longest (60 years).

Image taken from: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/9e/
Elizabeth_and_Philip_1953.jpg/220px-Elizabeth_and_Philip_1953.jpg

NSTA & Inquiry Standards

2011-04-03T06:29:00.000-04:00

Math Fact Fluency Practice for Elementary Students

2011-03-30T11:15:00.005-04:00

This is a collection of resources students can use to get faster in addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. Use the online stopwatch to help you keep track of your time. Try to practice at least 10 minutes each day.

Emperor Scorpions by Bryce. S.

2011-03-27T07:17:00.003-04:00

This is a presentation that my son, age 8, had to do about Emperor Scorpions. He used Google Presentation to present it and Brain Pop to obtain information. He did not ask any questions about this animal, he was only required to list facts.

A "C"

2011-03-26T12:00:00.005-04:00

The wisdom of Charles Schultz is revealed in this comic strip.

I do not remember where I found this, but I think all teachers and professors should look at it.!

Legends, Wikis and Google Presentations

2011-03-22T11:02:00.003-04:00

In this writing unit, students used Wikispaces to write legends with their peers, my student teacher, Jessica Janish and me. I published the legends using Google Presentations.

Link to Wikispaces

Smartboards v. Laptops

2011-03-15T10:42:00.003-04:00

Crazy for Interactive Whiteboards

The American public school system may be falling for another educational fad, the interactive white board (IWB). One company of an IWB showcases their “interactive dual board” on their web site by displaying a picture of two students working together behind a smiling teacher. The company proclaims, “... is the first dual pen-input interactive whiteboard designed specifically to help turn classrooms into more collaborative learning environments ("einstruction - interwritedualboard," 2010). The collaboration the authors of the web site are referring to takes place between two children, and in the photograph, they do not bother to show the other students in the class, so it unclear if they are collaborating. The rest of the students in the class are certainly not collaborating with the IWB; the device is not designed to be used by more than two people. If this is the model schools think of regarding student collaboration, two students at a time, than perhaps American schools are full of well-intentioned, but gullible people (Oppenheimer, 2004) following yet another fad.

The testimonials on the web site of the company who developed the IWB mentioned above, consist of three district administrators, two principals and three teachers ("http:// www.einstruction.com/products/interactive_teaching/workspace/index.html ," 2010). None of the educators talk about the IWB promoted on the web site; instead they each speak about a new technology developed by the company, the classroom performance system. The testimonials I am referring to are not listed under the new product, a classroom performance system, they are the only client testimonials on the entire site for all their products.

The classroom performance system provides a clicker device, that looks like a TV remote, to each student so that students may respond to questions generated by teachers by clicking a button. The results of the clicking devices are shown on a screen and tabulated for the teacher for later analysis. If you were a school official looking for testimonials about an IWB that you were considering purchasing from this company, you might question why the company is only promoting this new technology and not also promoting the IWB. Perhaps the company has realized that the promise of the IWB, a technology they hoped will change the pedagogy of the teacher and the dynamics of the classroom, has been broken (Oppenheimer, 2004).

In this paper, I will argue that the technology needed in the classroom should support a pedagogy that: 1.) enables student choice of learning context and pace, 2.) encourages students to collaborate with each other and outside experts, 3.) fosters extended writing experiences and 4.) improves classroom feedback systems. I will argue that an IWB maintains the traditional teacher directed model that encourages teachers to provide information, require students to use this information to answer questions, give tests about this information, and acquire grades to see what students have learned (Songer, Lee & Kam, 2002).

The Case for Laptops and NOT for Interactive White Boards

In a study conducted in a group of Chicago Public Schools, Newmann, Bryk and Nagaoka (2001), found that urban students could learn the basics if they were provided with high-quality assignments. In order for students to tackle these high-quality assignments, the researchers suggested that teachers change their pedagogy, which would require students to have extensive opportunities to write and discuss what they are learning. An IWB could not support this new pedagogy. Even the new IWB dual board allows only two students to write on it at a time and only with electronic pens or an on-screen keyboard. If students are to engage in
extensive writing, as Newmann et al,., suggested than an IWB is not an option. Students need to use paper and pencil or a laptop computer.

When laptop computers are considered instead of an IWB or paper, student writing changes. Laptops support the changed pedagogy that requires students to write and discuss what they are learning. Besides writing in a word processor, students can write their ideas on their classroom blog/message board (Richardson, 2010; Wells, 2006), or wiki (Richardson, 2010). Researchers have found that students who publish their writing on a classroom blog (Wells, 2006) engage in an authentic task which may motivate them to continue working hard (Newmann et al., 2001). Writing on a blog could potentially expand the student’s audience beyond the classroom.

When students post their work to a blog/message board, the intended design of a blog is to promote feedback. This feedback, usually in the form of comments, can be provided from every student in the classroom in an anonymous format and when students receive feedback without the fear of a grade (Black & William, 1998; Roschelle, Penuel & Abrahamson, 2004), feedback has been found to be very important to learning (Black et al.; 1998; Popham, 2008). It can come from peers, a teacher or someone outside of the classroom when ideas are posted to a blog. When teachers use blogs with their students, they create a form of a classroom network designed to improve communication between teachers and students (Roschelle et al., 2004).

If a student presents their work in front of the classroom, on an IWB or some other physical medium, and feedback is asked by the teacher, that feedback is usually from the same children who always speak in class or not very helpful, because children are afraid they will hurt someone’s feelings (Black et al., 1998). A teacher’s use of the IWB as a feedback tool, does not enable a classroom of students to ponder the formative feedback in a private manner, since a student’s work is displayed for all to see on the big screen. A student who is able to sit alone with a laptop computer can read comments from their peers and teacher privately and this may reduce academic anxiety and actually encourage students to fix errors and improve their work (Roschelle et al., 2004).

Students who use laptop computers can do more with them than just write on a blog. Computers also provide students with a sense of control over their learning. Rose and Meyer (2002) encourage teachers to design instruction that enables students to choose, or control, the context they are most comfortable with and so, some students may wish to watch a video about the transcontinental railroad’s affect on the United States and others may wish to read about it in a book or on a website. Teachers who only show a video projected on an IWB or a text-based web site prohibit students from choosing the medium in which they learn best and may restrict the pacing of learning for some students. Ng and Gunstone (2002) found that students who learned about photosynthesis and respiration using web resources in a computer lab found the experience positive because they were able to learn at their own pace. Laptop computers support a teaching philosophy that believes that students can and should control their own learning context and pace. Even though a teacher who uses an IWB may want to give their students more control over how they learn during a lesson, once again the design of the IWB does not allow a class of students that option.

Supporters of IWBs will argue that these instructional tools engage the children because children can come up to the board and manipulate objects. Here is an example of engagement that would not have been as successful on an IWB because it would have limited the number of opportunities all students in the classroom would have had to practice with supports (Rose and Meyer, 2002). Many third graders have a very difficult time representing place values. On the National Library of Virtual Manipulatives web site, http://nlvm.usu.edu/, there is a manipulative tool that enables students to represent place values with base-ten blocks. As the students drag two blocks of ten onto the workspace on the web site to represent the number 20, the computer presents the student with immediate feedback by displaying the number 20 which lets the student know if they are practicing effectively. The feedback is delivered to the student from an anonymous, non-threatening source, the computer. And, as was stated earlier, anonymity may reduce academic anxiety (Roschelle et al., 2004). The IWB, by its design, does not allow every student to have their own personal learning experience and feedback system.

I wish to conclude with one more example that illustrates the superiority of the laptop computer because it supplies every student with a chance to interact with an expert. Last year a second grade teacher and I decided to connect with a bat expert, who worked as a park ranger at Carlsbad Caverns National Park in New Mexico. Instead of the students sitting in their classroom and watching their teacher type in one question at a time about bats, we marched the students to the computer lab, where every student was able to post a question to the Park Ranger and over half of our students received a reply from her. Connecting to experts and other students may contribute to a student’s increased motivation to learn and thus improve their self-efficacy (Mistler-Jackson et al., 2000; Roschelle, Penuel, Abrahamson, 2004). The IWB, again by its design, would not have enabled all students to interact with a National Park Ranger. The students in the lab were able to write questions, read responses at their own pace and did not have to worry about being too far away from the screen to read the fascinating thoughts about bats.

The Proposal

I propose that we buy as many laptop computers as our district can afford for our Intermediate School, grades 3 - 5. Each laptop should be equipped with a built-in camera, access to the Internet and software tools that enable students to demonstrate their knowledge in multiple formats, such as podcasts (Yerrick et al., 2009), movies (Armstrong et al., 2004; Yerrick et al., 2009), blogs (Wells, 2006) and even the composition of music (Armstrong et al., 2004).

Challenges to Overcome

Teacher Skepticism
Historically, the push to integrate technology into classrooms has caused many teachers to resist the promise and potential of this initiative for a variety of reasons. Three of these reasons are: disruption of teacher-student relationships, a focus on basic skills and inadequate staff development. Some teachers believe that computers will disrupt an essential component of student learning, namely, student-teacher relationship building (Cuban, 1986). In many urban schools, according to Becker and Riel, (as cited in Songer et al., 2002) teachers believe that their classroom instruction should focus on a teacher-controlled pedagogy that emphasizes basic skills and so their students should only use computers to practice skills. Inadequate staff development has also been tagged as an issue because many training workshops were not hands-on and thus anything learned and not practiced was quickly forgotten (Oppenheimer, 2004).

Two Solutions to Overcome Skepticism

This resistance is not futile if schools change the way they train teachers to use technology. Typically, teachers en masse, are herded into a computer lab, shown some features of the technologies to be learned on a projected screen and then left to figure out how to use it in their curriculum (Oppenheimer, 2004). Instead of this shallow, one-size-fits-all model, the following researchers provided their teachers with atypical teacher training and thus, successful technology implementations. The researchers did not focus on teaching teachers how to use the technology for technology’s sake. Instead, they focused on teaching teachers how to change their pedagogy, which also required them to learn how to use technology to support that change. In the first example, two researchers included the teachers in the development of a unit. In the second study, the researchers offered extensive training before the implementation and throughout the school year.

Williams et al. (2002) included the teachers in their study in the planning process of their curricular and technology implementation; they called this a partnership model. The researchers met with the teachers to develop and revise the learning goals for a unit on Plants in Space. They found that “creating an environment of mutual respect” (Williams et al., 2002, p. 418), was important to the success of their project because both teachers and researches shared ideas about curricular choices in order to reach consensus. This partnership model led to improved student learning because the researchers and teachers worked together to diagnose and fix challenges that occurred during the year. Learning how to use the technology was secondary, albeit important, to a shift in teaching pedagogy.

Like Williams et al.’s study, Yerrick and Johnson (2009), offered a novel way to learn how to use technology to the teachers in their study. They called their staff development model
“responsive professional development” (p. 285) and they made this training available to middle school science teachers during the summer before their technology implementation and throughout the school year. Teachers in this study learned how to teach science using methods of inquiry which required teachers and students to use probes, podcasting software and computer-based communication tools. Like Williams et al., learning to use the technology was important because it supported the new pedagogy of teaching with inquiry.
Cuban (1986) stated that, “the impact of any technology pivots upon its accessibility, purpose, and use" (p. 37). The teachers in both studies were able to move from the potential and
promise of using technology to the pragmatic use of the tool because teachers were given access to expert users for long periods of time and a pedagogical purpose for learning how to use the technology. Both of these studies showcase staff development models that, when implemented, may begin to erode teacher skepticism toward technology integration.

Measuring the Effectiveness of Student Learning

The state assessments do not require students to blog (Wells, 2006; Richardson,2010), create digital products (Yerrick et al., 2009), use real-time data (Mistler-Jackson et al., 2000; Yerrick et al., 2009), collaborate with experts (Williams et al., 2002) and peers (Mistler-Jackson et al., 2000; Roschelle et al., 2004) or research information on the Internet. (Ng et al., 2002; Williams et al., 2002). So how does one measure the effectiveness of students who learn with computer technology? Researchers have used student interviews and pre and post assessments to accomplish this task.

Mistler-Jackson and Songer (2002) administered a pre and post assessment to assess what students learned about weather before and after a technology implementation and found that the whole class improved significantly on the post assessment regarding weather content questions.

Williams and Linn (2002) also gave the students in their study a pre and post assessment, and like Mistler-Jackson et al., they found a significant improvement in pre and post scores after using technology.

Pre and post assessments are not the only way to measure the effectiveness of learning with technology, interviews can also be extremely beneficial. Ng and Gunstone (2002) interviewed students about using the World Wide Web to learn about photosynthesis and respiration and found that over 58% of the students preferred to learn using the world wide web because they felt they were more engaged in processing the information when researching on the Internet. Yerrick and Johnson (2009) conducted various interviews in their study to find what the students thought about changes in science instruction. During one of the interviewers, one of the students told the researchers they she used a probe to measure heat over time and felt that she learned a lot because the technology enabled her to see real-time data.

Encouraging Stakeholder Input

There are a number of stakeholders to consider in this proposal, but I believe that the two most important are teachers and students. There a variety of strategies we can use to garner their support. The most important stakeholder is the student, so I would like to share some strategies that have worked for others. In the first strategy, students are allowed to learn the basics of a new technology without adult assistance or any formal lessons. This idea was very successful with a group of poor urban and rural children in India. In a series of studies, called The Hole-in-the- Wall studies, Dangwal and Kapur (2009) placed computers in the slums and rural villages and observed how children taught themselves how to use the computer without the aid of an adult.

Enabling students to learn from each other may relieve teachers of the anxiety of teaching something they know little about.
The second strategy requires that we interview students and teachers so that these primary stakeholders provide insight to challenges that may not be revealed through observation or the collection of artifacts alone. (Mistler-Jackson et al., 2002; Ng et al., 2002; Songer et al., 2002).
Without the teacher, learning is not going to take place, so it is important to support this stakeholder. Teachers need to feel like they do not have to teach the kids how to use the technology and that it will be ok if they learned with the kids. Exposing them to research that has demonstrated the effectiveness of technology integration (Mistler-Jackson et al., 2002; Ng et al., 2002; Songer et al., 2002; Williams et al., 2002; Yerrick et al., 2009) will help them feel that they are not alone in this new teaching adventure.

Encourage Mistakes and Learn From Them

School should not be a place of “rightness.” Schools should be a place where students and teachers try, fail, learn from their failings and try again. Students and teachers should follow the advice of the Magic School Bus’ Miss Frizzle, and “Take chances, make mistakes, and get messy.” When we follow this advice the learning advantages afforded to us when we use technology will eventually change the way students learn and teachers teach.

References

Black, P, & William, D. (1998). Inside the black box: raising standards through classroom assessment. Phi Delta Kappan, 80.
Cuban, L. (1986). Teachers and machines: The classroom use of technology since 1920. Teachers College Pr.
Dangwal, R., & Kapur, P. (2009). Learning Through Teaching: Peer-mediated instruction in minimally invasive education. British Journal of Educational Technology, 40(1), 5-22. Retrieved from http://www.hole-in-the-wall.com/docs/Paper12.pdf
Driver, R., Asoko, H., Leach, J., Scott, P., & Mortimer, E. (1994). Constructing scientific knowledge in the classroom. Educational researcher, 23(7), 5.
einstruction - interwritedualboard. (2010). Retrieved from http://www.einstruction.com/ products/interactive_teaching/dualboard/index.html
Mistler-Jackson, M. & Songer, N. B. (2000). Student Motivation and Internet Technology: Are Students Empowered to Learn Science? Journal Research in Science Teaching 37(5), 459-479.
Newmann, F. M., Bryk, A. S., & Nagaoka, J. (2001). Authentic intellectual work and standardized tests: Conflict or coexistence. Chicago: Consortium on Chicago School Research.
Ng, W., & Gunstone, R. (2002). Students' perceptions of the effectiveness of the World Wide Web as a research and teaching tool in science learning. Research in Science Education, 32(4), 489–510.
Oppenheimer, T. (2004). The flickering mind: Saving education from the false promise of technology. Random House Inc.
Pajares, F. (1996). Self-efficacy beliefs in academic settings. Review of educational research, 66 (4), 543.
Papert, S. (1993). Mindstorms: Children, computers, and powerful ideas. Basic books. Popham, W. J. (2008). Transformative assessment. ASCD. Richardson, W. (2010). Blogs, wikis, podcasts, and other powerful web tools for classrooms.
Corwin Press.
Roschelle, J., Penuel, W. R., & Abrahamson, L. (2004). The Networked Classroom. Educational Leadership, 61(5), 4.
Rose, D. H., & Meyer, A. (2002). Teaching every student in the digital age: Universal design for learning. Alexandria, Virginia: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.
Songer, N. B., Lee, H. S., & Kam, R. (2002). Technology-rich inquiry science in urban classrooms: What are the barriers to inquiry pedagogy?. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 39(2), 128–150.
Stager, G. (2005). Papertian constructionism and the design of productive contexts for learning. Proceedings of EuroLogo 2005.
Wells, L. (2006). Blog it: an innovative way to improve literacy. Reading Today, 24(1), 40. Williams, M., & Linn, M. C. (2002). WISE inquiry in fifth grade biology. Research in Science
Education, 32(4), 415–436. Yerrick, R., & Johnson, J. (2009). Meeting the Needs of Middle Grade Science Learners Through
Pedagogical and Technological Intervention. Contemporary Issues in Technology and Teacher Education [Online Serial], 9(3), 280-315.

Using Rubistar to Self-Evaluate

2011-03-12T09:52:00.001-05:00

Tutorial: How to Print a Google Presentation

2010-02-02T07:28:00.003-05:00

Are you one of those people that has to have a paper copy of directions? If so, you are not alone. Most people create PowerPoint Presentations that are not easily publishable to the web. The Google engineers have created a presentation format that enables people to publish their work to the web with ease. They also recognized that many people still need a paper copy to follow. So, if you have ever wanted to print a Google Presentation and did not know how, this tutorial is for you!

Brookey Explains her Drawings

2010-01-08T10:12:00.000-05:00

Learn more about this project

Convert .wps files with Zamzar

2010-01-08T10:02:00.003-05:00

Occasionally, students will bring in .wps files from a USB drive or on CD to print out in school. Unfortunately, they will not be able to open the files because Microsoft Word will not open a .wps file. So, what is a .wps file and why won't Microsoft Word open it?

A .wps file is a word processing file created in Microsoft Works, a free word processing program that usually comes with Windows. (I am not sure if Microsoft Works comes with Vista and Windows 7 - my guess is no).

In any event, you can spend hours trying to figure out how to convert the .wps file for your student or you can go to Zamzar and have the file converted and emailed to you for FREE. Click here to give Zamzar a try and save time.

P.S. You do NOT HAVE to sign-up for an account with Zamzar - even though they will ask you to.

...if they don’t test you on it...

2010-01-06T11:08:00.001-05:00

“…if they don’t test you on it…”
A Case Study with Third Grade Children and Scratch

Christopher Shively

University at Buffalo

Introduction

On a typical Friday morning, an energetic elementary school teacher sits down at their laptop and begins to enter objectives for the following week’s lessons. The objectives for next week are: read unfamiliar texts to collect data, ask "why" questions in attempts to seek greater understanding, use models, facts, and relationships to draw conclusions about mathematics and explain how people's wants exceed their limited resources (NYLearns, 2009). As the teacher plans the procedures and assessments for these lessons, the principal knocks on the door and gently reminds him that she is looking for instances of technology integration in his lesson plans. The principal also adds that the district spent thousands of dollars installing a wireless network this past summer, so he should ALSO be teaching kids how to use Microsoft Office (Word, Excel and PowerPoint), Brain Pop, Castle Learning, Audacity, VoiceThread, etc., in addition to his regular teaching of the content. As the principal walks away, the teacher loses all enthusiasm for planning lessons; adding technology to the list of student outcomes overwhelms him.

To make matters worse, if this teacher went to a recent state computer conference, he may see presentation titles like this: Transforming Teaching through Technology using Early Childhood Podcasting, The Virtual Pioneers- Social Studies in a Virtual World, SMARTBoards for the Primary Grades (NYSCATE, 2009). * So, where does he start teaching if the latest and greatest technology integration models are nothing he understands? As the types of technology choices continue to increase, exponentially it seems, so do the demands on teachers to prepare children for the high-stakes tests, individualize or differentiate instruction (Tomlinson, 1999) and prepare them for what Seymour (2006) calls the “Innovation Economy”, an economy built on collaboration, improvisation and creativity.

Imagine if teachers did not have to teach computer applications. What if children were able to learn these computer applications on their own, without a teacher? Is it possible for children to learn a computer application by themselves or with the help of other children? And if children were able to learn without a teacher, what would that learning look like?

Research, conducted in the slums and rural areas of India, has demonstrated that children can learn computer applications and develop computer skills without any adult supervision. These studies, coined the Hole-in-the-Wall studies, began in 1999, show that young children use a variety of learning strategies when they are alone and when they work in a group (Mitra, 2000; Inamder, 2004; Danwal, Swati, Chatterjee and Mitra, 2005; Dangwal and Kapur, 2008; Danwal and Kapur, 2009).

So if research has shown that a sample of children can learn computer applications on their own, as indicated by the Hole-in-the-Wall studies, than this might mean that teachers might be relieved of teaching computer applications. The next question becomes which computer application should children begin to learn on their own?

Scratch, the Application of Choice

For my field study I chose a very versatile application, designed especially for kids, called Scratch. Scratch is freely available as a download from the Scratch web site, will run on all three major operating systems: Macintosh, Linux and Windows and is one of the few programs that can be run from a USB flash drive, thus making it an extremely desirable application to use in a school setting and at home.

Scratch is a visual programming application designed for children because it eliminates confusing debugging activities and syntax errors, which are two major obstacles for beginning programmers. Children can drag blocks of code into a scripting area to manipulate graphical objects, thus eliminating the need to memorize code. These blocks of codes can even be manipulated while the scripts are running, thus allowing children to “focus on the problems they want to solve and not the programming” (Resnick, Maloney, Monroy-Hernández, Rusk, Eastmond, Brennan, 2009). Scratch enables children to import or record sounds effects and music files and when projects get completed, they can be uploaded to the MIT servers to be shared with the world. (Peppler and Kafai, 2005; Peppler and Kafai, 2007; Resnick et al., 2009)

Scratch was officially released to the public in May 2007 and since that time a number of studies have been conducted in a popular after school program called the Computer Clubhouse or in other urban after school places (Peppler and Kafai, 2005; Kafai, Peppler, and Chiu, 2007; Peppler and Kafai, 2007; Maloney, Peppler, Kafai, Resnick and Rusk, 2008). Research has not been conducted in a school setting, let alone an elementary school (Peppler and Kafai, 2005). In my paper, I will show how four third grade children used a variety of learning strategies to learn Scratch in the same manner as the children in the Hole-in-the-Wall studies, without any adult supervision.

Research Questions

The research questions that guided this study were: (1) Does gender play a role in how children seek help? (2) What learning strategies do children use to learn Scratch? (3) How is learning transferred from person to person when using Scratch?

Literature Review

In 2007, a survey was conducted on behalf of the Pew Internet and American Life Project. The results of the survey indicate that 55% of American youths, aged 12 – 17, have used social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook (Lenhart and Madden, 2007). From 2000 – 2009, the use of social networking sites has increased more than any other online activity. In fact, use of social networking sites increased almost 14% between 2006-7 and 2008-9 (Online Activities. Pew Internet & American Life Project Surveys, 2009). This is quite remarkable considering social networking usage was not even tracked until 2004-5. It is clear that older youths and adults find value in sharing ideas and building on those ideas in an informal context. In this paper, I will present a social model of learning that couples an old-fashioned social network with a new social technology designed for young students.

Traditional models of school have put a lot of value on an individual’s ability to perform tasks designated to be important by the teacher (Scardarmalia, and Berieter, 1991). The evidence to support this claim can be found in how most classrooms are organized; students have an individual desk, report card, and text books. Students demonstrate their learning by taking individual assessments given by the teacher, school and state. Teachers usually only assess their student’s formal knowledge and demonstrable skills (Scardarmalia, and Berieter, 1991) because that is what appears on the high-stakes tests. They usually do not teach students how to think about their own thinking; learning is formal and teacher directed. This is in contrast to informal learning which is self-directed, exploratory and involves social interactions (Maloney, Burd, Kafai, Rusk, Silverman, and Resnick, 2004). This informal learning is the foundational concept of my paper.

The formal, teacher-directed model of education has influenced the way teachers consider delivering instruction for many years. The focus of many college pre-service teacher education courses is on teaching teachers how to teach, not how to facilitate self-directed student learning. In a video conference to Japanese educators sometime in the 1980s, Seymour Papert (1980) spoke about this model which he labeled as “Instructionism.” He called Instuctionism a theory that states, that in order to improve education, teachers need to improve their instruction. This Instructionist theory conflicts with the theory of Constuctionism, which states, that people learn best when they are actively designing their own activities (Papert and Harel, 1991; Papert, 1993; Mitra, 2005; Stager, 2005; Peppler and Kafai, 2005; Peppler and Kafai, 2007). Constuctionism is theory that provides the framework for this paper.

In 1999, the Constuctionist Learning Laboratory was established for at-risk teens in the state of Maine who had been sent to this particular juvenile home (Stager, 2005). In this lab, students were empowered to create meaningful projects based on their own self interests that were not assessed with a rubric, quiz or test. Students learned for the sake of learning. Stager found that as the students successfully solved problems with their constructed designs, a powerful sense of personal competence emerged. This self-awareness provided the students with the confidence to solve the new problems as that arose in their projects. Informal interviews, conducted during the study, showed that the students believed that they were more curious of the world around them and that working on their projects made them better thinkers.

In a case study conducted by Peppler and Kafai (2005), the researchers also found that children who participate in a constuctionist learning environment are more competent and are able to make personal and epistemological connections to their self-directed work. In their study they documented the work of two young artists who used the Scratch application to create media-rich works of art. Because of the design of Scratch, one young artist was able to insert images of herself, a form of personal expression and control, by programming, the characters she inserted into her work. Peppler and Kafai’s findings support Papert’s (1980) idea that,

when a child learns to program, the process of learning is transformed. It becomes more active and self-directed. In particular, the knowledge is acquired for a recognizable personal purpose (pg. 21).

This recognizable purpose, when coupled with providing students the flexibility to follow their interests, makes learning more motivating, interesting and engaging which leads to success (Rose and Meyer, 2002).

As students construct their own learning, they begin to build a storehouse of knowledge which can be shared across social networks. These social networks can be found within the row of desks, the walls of a classroom or school, the community and finally the world. Scardamalia and Bereiter (2007) suggest children should contribute to knowledge building and move past learning. They define learning as “an internal, unobservable process that results in changes of belief, attitude, or skill,” (pg. 2). In contrast, those that build knowledge contribute to the public knowledge, which replaces or modifies existing knowledge. The students in Stager (2005), Peppler and Kafai’s (2005) studies did not build knowledge as defined by Scardamalia and Bereiter, but one student, in a different Peppler and Kafai (2007) study, did build knowledge for the public.

In an ongoing ethnographic study documenting youth producing video games in a community design studio, Peppler and Kafai (2007) found a young Scratch programmer’s status change within his after-school clubhouse community. The after school program did not require the participants to use any particular computer program, so they were allowed to work with any medium they chose which increased the participant’s enthusiasm for learning (Rose and Meyer, 2002). The researchers analyzed the project of one particular programmer who participated in the online Scratch community on a regular basis. He was able to download projects from the Scratch web site which helped him learn new skills and distribute his new knowledge to his local community. He also published his work to the same web site and was able to add to the public knowledge base regarding Scratch.

My field study was inspired by the Hole-in-the-Wall studies (Mitra, 2000; Dangwal and Kapur; 2009). In these studies, researcher placed computers in the slums and poor country sides of India to find out if children could learn computer skills without the assistance of an adult. The researchers learned that the children could learn computer skills using a variety of strategies. It is with this inspiration, that I wanted to find out if students could learn the Scratch application in a school setting without the assistance of an adult.

Method

A qualitative research approach was chosen for this exploratory case study for two reasons. The first reason is to examine how children learn a computer application without the assistance of an adult, how knowledge is transferred within a group and lastly, how children can build on other children’s ideas. The second reason lies in the method of collecting data (Strauss and Corbin, 1990). The data I collected came from the children in the forms of observations, artifact collection and one interview.

In this section of my paper, I will describe the methods used to implement my field study. I will explain the role of the researcher, the participants, the setting of the research site, the data sources collected, the methods I used to analyze the data, the establishment of trustworthiness and the nomenclature of the Scratch program.

The Role of the Researcher

As a technology integrator in the district where the study was conducted, the children saw me as their computer teacher. My involvement with them in years past depended on their classroom teacher. For the purpose of this research, I choose the role of a passive participant (Spradley, 1980). In this role, I did not interact with the children; I sat behind them and observed from a distance of two feet.

Participants

The participants in this study were 4 Caucasian third grade children, two boys and two girls, in a 3-5 elementary school located in a rural-suburban school district in the Midwest. One boy and one girl were provided with Individualized Education Plans (IEP) by school personnel; the other two children did not receive special services and were considered general education children. Pseudonyms were given to each of the children to protect their confidentiality. Karen and Brad were the children with the IEPs and Julie and John were the other two children without the IEPs. According to their teacher, John was an above reader and Julie and Brad were average readers. Karen was pulled out for reading by the Special Education teacher and was considered a non-reader. In Math, John was above average, Julie was an average student and Brad had a difficult time focusing. Karen was also pulled out for math. Brad has been classified as language delayed and Karen, as learning disabled.

These children were in a co-teaching classroom because 7 out of 22 children had IEPs. The general education teacher and special education teacher worked in the same classroom to co-plan and co-teach lessons.

The Setting of Field Study

Technology Integration.

Children are exposed to technology beginning in Kindergarten and in some elementary classrooms, technology is used to learn every day. Teachers integrate technology into the general education curriculum in a variety of formats. The only computer programming available to children occurs in the high school when children can take an Adobe Flash elective.

The general education teacher integrates technology on a daily basis, but most of the integration requires the children to use web resources to practice skills, such as learning math facts, spelling words and using interactive electronic workbooks. The special education teacher does not integrate technology because she does not feel comfortable with "the basics."

Flexible Groups.

The teachers used flexible-group learning centers twice a week so that the teachers could provide individualized instruction in reading and children with IEPs could work on IEP goals. Children are initially placed in flexible groups after having taken a Qualitative Reading Inventory (QRI) at the beginning of the year. As the year progresses, the teachers use the reading placement tests provided by the Scott Foresman reading series and a “feel” that the teachers have about a child’s reading ability, to organize the groups. The general education teacher pulls children to her reading center as the children rotate through the various center activities. The special education teacher pulls her children to her center to work on various IEP goals. At the reading center and the center provided by the special education teacher, children work with the children with similar reading needs. At the other centers, children are heterogeneously grouped.

Children spend 20 minutes at five different centers: writing, math, reading, listening and technology. Aside from the technology center, the other centers are aligned with a story read by the teacher before the children visit the center. On one particular occasion the teacher read the book A Bad Case of the Stripes by David Shannon. At the writing center the children wrote a story based on the Bad Case of the Stripes story, at the math center they reviewed math concepts while playing on a game board with the Bad Case of the Stripes theme, they listened to a similar story at the listening center, at the reading center they worked on a variety of reading skills with the general education teacher and at the technology center, they learned the Scratch program which was pre-loaded on portable USB drives.

Data Collection

Since this was a qualitative study, data was collected with techniques used by qualitative researchers (Bogdan and Bilken, 1992). Data was collected from three sources: an expanded account of my condensed field notes as recommended by Spradley (1980), artifacts in the form of saved Scratch projects (Graue and Walsh, 1998) one group interview with the children and one peer debriefing (Lincoln and Guba, 1985) consultation with the classroom teachers.

I observed the group for twenty minutes, twice weekly for three weeks. I focused on the learning strategies used by the children as they explored the application and wrote a condensed version of my observations in a field journal. After each session I followed the advice of Denzin, (as cited in Graue and Walsh, 1998, p. 134) who suggested that researchers expand their field notes to create a “thick description”.

At the end of each session, student projects were saved onto the USB drives and then copied to an external hard drive. When I saved the projects, I only saved what the children were working on at the end of the session. The saved projects did not reflect all of the actions taken by the student (this is a limitation of my study elaborated on later in this paper).

At the end of the study, I conducted a group interview with the children so that they felt more comfortable with the interview process and so that they could build on each other’s answers (Graue and Walsh, 1998). I did not conduct informal interviews with the children as a way to implement member checking (Lincoln and Guba, 1985) because I did not want to influence the behavior of the children (Bogdan and Bilken, 1992). I used the peer-debriefing technique with the general education teacher to review the field notes and the saved Scratch projects so that she could verify my observations. (Lincoln and Guba, 1985).

Data Analysis

Data was analyzed in three different ways. The first analysis applied to the data was conducted with open coding techniques. Data from field notes and saved projects were examined to discover phenomena in the date which were first labeled and then later organized into categories (Strauss and Corbin, 1990). Once labels and categories were created, I scrutinized the data again using the learning strategies framework developed by Danwal and Kapur (2009) in their study of young children in India to find out how students learned. The third analysis applied to the data was event mapping, a technique used to trace the origin of learned skills.

During open coding, two categories emerged. The first category I named seeking help and the second category I named providing help. The properties of seeking help included: asking the whole group, asking a particular person, looking at another’s computer screen and tapping the shoulder of another. The properties of providing help included: telling others verbally, physically completing a task for someone who asked, demonstrating on the asker’s computer and demonstrating on the helper’s computer.

Learning strategies, employed by the children, were assessed using a method designed by Danwal and Kapur (2009). The learning strategies are explained below:

Learning Strategies.

Trial and Error - Children randomly perform actions on the computer and does not make a connection between their action and what happened on the computer.

Rehearsal – Children randomly perform actions on the computer but do make a connection between their actions and what happened on the computer. They repeat the action deliberately.

Self –Discovery – Children randomly perform actions on the computer but do make a connection between their actions and what happened on the computer. The child repeats the action deliberately and explores the action further in a conscious act of wanting to learn more.

Demonstration – One child shows another child how to perform an action.

Verbal Inputs – One child tells another child how to perform an action.

Observation – One child observes the actions of another child.

Practice and Drill – Children know how to perform an action on the computer and through practice repeat the action. There is a clear indication of automaticity in their actions.

The final analysis of the data is called Event Mapping, a technique applied to the field notes and the saved Scratch projects to trace the origin and proliferation of learned skills. As students created projects in Scratch, the data was dissected to determine: (1) what skills were evident in the actions of the student, (2) in what ways did the students learn these skills, (3) how were these skills passed on to other students and (4) how did the other students use these learned skills.

Establishment of Trustworthiness

In order to establish credibility, I used the following two techniques as defined by Lincoln and Guba (1985): triangulation and peer-debriefing. To establish triangulation, multiple data sources were collected, which included: field notes, saved Scratch projects (artifacts) and an interview with the children. An informal interview with the general education teacher was conducted to establish peer debriefing.

Glossary of Terms and Scratch Naming Convention

In order to understand the findings, it is important to define the nomenclature of a few words found in the Scratch application.

Sprite – a graphical character very similar to clipart

Stage – the location in the application where programmers add sprites, change backgrounds and view the actions given to the sprites with the blocks of code

Scripts Area – the section of the application where blocks of code can be customized to meet the programming needs of the user

All Scratch tools referred to in this paper regarding the Scratch application have been italicized for easy distinction.

Findings and Discussion

This section will be divided into three sections. In the first section, I will describe the methods children used when seeking help. In the second section, I will describe the learning strategies employed by the children as they learned Scratch without adult guidance. In the last section, I will analyze two Scratch projects to explain how learned skills travel from person to person and how the children constructed projects built on the ideas of others.

Does gender play a role in how children seek help?

A focus group of four students was observed in this field study. Two of the students, Karen and Brad were children with special needs which required that the district provide them with Individualized Education Plans. The other two students, Julie and John, were children considered to be “at grade level” and “above grade level,” respectively. In the analysis of my data, the children sought help in two different ways: by asking others and through observation. The data revealed that girls sought help almost three times more often than the boys.

Asking Others.

Asking others was broken down into indirect asking and direct asking.

Indirect Asking.

The children asked the help of others in indirect and direct ways. Indirect asking took the form of asking a question of the whole group without specifically calling on an individual. Brad was the only child to seek help using this strategy as these quotes extracted from my field notes indicate: “What do you do? How do you do this? What do I do?”

These quotes all occurred within the first 5 minutes of using Scratch for the first time, but not one after another; there was time in between each question. In between asking questions, Brad stared at his computer screen. Upon close scrutiny of the words in his questions, it is clear that the pronoun in Brad’s questions changes from you to I, as is evident in the two questions, “What do you do?” and “What do I do?” I interpret this to mean that he has internalized the problem; he is thinking about his thinking. When no one answers his first two questions, Brad uses another strategy; he asks me directly. I politely tell him that I am only observing and so he again switches strategies; he watches John’s screen and notices that John is adding sprites by clicking on the Choose new sprite from file button. Brad imitates the procedure discovered by John and his stage quickly fills with sprites. He does not resort to asking the whole group questions during any of the remaining sessions, he has learned that, at least for this group of children, asking questions of the whole group will not work.

Directly Asking Others.

All of the children asked at least one question of another student or of me. Karen and Julie (27 questions) asked more than four times as many questions as Brad and John (6 questions). The person they asked depended more on who they were sitting next to and what that person was doing in Scratch rather than on gender or who they thought might know more than them. In this excerpt of my field notes, I will provide evidence to support the above claim.

Karen and John have added a sprite to their stage and are now using the paint brush in the paint editor to experiment with brush sizes. Brad is browsing for sprites to add to his stage. Julie is also in paint editor but is using the paint can to color in the cat sprite. She finishes painting the cat and asks Karen where she got the pictures. Karen points to the Choose new sprite from file button on her computer and Julie begins to browse through folders looking for a sprite.

I believe there are two reasons why students did not seek the help of a “more knowledgeable other,” (Vygotsky, 1978). The first reason is proximity and the second reason is that Scratch was learned in a setting devoid of grades. The following is an explanation of the proximity argument. Julie sat next to Karen and at the far end of the group during this session. Her desk is next to Karen’s in the classroom and when I asked her why she sat there, Julie was fully aware of why her teachers asked her and John to sit in the same row with Karen and Brad; she was there to help them. Despite knowing Karen needs a lot of help during the school day, Julie did not ignore Karen when she had a question in Scratch; she did not ask John who sat at the other end of the group. Julie asked Karen because she saw that Karen knew how to do something she wanted to do; in this case add a sprite to the stage. The placement of the computers made it easy for the children to see what was happening on the adjacent screens, but more difficult to view screens that were further away.

The other argument to support the claim that children did not seek the advice of a more knowledgeable other can be found in a comment made by Karen during a post-study interview. When asked the question: What are some of the ways you learned from your friends? Karen said,
“If there is a grown-up around and if they don’t test you on it and they see how many things you know on it, you could ask them.” It is very likely that Karen and the other students felt that there was not a “right” answer and so they felt comfortable asking the person next to them, a person, if they were learning math, might not know the anwer.

Seeking Help by Observing.

Seeking help by observing was the second most prevalent strategy used by the children in this study. Unlike Danwal and Kapur’s study (2009), where many children did not have a choice but to learn by observing because they were huddled around one or two computers, the children in this study were each provided with a laptop and chose to learn by observing. Karen and Brad were the two students who sought help using this strategy most often and used it when they were unsure of where to begin or when the work of another student caught their attention. The following two excerpts from my field notes support this claim.

John asks me where to plug the headphones into the computer, I smile and tell him that I am only observing. He quickly figures it out and begins painting the cat sprite in the paint editor. He clicks the ok button to close the window and drags a block of code on top of the cat sprite. Nothing happens so he abandons this task and clicks on the new sprite folder. Brad has been watching John's actions and imitates each action taken by John. Brad also finds out that nothing happens to the block of code when it is dropped on the stage, so he stops what he is doing and says out loud, "What do you do?"

Karen also used this strategy when beginning to learn Scratch.

Karen stared at the screen unable to remember how to open Scratch from the USB drive. As she stares at the screen she also looks at me with confused eyes. I politely tell her that I am only her to watch her, even though I can eliminate her problem in 10 seconds. She spends about a minutes watching Brad and John add sprites to their stage. Eventually Karen asks Brad for help, but his help is not successful. She asks Brad to ask John but he does not ask. She asks John directly and he comes over and opens the application for her. As soon as Scratch is open, she clicks on the Choose new sprite from file button she saw the boys using.

Once Brad had learned a skill through observation, he continued to use it throughout the sessions; the same cannot be said of Karen. When Brad’s projects were analyzed, each one had similar backgrounds, sprite choices, and placement of sprites on the stage. This is an indication that Brad was content to use what he had learned but with a different degree of sophistication each time. Karen used the self-discovery strategy more than any other child except Julie. Each of her saved projects was different and in each project, different Scratch skills were demonstrated. It is unclear to me at this time why she did not reuse many of the skills she took the time to explore.

What learning strategies do children use to learn Scratch?

The top three learning strategies used by the children are shown in Table 1.

Table 1
Learning Strategies Used by Each Child
Strategy Name	Karen	Julie	Brad	John
Self-Discovery	7	7	5	5
Observation	4	3	5	1
Practice and Drill	1	4	3	3

The data from the table indicates that Self-Discovery was the number one learning strategy for three out of the four children. The saved projects did not provide sufficient evidence for these phenomena but a single quote from the post-study interview may have, once again shed some terrific insight into the thinking of the children. In order to interpret the meaning of this data, I refer once more to an answer from Karen in the post-study interview in which she said, “If there is a grown-up around and if they don’t test you on it and they see how many things you know on it, you could ask them.” Papert (1980) said, “…many children are held back in learning in which you have either “got it” or “got it wrong,” (pg. 23). The Scratch learning sessions were deliberately designed to be very low key and the software was designed to provide children with many different paths to follow depending on their learning styles (Resnick, 2007). The children were able to choose what and how much of the software they wished to learn without being afraid to fail.

When asked what they thought about Scratch, Julie said, “I think it was cool,” Karen said, “I like it,” and Brad said, “Amazing!”(John did not respond). Based on those quotes, it is safe to assume that the children enjoyed the experience and the informality of the sessions may have given them a greater sense of control over the way they wished to learn.

How is learning transferred from person to person when using Scratch?

In this section of my paper I will provide two examples that trace the origin of learned skills and demonstrate how one child’s ideas can be used and expanded upon by another child.

Building on the Foundational Skill, Adding Sprites to the Stage.

Within the first two minutes of the first session, the one and only skill used by all children every time they used Scratch was learned by John. He learned how to choose and insert sprites using the Choose new sprite from file button. In the following excerpt from my field notes, I will illustrate how this skill was first learned by John and transferred to the rest of the children in the group. This skill was always the first action taken by the kids when first starting a Scratch session.

John added a new sprite by clicking on the Choose new sprite from file button. When he did this, a window showing categories of sprites became available for him to browse through (Figure 1). He quickly found a folder that interested him, double clicked on the folder, found a trampoline sprite, clicked on it and the sprite was added to the stage. John added glasses to the cat sprite (Figure 2). Karen, unable to open Scratch because she forgot how, watched John and Brad’s computer screen. Brad, was able to open Scratch but exclaimed, “How do I do this?” Through observation Brad followed the procedure John used, which was to click on the Choose new sprite from file button and so he added a trampoline sprite to his stage and edited the stage background by using the paint editor and the paint can to create color effects (Figure 3). Karen eventually asked John to help her open Scratch and he opened it for her. She quickly added a trampoline sprite to her stage in the same manner as John and Brad. She imitated John’s actions by creating the same scene on her computer, but then also added a microphone and a wig to the scene (Figure 4). As Brad looked for sprites to add to his stage, he discovered the drop down menu which helped him navigate through the folders in a different way.

Figure 1. Screen shot of folders displayed when the Choose new sprite from file button is clicked.

Figure 2. Screen shot of John’s computer after he learned how to add sprites through self-discovery.

Figure 3. Screen shot of Brad’s computer after he learned how to add sprites by observing John’s screen.

Figure 4. Screen shot of Karen’s computer after she learned how to add sprites by observing John’s screen.

It did not take John very long to click on the Choose new sprite from file button and alter this and the remaining Scratch sessions. Once John clicked on it he quickly recognized what this tool did and proceeded to add many sprites to the stage. In order for him to locate sprites, he had to navigate through a variety of folders, which is evidence of self-discovery. Self-Discovery occurs when a child randomly performs actions on the computer and then makes a connection between their actions and what happened on the computer. The child repeats the action deliberately and explores the action further in a conscious act of wanting to learn more.

Brad was the first student to follow John’s actions. This may have happened because he was sitting right next to him and Karen was sitting a couple of feet away. Brad observed John clicking on the button but he did not ask him any questions. He performed the same skill in this session and in every session afterward. Even though Brad learned how to add sprites to his stage by following John, he was the only student to browse through the folders using the drop down menus. Since Karen was unable to open Scratch, she spent the first few minutes watching
Brad, who was sitting next to her. When she was finally able to open Scratch, she immediately added sprites to the stage using the same procedure. Like Brad and John, Karen practiced using this skill throughout the sessions. In summary, John learned a new skill through self-discovery and Brad and Karen learned a new skill by observing John.

Building on the Shark

In the next session, all four children continued to add sprites to their stages by clicking on the Choose new sprite from file button. In this scenario, Brad created a scene on his computer that included a number of dancing sprites and a shark “eating” a male sprite. Brad shared his screen with the other children, which inspired John to paint his own shark, learn two new Scratch tools and share his new learning with Karen. Karen used what she learned from John in her next two creations. The following is an excerpt from my expanded field notes that illustrates how a single shark led to the learning of two new Scratch skills.

In this session Brad edited the stage to create a multi-colored background. He added a number of sprites to the stage: three people, four boats, hair to the cat and a shark. The shark was open-mouthed and the open mouth has the head of a male sprite in it. As he adds the shark he says, “The shark is going to eat other sprites.” (Figure 5) John asked the other children to look at his screen and they do. Both of the other children laugh and when John returned to his computer, he opened the paint editor, painted a shark and used the Flip horizontally tool to change the direction of the shark (Figure 6). He did this repeatedly to give the shark the sense of movement. In the following session, John discovered the can rotate button located above the scripts area. As he clicked on the button he noticed the sprite on his stage had rotated. This fascinated him and he exclaimed, “Oh, my gosh!” He tried to share this new learning with Karen, but she is continued to listen to sounds, and ignored him. Later in that same session, Karen asked John to show her how to rotate sprites, but not in the way he did it. She wanted to know how to rotate the sprites in the paint editor. John demonstrated how to do this and Karen spent the rest of the session rotating sprites and adding them to her stage (Figure 7).

Figure 5. Screen shot of Brad’s computer showing the shark “eating” the male sprite.

Figure 6. Screen shot of John’s computer showing the shark he painted in the Paint Editor and his discovery of the Flip Horizontally tool.

Figure 7. Screen shot of Karen’s computer and her use of the Rotate clock-wise and Rotate counter-clock-wise tools in the Paint Editor.

There are a number of Scratch skills evident in Brad’s creation. He used the Choose new sprites from file button to add sprites to his stage, he edited the background using the paint editor and he also edited a hair sprite which he added to the cat sprite. Brad first learned how to add sprites to the stage from John by observing him in the previous session. He learned how to edit the stage through the learning strategy of self-discovery. When he clicked on the edit button to edit the stage, the stage opened in the paint editor. Brad then learned how to apply fill effects with the paint can to create a “sunset” scene. He also edited the hair sprite, a skill that he learned through self-discovery in the first session. In summary, Brad used one skill he learned from John, he learned two new skills and practiced a skill that he learned in another session.

Brad invited John and Karen to look at this shark scene, but only John obliged. John laughed at the image of the shark “eating” the male sprite and decided to paint a shark in the paint editor. It is unclear how and when John learned how to paint in the paint editor (limitation of study which is elaborated upon later in this paper). While in the paint editor, John learned, through self-discovery, how to use the Flip Horizontally tool to flip the shark back and forth creating a sense of motion. In the following session, John learned, again through self-discovery, how to rotate a sprite but NOT in the paint editor. He clicked on the can rotate button above the scripts area, which caused the sprite on the stage to rotate. He tried to share this learned information with Karen, but she was not interested at that time. In summary, John practiced a skill he learned in another session and learned two new skills because of the influence of Brad’s shark scene.

Karen was not interested in John’s attempt at sharing his knowledge of the can rotate tool, but later asked him to teach her how to rotate sprites in the paint editor. After he demonstrated how to rotate the sprites, Karen practiced this skill for the remaining session. In the next session her “falling letters” project used this skill and also spawned new learning for John and Julie. In summary, Karen learned, through demonstration, a new skill that she used in two projects.

Summary of Findings

Children in this study sought help in two ways: by asking others and through observation. Asking others was broken into two categories, indirect asking and direct asking. Indirect asking was only used by one child, Brad, without much success. All of the students used the direct asking strategy, with the girls asking four times the amount of questions as they boys. Three main learning strategies were used by the children, with self-discovery being the most used strategy. Learned skills can be traced back to their origin using a technique called event mapping. Children were able to build on the ideas of other children which led to more learned skills.

Conclusion

During a peer-debriefing session I asked the general education teacher who she thought the students asked most frequently for help. She thought the students would ask John for help, since, in her mind, he was the brightest. My data suggests that students did not ask the most capable student, instead they asked the person who was the closest to them or the person who was doing something the students wanted to learn. This is in contradiction to Dangwal and Kapur’s (2009) study where they found that information was dispersed by a peer-leader or peer-expert. In my focus group, I do not believe there was a peer leader and I believe this was the case because the Scratch program provided enough variety to satisfy everyone’s tastes.

Dangwal and Kapur (2009) found the learning strategy of practice and drill to be the most prominent individual learning strategy. I found that self-discovery was the preferred strategy and I attribute that to a lack of time to explore the software. The Scratch program is incredibly feature-rich. Although I did not present the data in this paper, I have collected data on the rest of the students in this classroom. When one explores that data, one finds many skills were learned by other students that were not explored by my focus group. As I continue my research with this group of students and they learn how to save projects, I suspect that they will practice skills they have learned instead of their continued exploration. Danwal and Kapur noticed that as students became more aware of their actions on the computer, they used practice and drill instead of self-discovery.

There is clear evidence that the children “built knowledge” upon the ideas of their peers. However, they did not build knowledge as defined by Scardamalia and Bereiter (2007). These two researchers define knowledge building as the modification or creation of public knowledge, the knowledge of the “real world”. This did not occur through any fault of the children’s, it occurred because I did not setup an account on the Scratch web site that would enable them to share their work with the world. Sharing alone will not build knowledge, in this sense, so students will still need to recognize when new knowledge has been created by evaluating all the knowledge available to them on the Scratch web site. At last check, there was over 700,000 projects available for download, so I wonder if it possible for them to “build knowledge.”

Implications

As teachers scramble to keep up with technological innovations, Scratch can be the software solution to meet many of their needs. This software has only been available for two years and our research has only begun.

Scratch as Podcasting Tool

John and Brad experimented with the recording feature of Scratch. Scratch enables users to record audio with the very easy to use audio recorder. The audio recorder does not provide students with the ability to edit the audio, like Garageband or Audacity, but if teachers are looking for a simple recording interface, this is it. Teachers or students can create a free account on the Scratch web site and any projects that contain audio files can be uploaded and shared with the world in seconds.

Scratch as Teaching Tool

If a teacher told her students to construct a square using a Scratch sprite and block code, the children would actively construct their knowledge of a square instead of looking at one in a book or on a worksheet (Mitra, 2000). Papert (1980) wrote about the potential influence of the computer as an “object-to-think-with” (pg.23). In this square example, students can think with the computer and actively build a square as long as they know that all the sides of a square must be of equal length. They must also understand that each angle of a square must be 90 degrees. Most students are required to recognize a square, which is at the Knowledge of Bloom’s Taxonomy instead of construct a square, which is at the Synthesis level of this taxonomy. If the students share their squares, they can assess each other’s work, which is at the highest level of the taxonomy. Why should students stop at Knowledge when they can Evaluate.
Scratch the Imagination Tool

Mitchel Resnick (2007) one of the creators of Scratch wrote, “Our goal is to provide tools that can be used in multiple ways, leaving more room for children’s imaginations,” (pg. 2). The students in this study spent every second of their 20 minutes engaged with the software. It is highly motivational, feature-rich, portable, and extremely powerful. If we let children and teachers imagine, create, program, share and build on other ideas, the results will be rewarding.

Future Research

There are many other research ideas to pursue, but I will only write about three research opportunities.

The first research opportunity is to continue studying the four children in this classroom over a longer period of time, to improve credibility (Lincoln and Guba, 1995). An effort should also be made to add Camtasia Studio, screen recording software, to the computers to improve the amount of data collected so that a more thorough micro-analysis can take place.

The second opportunity is based on an article written by Scardamalia and Bereiter (1994); the researchers suggest that children should contribute their work to a central database so that knowledge can flow freely between children. Two research questions could then be asked: In what ways does a shared directory of Scratch projects affect the new projects children produce? How do children prefer to learn new Scratch skills when provided with the means to view, download and experiment with other projects? Could a new learning strategy be established called reverse-engineering? In reverse-engineering, students open a peer’s project and then proceed to examine the code structure to learn how the blocks of code affect the sprites on the stage.

The third opportunity is related to the opening paragraph of this paper and to the Hole-in-the-Wall studies. Teachers are overwhelmed with the speed of technological changes and many have not mastered the basic computer applications such as: word processing, presentations, concept mapping, internet browsing etc. I believe that the methodology of this study could be used to study how children learn other computer applications.

Two final questions have also emerged as a result of my work and they are: (1) Does knowledge building increase when children share their work on the Internet via the Scratch web site? (2) In what ways can children create projects using Scratch for other content areas?

Limitations of the Study

There were a number of challenges that could be improved upon in this study. While in the field, it was not possible to record all the actions taken by the students. My field notes were used to capture as much of the actions and interactions of the students as I could. In the first session I attempted to video the children, but because of the nature of the placement of the laptops, the children’s bodies blocked the camera’s view. In future studies, it will be necessary to secure funding to purchase Camtasia’s Studio, a screen recording software application. This will provide me with ability to track every mouse click taken by each student. I will then be able to use a video camera to record student interactions.

The use of flexible groups and learning centers was a significant factor in my having the ability to conduct this field study. In most classrooms, in the school district where I conducted my research, learning centers are not used by the teachers. Unless a teacher is willing to give up 20 minutes of their day, it will be necessary to work with teachers who utilize learning centers.

In order to firmly establish credibility in qualitative research a researcher must remain in the field for a considerable amount of time, something Lincoln and Guba (1985) call prolonged engagement. The observations conducted for this study were completed in a three week period; therefore more time in the field will improve the credibility of this study.

References

Bogdan, R., & Bilken, S. (1982). Qualitative Research for Education: An Introduction to Theories and Methods. In Qualitative Research for Education: An Introduction to Theories and Methods.

Dangwal, R., & Kapuret, P. (2009). Learning Through Teaching: Peer-Mediated Instruction in Minimally Invasive Education. British Journal of Educational Technology, 40(1), 5-22.

Graue, M, & Walsh, D. (1998). Studying Children in Context. Thousand Oaks, California: Sage Publications.

Kafai, Y.B., Peppler, K.A., & Chiu, G. (2007). High Tech Programmers in Low Income Communities: Creating a Computer Culture in a Community Technology Center. In C. Steinfeld, B. Pentland, M. Ackermann, & N. Contractor (Eds.), Proceedings of the Third International Conference on Communities and Technology (pp. 545-562). New York: Springer.

Lenhart, A., & Madden, M. (2007). Social networking websites and teens: An overview. Pew Internet and American Life Project report. Retrieved December 1, 2009 from http://www.pewinternet.org/PPF/r/198/report_display.asp

Lincoln, Y. S., & Guba, E. G. (1985). Naturalistic inquiry. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.

Maloney, J., Burd, L., Kafai, Y., Rusk, N., Silverman, B., & Resnick, M. (2004). Scratch: A sneak preview. In Proceedings of the Second International Conference on Creating, Connecting and Collaborating through Computing (pp. 104–109).

Maloney, J., Peppler, K., Kafai, Y., Resnick, M., and Rusk, N. (2008). Programming by Choice: Urban Youth Learning Programming with Scratch. Retrieved October 1, 2009, from http://info.scratch.mit.edu/Research

Online Activities. Pew Internet & American Life Project Surveys, 2000-2009, http://www.pewinternet.org/Static-Pages/Trend-Data/Online-Activities-20002009.aspx, accessed on December 3, 2009.

Papert, S. (1980). Constructionism vs. Instructionism. Retrieved from http://www.papert.org/articles/const_inst/const_inst1.html

Papert, S. (1980). Mindstorms: Children, Computers, and Powerful Ideas. New York: Basic Books.

Peppler, K., & Kafai, Y. (2005). Creative coding: The role of art and programming in the K-12 educational context. Retrieved October 12, 2009, from http://info.scratch.mit.edu/Research

Peppler, K., & Kafai, Y. (2007). What Videogame Making Can Teach Us About Literacy and Learning: Alternative Pathways into Participatory Culture. Presented at the DiGRA (Digital Games Research Association).

Resnick, M. (2007). All I Really Need to Know (About Creative Thinking) I Learned (By Studying How Children Learn) in Kindergarten. Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Creativity and Cognition, Washington, D.C.

Resnick, M., Kafai, Y., Maeda, J. (2003). A Networked, Media-Rich Programming Environment to Enhance Technological Fluency at After-School Centers in Economically-Disadvantaged Communities. Proposal to National Science Foundation.

Resnick, M., Maloney, J., Monroy-Hernández, A., Rusk, N., Eastmond, E., Brennan, K., et al. (2009). Scratch: programming for all. Communications of the ACM, 52(11), 60–67.

Rose, D. & Meyer, A. (2002). Teaching Every Student in the Digital Age [Chapter 6]. Retrieved from http://www.cast.org/teachingeverystudent/ideas/tes/

Sawyer, R. (2006). Educating for innovation, Thinking Skills and Creativity, Volume 1, Issue 1, April 2006, Pages 41-48, ISSN 1871-1871, DOI: 10.1016/j.tsc.2005.08.001.(http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/B7XN8-4J2TWWP-1/2/4e933a96af50c1bb1872299a1f47c5

Scardarnalia, M., & Berieter, C. (1994). Computer Support for Knowledge-Building Communitiees. The Journal of Learning Sciences, Computer Support for Collaborative Learning, 3(3), 265-283. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/1466822

Scardamalia, M., Bereiter,C. (2007). "Knowledge Building." Encyclopedia of Education. Ed. James W. Guthrie. Vol. 4. 2nd ed. New York: Macmillan Reference USA, 2002. 1370-1373. 8 vols. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Thomson Gale. Univ of California Santa Cruz..

Spradley, J. (1980). Particpant observation. NewYork: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.

Strauss, A, & Corbin, J. (1990). Basics of qualitative research: grounded theory and techniques. Newbury park, CA: Sage Publications

Tomlinson, C. (1999). The differentiated classroom: Responding to the needs of all learners.
Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

Vygotsky, L. (1978). Interaction between learning and development. In M. Cole (trans), Mind in Society (pp. 79–91). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Teaching PowerPoint to Elementary Students - Getting Started

2010-01-05T14:48:00.012-05:00

PowerPoint is a very common application to teach young children, but like most computer applications, you might not be sure where to start. Whenever I start to teach PowerPoint to students who have never used it, I follow these 9 steps:

1.) Open PowerPoint

2.) Save the File to the student's home directory on your school network

3.) Add Slides - there are a variety of ways to do this, but I just show them how to right click and add slides from the Normal View

4.) Delete Slides - I teach the kids to right click on the small slide in Normal View and click on delete slide.

5.) Add and Format text to the tile slide - I have the kids change the color, style, and font-size of the text.

6.) Insert an image from the Internet - I have the kids add a new slide and then insert an image from the Internet. (This is different if you are using Firefox or Internet Explorer)

7.) Change the Slide Design

8.) Add Transitions

9.) View the SlideShow

Introductory Sentence Examples

2009-12-01T13:24:00.001-05:00

Begin with a Question

Have you ever laughed so hard that your stomach muscles were so sore the next day?

Use Foreshadowing

If only I had known what I was getting into when I said yes to Mrs. Stone.

Begin with a sound

Knock. knock.

Begin with an exclamation

Watch out for the car Katie!

Begin with a smell

I awoke to the familiar smell of crisp bacon and fresh maple syrup beckoning me down the stairs.

Use your name to make a statement

I, Joan Smith, am not your average teenager.

Make a short and choppy statement

No, No. And no again.

Describe your setting

Main Street was bustling today.

Describe what some was doing

Mrs. Maple was screaming down the hall.

Hand Washing Lesson with Brain Pop Jr. - Notes

2009-10-19T15:50:00.003-04:00

Context:

1st graders
whole group
projector and teacher computer

Media

Web Browser with tabbed browsing
Audio and video
Brain Pop Jr. http://www.brainpopjr.com/

Instructional Tips

Link directly to the brain pop jr video from your classroom web site
Used tabbed browsing to take advantage of the movie in one tab and the graphic organizer in another tab
Use close captioning on the movie
Enlarge the movie with zoom

Procedure:

Open the Hand Washing Video in one tab - http://www.brainpopjr.com/health/bewell/washinghands/
Open the Hand Washing Graphic Organizer in another tab - http://www.brainpopjr.com/health/bewell/washinghands/talkaboutit/
Click on the Full Screen Video
Click on CC - closed captioning
Play the Movie
Stop the video at the first Essential Question - Why do we have to wash our hands?
Complete the graphic organizer in the other tab - teacher can write on the graphic organizer on the whiteboard, or the graphic organizer can be rec-created on http://bubbl.us
Continue the video
Stop the video at each essential question to discuss
Complete the Quiz - whole class
Complete the game - whole class

Configure QuickNote for Learning

2009-10-02T09:47:00.001-04:00

Spelling City Integration Strategy

2009-09-21T12:38:00.001-04:00

Web Resource:
http://www.spellingcity.com/

Objective(s) based on New York State Performance Indicators:

Students use [spelling resources, such as dictionaries, word walls,] and/or computer software, to spell words correctly.

Students use a variety of resources, [such as age-appropriate dictionaries] and/or computer software, to spell words correctly.

Process:

Post spelling words on your classroom web site either in your homework section (best method) or a typical subpage (more difficult)

Post a link to Spelling City on the homework page, typical subpage, or in the My Links section

Teach kids how to access the words from the homework section, copy/paste the words into Quicknote and then post the words into Spelling City

Teach the kids how to use the spelling city web site to learn

Assessment Strategy(ies):

pre (formative) and post (summative) spelling test with TeacherSites QuizMaker

type spelling sentences into a TeacherSites message board or blog

traditional paper/pencil spelling tests

Dear Soldier Poetry Project

2009-09-16T11:03:00.002-04:00

In this lesson we will use a web based poetry form to create a poem for our soldiers serving overseas.

New York State Standard: ELA2.KN.WR2: Language for Literary Response and Expression
Performance Indicator -- ELA2.KN.WR2.01

Students draw or write original literary texts to:
* create poems or jingles, using pictures/drawings and some words, with assistance

Visit - http://ettcweb.lr.k12.nj.us/forms/newpoem.htm
Choose a poetry template - templates can be chosen in the following formats (individually, groups, whole class) I chose this one: http://ettcweb.lr.k12.nj.us/forms/noun_adjective_phrase.htm
Write the poem by filling in the form (students can compose individually, in groups, or whole class)
Print the poem(s)
Illustrate the poem(s)

Example Poem:

American Soldier
brave, helpful, patriotic, courageous
defends our freedoms
wants to create a better world
sacrifices their time for the people of the United States of America

How to Book Time on My Calendar

2009-09-16T10:00:00.000-04:00

How to Open a Shared Google Document

2009-09-14T15:12:00.000-04:00

Trail #1 - Trail Blazer Messages - summer 2009

2009-07-29T07:31:00.002-04:00

Using a web browser seems to be becoming more common in today's
classrooms. It does depend on the available acces to computers for
students learning or equipment that will transfer information from one
source such as a computer to be available for all studetns to see and
view. There are several websites that I connect to using an internet
browser such as educational games that I have showed the students how
to access and play. When the students have free time there are three
computers available in our classroom they may use to acces these
games. As far as teaching with the internet browsers I feel that there
are many possibilities such as videos and newsfeeds to reach many
subject areas however since I am not sure how to use proper equipment
to show the class how to use these I haven't been able to use them in
my current classroom.

Teachers can use web browsers to show
students how to effectively use the information they find on the
internet. There is so much information out there that I feel students
can sometimes feel overwhelemed. For example, students use the internet
to look up information for a research project and need to know how to
organize what they find. A web browser helps to organize information
and that helps the student to understand the information or sites they
are looking at. I feel that when students learn how to use a web
browser and its tools the students are then making the most out of the
internet and also learning at the same time. - greyst

Web
browsers can be used to organize and plan school projects. Web browsers
are good tools for students to use because they have information at
their fingertips.
There are many tools that teachers can use to
integrate technology into the classroom. Web browsers allow students to
access the web. Students can use web browswers to help them find
information while they are researching.

Teachers can use
Interactive Smartboard technology to teach lessons and display web
browsers to show students how to navigate web sites!

An example might be to teach kids how to navigate through your classroom web site.
http://eduscapes.com/sessions/smartboard/
- this is a good interactive website that can be used with a
Smartboard, you can navigate this website and use it with any grade
level! Give me one specific link on that page that you might use
instead of the whole catalog - (e.g. http://www.amblesideprimary.com/ambleweb/mentalmaths/clock.html) here's a link- http://www.nga.gov/kids/zone/jungle.htm

When
assigning "project work" students can utilize their web browser to
search for, catalog, and bookmark useful information that they can use
in the short term, or the long term. Having the ability to "bookmark"
sites allows students to remember where they have been and allows
teachers to check for plagerism/validity of information. Will schools
enable kids to bookmark the sites? How will the kids access the web
sites when they are home?

I think that teachers can use web
browsers to help students view things like people and places of other
cultures Do you have an example? Here is one - Riddle of Chichen Itza
- http://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/ancient/lost-tombs/chichen-itza-video.html
Yes!
Videos like this, keep me very interested, and make ME want to learn
more. I think these kind of tools keep children excited about
learning! I didnt know NG had videos! Thanks!

Through the use of
united streaming a teacher can simply have the clips available for
students that they wil be viewing, I find that if something is viewable
for them it will be more useful? Seem important or real? Are those
questions like you are not sure? I would agree, students learn from
video
No I do believe that, I was having trouble verbalizing it - gotcha!

Teachers
can use web browers for all sorts of things. One example would be
various webcams that students can acess during centers etc. They can
see different part of the world, different cultures, and different
environments. Here is a link to a webcam that features a penguin
cam!!!!! http://www.montereybayaquarium.org/efc/efc_splash/splash_cam.aspx
Could you teach an objective with this resource? Yes.....students could
use the webcams to conduct observations on how penguins use their body
parts to better catch fish in the water or swim faster etc. Its almost
like seeing the animals in real life when they aren't actually able.
yes, and you are teaching the Scientific Method ;-)

Teachers can
use web browsers to take a field trip or have guest speakers by using
SKYPE in the classroom. This is an easy way of taking students outside
of the classroom without really leaving the classroom. Or experienceing
guest speakers live from anywhere in the world.Skype would not need a
web browser, however you could use a web browser for these kind of
virtual field trips: http://www.efieldtrips.org/

Teachers
can use web browsers as effective resources. They can be used for
research projects. There are many educational websites available with
a lot of useful information about many different topics. Also, there
are many websites which provide teachers with educational videos to
help reinforce the concepts taught within the classroom. In addition,
there are many websites which provide practice on given topics for the
students. For example, Spellingcity.com. This website allows students
to practice their weekly spelling list in a variety of different ways.

Teachers
can use televisions or smartboards that are connected to the Internet
in order to show students how a website is used. A school may have
educational websites that teachers may want to show students how to
practice certain skills. As the teacher is navigating through the
site, the students can see the various tools that can be used and where
to go to use specific tools. One example of a website is http://www.starfall.com. This website is used to teach students basic reading skills.

Today,
I don't think that a teacher could use a web browser to effectively
teach students (if you mean the browser itself and not talkingusing the
browser to access the internet) . I only have experience using
internet explorer and I can only see a couple of things to use for
teaching. A teacher could use the print option to show students how to
print a document. They could also use the web browser to search for
information instead of going to the library.

By using a web
browser teachers can quickly allow their students to view images from
other cultures or time periods. For example, in a lesson on world
masks students may visit online galleries, such as http://gallery.sjsu.edu/masks/menu.html , to gain ideas and background information that may not be available to them otherwise.

Web
browsers can virtually open up the world to students of all ages from
primary school thru to senior citizens (as we are always learning).
Through the use of web browsers and the internet, the students have the
whole world in front of them. Students can find out about the habitats
of giant sea turtles, what type of animals and vegetation exists in a
rainforest to learning about stocks and bonds. All this is located at
the tips of their fingers, by typing or clicking. They are able to
utilize simulations that will provide them with a better understanding
of how to purchase stocks, or even help them perfect their typing
skills. They can go on virtual fieldtrips and visit places they only
hear or read about (museums, pyrimids etc.) They (we) are only limited
by our imagination (or lack thereof).

It is clear that
technology allows many opportunities for students to discover the world
other than opening up a textbook. It shows the reality of the
situation because as they grow and continue their education, technology
will be one of their primary sources. By including web browsers at a
young age students will become familiar with the new opportunites, and
as teachers we will be able to show the appropriate use of web browsers
and research. It will allow students to become organized and
effectively learn about any topic included in the curriculum, such as
medieval times, ancient and present china, jungles, or swamp life.
Specifically, web browers can be used for research projects by finding
information through web pages and include images and videos! Students
can visit different countries around the world without even leaving the
classroom. Also, students can use this to practice mathematical skills
learned in class with web browsers that provide real life applications
and solutions.

Mrs. Smith: First and foremost, the teacher
needs to be knowledgeable in utilizing a web browser effectively so
that he or she can show the students all there is to be seen.
Unfortunately, the surface of this technology has barely been
scratched. Many educators lack the training and skills necessary to
pass along this valuable information to their students. I, for one, am
included in the less than computer savvy category :) I do, however,
realize that there is an abundance of information that can so easily be
tapped into. Web browsers, quite laterally, open the door to anything
and everything you would like to learn about. Not only can you
research information on just about any subject, but you can also use
web browsers to communicate, share information, organize information,
view pictures and video. Web browsers bring the world to the user and
are far superior to traditional methods of teaching and learning.

I
think web browsers provide teachers with more tools any school could
afford to buy from companies. It gives students the opportunities to
see what is out there, learn content material and also leaning computer
skills that otherwise they may not get. Allowing students to use
different forms of strategies to learn also can stimulate different
parts of their brains that reading and writing may not always do. It
gives teachers and students opportunities that may not otherwise arise
with just using textbooks and pencils. -Gettingmarried

I
think web browsers allow teachers many opportunities to engage
students. Many students are not given the opportunity to use
technology at home. Teaching using web browsers helps meet the needs
of a large variety of students. Lessons will become engaging and
interesting to students. THe web offers students an abundance of
activities and lessons, such as research projects, communication with
other students on a vareity of topics, and geography lessons. One
browser I enjoy where students can publish their own writing online is
www.tikatok.com, which will also help motivate them to write.

Web
browsers give students an unlimited access to information. Resources
in the classroom are often outdated, while resources through a web
browser can be updated with current news and information. As a result,
teachers as well as students have the opportunity to learn about the
past and present in the present.

Teaching with a web browser can
accomplish many educational goals. It can help them synthesize
material, find new sources for projects, and teach them that technology
is a tool that can be used outside of the classroom as well. As long
as there is support at home, the web can be a resource than can be used
around the clock and around the world. -Dr. B

How to Delete/Revise Assignments Using Homework Option #1

2009-07-09T08:26:00.003-04:00

Click here for a larger version

Get a TeacherSites Classroom web site of your own. Use my refer code to get an extra month free - 30696

How to Change the Icon of a Section

2009-07-06T19:19:00.001-04:00

Click here for a larger version

C.O.P.S.

2009-07-02T10:10:00.002-04:00

1st draft of Editing Acronym

C = Capitalize

the first word in every sentence
all proper nouns
"I"
first word inside of quotes

O = Organize

indent before each paragraph
leave one space between words
leave two spaces between a PERIOD and the first word of the next sentence

P = Punctuate

period, question mark, or excalamation point at the end of ever sentence
use quotation marks and commas where needed

S = Spell

Check all red squiggly lines

Editing Checklist for My Online Writing Center

2009-07-02T10:01:00.002-04:00

Draft #1

Spelling is correct
Punctuation is present and accurate
Capitals are used correctly
Grammar and usage are correct
Logical paragraphing is present

Tutorial: How to Share a Web Resource with Del.icio.us Using the for: tag

2009-06-28T11:30:00.000-04:00

Click here for a larger version

Learn how to Use Del.icio.us

2009-06-28T11:10:00.002-04:00

Click here for a larger version

Tutorial: Setup and Install Del.icio.us for Social Bookmarking

2009-06-28T10:24:00.002-04:00

Click here for a larger version

101 Ways to Praise Someone

2009-06-27T09:18:00.001-04:00

How many can you use today?

That's Incredible!
How Extraordinary!
You're Very Talented!
Outstanding Performance!
Far Out!
Great!
Very Brave!
Marvelous!
I Can't Get Over It!
Wonderful!
You Figured It Out!
You Should Be Proud!
Amazing Effort!
Unbelievable Work!
You're the Greatest!
Phenomenal!
You've Got It!
Superb!
How Original!
You're Special!
Cool!
Excellent!
Congratulations!
Your Project is First Rate!
Way To Go!
You've Outdone Yourself!
You're Super!
Thumbs Up!
What A Great Listener!
Your Help Counts!
You Make Me Smile!
You Came Through!
Terrific!
You Tried Hard!
You're A Pleasure To Know!
Fabulous!
Your Effort Really Shows!
You Made It Happen!
What A Genius!
You're A Real Trooper!
It Couldn't Be Better!
Bravo!
You're A Champ!
You're Unique!
Exceptional!
You Set A Good Example!
Right On!
Fantastic Work!
Breathtaking!
Keep Up The Good Work!
Clever!
Awesome!
I Knew You Had It In You!
You've Made Progress!
Magnificent!
Your Work Is Out of Sight!
What An Imagination!
It's Everything I Hoped For!
Brilliant!
Stupendous!
You're Sensational!
Very Good!
You're A-OK!
You Made The Difference!
Good For You!
A+ Work!
You're So Kind!
Take A Bow!
Super Job!
How Thoughtful of You!
You're Sharp!
Nice Going!
Class Act!
Well Done!
Thanks For Helping!
You're Inspiring!
How Artistic!
You Go The Extra Mile!
You've Earned My Respect!
Hooray For You!
You're A Joy!
You're A Shining Star!
You're #1!
You're Amazing!
What A Great Idea!
Great Answer!
Great Discovery!
Extra Special Work!
You Deserve A Hug
You're Getting Better!
Wow!
You're Tops!
You're Catching On!
You're Neat!
You're Very Responsible!
You've Got What It Takes!
Spectacular Work!
You're A Winner!
Thanks For Caring!
Beautiful!

Dad, Can you put a hook on my pole?

2009-06-26T10:52:00.005-04:00

When I was a kid, I did not go fishing. I am not sure why that did not fascinate me as it does most other boys, but it did not. I was interested in baseball in the summer time ....and that is about it.

Now, to the point of this post. When my 9 year old wanted a hook placed on his pole, I panicked. I had never done that before and was not sure how. So, I yanked out my iPhone, jumped on to Safari (oh, I wish that Flash could be implemented on this browser) and Googled - how to put a hook on a fishing pole. I came up with - http://www.ehow.com/how_4536406_put-hook-fishing-line.html - and was able to complete the task without my son knowing I was a dope.

I see smartphones, especially iPhones-like devices, as the medium of our current culture and looking up information and being able to read that information as the new skills. Locating Information is #10 on my list of 20 things students need to do - see list.

Now we are ready to fish, so where should we go...hmmm...let's google fishing spots near Orchard Park, NY - let's try this: http://www.dec.ny.gov/outdoor/32658.html and let's use the built-in GPS in the iphone http://www.apple.com/iphone/iphone-3gs/maps-compass.html, so we know how to get there and and if I time it right, we can listen to a baseball game on the iPhone too! http://mlb.mlb.com/mobile/iphone/

Students Identify and Produce Letter-sound Correspondences, Including Consonants, and Short and Long Vowels

2009-06-24T14:34:00.002-04:00

Section I, URL and Grade Level

URL: http://www.readwritethink.org/materials/wordbuild/

Grade Level(s): K - 3

Section II, Performance Indicator

Identify and produce letter-sound correspondences, including consonants and short and long vowels

Section III, Objective

(Choose) letters to make words that have the 'ed' ending.

Section IV, Student Directions

Procedure for Lesson

Section V, UDL Strategies

Affective - I will offer choices of learning context after the students create words with the 'ed' ending.

Recognition - I will provide multiple examples of words with 'ed' endings using synchroneyes, lab management software. Students will see how to use the web application with synchroneyes.

Strategic - I will provide practice with supports because I will enable my students to work together, thus supporting each other.

Section VI, Assessement Strategy

I will know that my students have met this objective:

(Select) words with common endings by circling them on paper

because I will have the students print out their word bank chart so that we, as a class, can read each word and circle the proper endings (chosen by me) on paper.

Student Sample that shows Chart of Words: (I would print the charts out so kids can circle the endings on paper. I did this, however, circled them using the jing screenshot software.

25 Common Lessons Presented with Technology

2009-06-24T13:10:00.002-04:00

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Lesson Ideas to Explore this Summer - from BSC Grad Students

2009-06-24T10:59:00.002-04:00

Lesson Plan Sharing using EtherPad

Name: Beth

1. Students will be able to identify proper nouns. Students will capitalize the beginning letter of each proper noun.

2. Assessment: I will know that my students understand my objective listed above through whole group discussions and observations during Think-Pair-Share. I will assess my students performance based on my observations and the activity sheet that the students will independently complete . This lesson will not create a formative assessment.

3. The students will gather at the rug and will discuss what a proper noun is. They will share their responses during Think-Pair-Share. Once we have reviewed proper nouns and discussed how proper nouns must be capitalized, we will read, The Citation Machine. Throughout the story, we will locate and discuss specific proper nouns. During the read aloud, students will brainstorm proper nouns and write them correctly on the whiteboard. After the story, students will go back to their seats and independently complete an activity sheet in which students locate proper nouns and edit the sentences. Students will write the sentences correctly, with the proper nouns starting with a capital letter, on the lines provided. Once students have finished completing the activity sheet, they will partner up and compare their answers.

Performance Indicator of New York State Standards:

English Language Arts: Standard 1: Students will read, write, listen, and speak for information and understanding.

English Language Arts: Standard 4: Students will read, write, listen, and speak for social interaction.

Name: Amanda

Understanding (objective): The students will discuss what they have learned about insects, including the different kinds of insects and body parts of insects. Students will be introduced to Honeybee's and complete a KWL as a class. Teacher will read 'Magic School Bus: Inside a Beehive". As a class, students will complete concept map including sections, "what they look like, how they pollinate, where they live, and how they affect humans". Students will then make their own honeybee using a variety of materials.

2. Assessment: Throughout this lesson I will be assessing the students knowledge during discussions. I wil lbe listening to their responses to questions during the lesson. I will also be listening to thier verbal responses to the KWL and concept map. I will be assessing their participation throughout the lesson as well as during their completion of the Honeybee.

3. Learning Activity: I will use the following activity to support the teaching of the above stated objective.

I will begin this lesson by asking students "What have you learned about insects?". We will discuss the characteristics of an insect, different examples and the body parts of insects. I will then introduce the book, "Magic School Bus: Inside a Beehive." As a class, we will complete a KWL for Honeybee's. After completing the K and W portion of the KWL we will read the book. throughout the book, I will ask several questions and allow for several comments (focusing on what we Wanted to know). Following the book, we will complete the L portion of the KWL. We will then complete a concept map containing a vareity of information from our book on Honeybee's. We will work together as a class (concept map on large chart paper and students take turns coming up to help fill in concept map). After completing the concept map, we will make our own Honeybee's using a variety of materials. We will discuss the parts of the body as we construct our Honeybee. At the end of the lesson, we will reivew insects and especially the Honeybee, their body parts, and the characteristics.

Name: LeighAnn

Understanding (objective): The students will understand the concept of sequence or story order.

Assessment: The students will be assessed on the sequencing worksheet that was completed independently in class and the ability to place his or herself in the correct order during the closing activity.

Learning Activity: I will introduce the book, The Very Hungry Caterpillar, and ask if the students are familiar with the book. I will mention the author as well. We will look at the cover and a few pages and predict what the story may be about. Before I read the book I will explain that the main purpose of reading the book is to listen for the main events in the story in order. Next I will read the story. I will help them realize that there is order in the story regarding the days of the week. I will also have the students read the story with me, particularly the ending of the pages that say, " but he was still hungry."

Once the story is complete, I will place the numbers 1-10 in the pocket chart. I will also place different scenes from the story and the days of the week in the pocket chart. As a whole group, we will sequence the events of the story in the correct order. If the students struggle, I will give them prompts as to what came next.

When we finish sequencing the story I will have the children go back to their seats. I will give them the instruction to take out their scissors and glue. I will then explain the directions for The Very Hungry Caterpillar sequencing worksheet. After explaining the worksheet, I will hand one to each child and the picture strips that they will need to cut and glue in the correct order.

When the children are finished they will hand in their paper to me.

Name: Jennifer

1. Understanding (objective): Students will understand : the reasons the Pilgrims and other passengers came to America and review the history of the Pilgrims Thanksgiving.

2. Assessment: I will know that my students understand my objective listed above because... students will write the facts they have found about the pilgrims and the mayflower to be included in a class book about Pilgrims.

3. Learning Activity: I will use (or have used) the following activity to support the teaching of the above stated objective.

I will ask students "Have you ever heard of the Mayflower? What is the Mayflower?" Document student replies either on chalkboard or chart paper. After listening to the students responses, I will explain to them that a Pilgrim is someone who travels to a far off place because of his or her religion. I will also explain to the students that the Pilgrims once lived in England and lived in a very unhappy and difficult environment. They wanted to come to the United States so that they would be free. They came to the United States in September 1620 on a big ship called the Mayflower and it was very crowded, over 120 people were on the Mayflower and 33 of those people were children. I will ask the students what they think it was like to be a child on the Mayflower. I will have them discuss what kinds of food they think they ate and what their life must have been like once they got to America. I will discuss with the class how children in 1620 were different from them. I will tell them about their responsibilities and the jobs that they had on the Mayflower and on Plymouth Plantation. I will ask the students what they think the Pilgrims were most thankful for once they got to America. I will explain that this voyage on the Mayflower is one of the reasons why we celebrate thanksgiving. I will review with the class what we have discussed by asking question on the material. Students will work individually on the computer using the internet to find facts about the pilgrims. They will word process important facts they find to later include in the class book. When finished, students will be asked to hand in their page to work together as a class compiling the book. Their finished pages for our book will be their assessment for this lesson.

Subject: English Language Arts

Learning Standard 1: Language for information and understanding.

Key Idea : Speaking and Writing

Performance Indicator : Present information clearly in a variety of oral and written forms such as summaries, paraphrases, brief reports, stories, posters, and charts.

Performance Indicator : Use the process of pre-writing, drafting, revising, and proofreading ( the "writing process") to produce well-constructed informational texts.

Performance Indicator : Observe basic writing conventions, such as correct spelling, punctuation, and capitalization, as well as sentence and paragraph structures appropriate to written forms.

Name: Jane

1. Understanding (objective): Students will understand that...

Students will understand the concept of fractions and whole parts. They will be able to take a whole and divide it into fractional parts.

2. Assessment: I will know that my students understand my objective listed above because...

Students will be recording their findings on an answer sheet that was handed out. The teacher will be walking around the room observing the students and answering any questions that they may have about the assignment.

3. Learning Activity: I will use (or have used) the following activity to support the teaching of the above stated objective. List it here....

The class will be divided into groups of 3 or 4. Each group will get a hershey chocolate bar, answer sheet and pencils. The teacher will read the following instructions to the students:

- estimate how many pieces are in the candy bar before opening it

- open the candy bar and count the actual pieces (how many rows, how many columns)

- write a multiplication problem to determine how many pieces in the bar

- break off the first column and determine what fraction was taken and what fraction is left

- break off each remaining column and determine what fractions were taken and what fractions were left

- discuss how to share the pieces in equal parts and then enjoy

Performance Indicator 3.N.11

Use manipulatives, visual models, and illustrations to name and represent unit fractions (1/2, 1/3, 1/4, 1/5, 1/6, and 1/10) as part of a whole or a set of objects

source: http://eservices.nysed.gov/vls/piSelection.do;jsessionid=950ad80930e0c2551239655c4cd980a18316e3c9a23e.e38KbNaQahmNc40Mah0Qc3iRc3qLe6fznA5Pp7ftolbGmkTy?title=Math%20PI%20Selection&strandID=2323&standardAreaID=6&levelID=25&gradeID=2306&contentID=2358&subjectAreaID=10&standardID=43

Name: Brittany

1. Understanding (objective): Students will understand ...the character traits of individuality, courage, and caring

2. Assessment: I will know that my students understand my objective listed above because...

-students will be able to make personal connections related to these character traits and/or events in the book Tacky the Penguin. Students will also be able to create their own unique penguins through writing and drawing on the worksheet provided.

3. Learning Activity: I will use (or have used) the following activity to support the teaching of the above stated objective. List it here....

1. Read Tacky the Penguin aloud and ask:

- Why is Tacky considered an "odd bird?"

- How would you describe a "hearty slap on the back?"

- Before we turn the page, who do we think the penguins hear in the distance?

- I wonder why the penguins "hid behind a block of ice" instead of flying away. Can you tell me why?

2. After reading discussion:

- How do the other penguins view Tacky, before the hunters come?

- How does Tacky show he has courage and cares about his companions?

- How would you describe Tacky before and after he saves his fellow penguins?

3. Think-pair-share personal connection:

- Can you think of a time when you felt like the "odd bird" or different from other people?

- Pair up with a partner and talk about it

- Would anyone like to share?

Conclusion

- Create your own unique penguin by writing about two individual character traits

and drawing a picture.

Name: Brian

1. Understanding (objective): Students will understand that...

- Students will group animals together based on common characteristics.

- Students will identify common and uncommon traits and group animals accordingly.

- Students will understand how different animals use these characteristics in their own environments for protection and survivial.

2. Assessment: I will know that my students understand my objective listed above because...

- The teacher will be observing students during the exercise and while they determine the difference between various animals (fish, dogs, cats, horses, birds, reptiles). The teacher will ask questions of the students to guage comprehension and how the students associate or eliminate animals based on characteristics. The students will demonstrate their knowlege of animals based on how well they group them based on their individual traits. Students will understand how specific traits make the animals adaptable to their environment.

3. Learning Activity: I will use (or have used) the following activity to support the teaching of the above stated objective. A lesson on how different animals gather food, eat, reproduce, and defend themselves from predators. Individual projects on an animal of their choice and how they gather food, eat, reproduce, and defend themselves from predators. Finally, there will be a classroom discussion by breaking the students into smaller groups (based on the animals they researched) to share their reports. Students will also construct natural habitats (the good old shoe-box habitat) and demonstrate how animals use their surroundings in reference to the above criteria.

State Standard:

Major Understandings:

3.1a Each animal has different structures that serve different functions in growth,

survival, and reproduction.

• wings, legs, or fins enable some animals to seek shelter and escape predators

• the mouth, including teeth, jaws, and tongue, enables some animals to eat and

drink

• eyes, nose, ears, tongue, and skin of some animals enable the animals to sense

their surroundings

• claws, shells, spines, feathers, fur, scales, and color of body covering enable

some animals to protect themselves from predators and other environmental

conditions, or enable them to obtain food

• some animals have parts that are used to produce sounds and smells to help the

animal meet its needs

• the characteristics of some animals change as seasonal conditions change (e.g.,

fur grows and is shed to help regulate body heat; body fat is a form of stored

energy and it changes as the seasons change)

Source: http://www.emsc.nysed.gov/ciai/mst/pub/elecoresci.pdf

Name: Robin

1. Understanding (objective): Students will understand that...

* Students will be able to describe the importance of family traditions with 95% accuracy.

* Students will be able to describe important family traditions through quilts.

2. Assessment: I will know that my students understand my objective listed above because...

* Individual quilts will be checked for relevance, effort, and participation.

3. Learning Activity: I will use (or have used) the following activity to support the teaching of the above stated objective. List it here....

* Ask the students if they, or someone they know hold on to something that was given to them from a relative and holds importance to them.

* Give example of a tradition in your family.

* Give definition of a tradition.

* Show students examples of quilts, explaining that sometimes quilts are passed down from generation to generation and hold great importance to a family.

* Introduce & read story to students: The Keeping Quilt by Patricia Polacco. Ask comprehension questions throughout story.

* At the end, discuss importance of quilt

* Students make a class quilt. Each student receives a paper square where they have to draw a special event or object which holds meaning to them.

* Students share their drawings.

Closure:

* Students combine all their squares to make a class quilt. This will signify a bringing together of many different cultures and families. Creates a sense of community.

Name: Samantha

1. Understanding (objective):

Students will understand observe and examine the differences amongst the people in the book and people they know. Readers will use the descriptions in the book to compare the children in the book to themselves.

2. Assessment:

3. Learning Activity: I will use (or have used) the following activity to support the teaching of the above stated objective. List it here....

Name: Nanette

Understanding: Students will understand that families exhibit similarities and differences in culture.

Assessment: The teacher will evaluate the students' responses based on their understanding of how families celebrate, cook and work together as a part of family culture. Successful students will show their understanding by explaining each page of their book to group members and by writing down similarities and differences between each students' family by looking at the books.

Learning Activity:

-Teacher will ask the students what type of things families do together and discuss ideas with students. Teacher will introduce the book "Families" by Ann Morris and tell the students that they will be listening adn looking for what type of things families do together.

-The teacher will ask the students what different activities they saw each family do together in the book "Families."

-The teacher will tell the students that they will be creating their own book on the things that their families do together.

-The students will be told that there will be four pages to their book. On the first page of their book, they will write their name and the word "family" at the top (ex. John's family) and they will draw a picture of their family.

-The students will brainstorm ideas with the teacher for the last three pages of their book. The teacher will write down the students' ideas for each page on a poster board. There will be posters with ideas for activities your family does together, holidays your family celebrates and food that your family cooks/eats together.

-They will use the ideas that were brainstormed as a class or their own ideas to create their book.

-Students can draw pictures for each page of their book and write a sentence for the corresponding page.

-Students will put their four pages in order and ask the teacher to staple their book together.

Closure: Each student will share their family booklet with their group/table. The students can show their drawing of their family and what they wrote on their pages. After they have finished sharing with their groups, the teacher will ask for a volunteer from each table to share their family book. The teacher will then ask the students to turn to the back page of their book. On the back, they will write down what they have learned about the similarities and differences of each other's families by looking at the books.

Name: Annette

1. Understanding (objective): Students will understand that.....

Students will understand the proper way to write a check.

2. Assessment: I will know that my students understand my objective above because...

-Students will be filling out a variety of checks on worksheets properly using the information they have learned.

-Teacher assessment - viewing individual work, asking questions of the students and answering any questions they may have while continually circulating throughtout the room.

-Students will complete a check completely by themself using no additional resources.

3. Learning Activity: I will use (or have used) the following activity to support the teaching of the above stated objective. List it here....

-Discuss Checking Account Basics

-Show actual samples of checks

-Discuss the various styles (top stub/left stub/no stub)

-Show/Compare parts of checks

-Discuss New Vocabulary (Payee/Payor/Drawee/Register.......)

-Discuss/Demonstrate proper way to write a check

-View tutorial - online

-Practice writing checks for a variety of situations

http://stateaid.nysed.gov/scripts/sa/LE_assoc.idc?515

Name: Ashley

1. Understanding (objective):

The students will understand that all human beings have differences and similarities.

2. Assessment: I will know that my students understand my objective listed above because...

- Students will be required to fill out an "Individual Strengths" sheet where the student must list 3 distinguishable characteristics about themself that makes him/her unique to everyone else.

- This can also be done as a presentation where each student must share their distinguishable characteristics with their fellow classmates.

3. Learning Activity: I will use (or have used) the following activity to support the teaching of the above stated objective.

- Direct the students' attention to the desk with all of the apples.

- Ask the students' the purpose of all the apples.

- Ask the students' how people are different and the same.

- Tell the students that we will be spending some time finding out about how people are the same and how they are different.

- Have each student go up to the desk and pick one apple.

- Then have the each student draw their apple on a plain sheet of paper specifically the distinguishing characteristics, such as leaves, scars and small bruises.

- Also, the students will write a short passage describing their apple in detail.

- After about 15-20 minutes collect all of the apples, so that the apples are mixed up.

- Again, have the students in groups of 3 or 4 return to the desk of apples and find 'their' apple.

- Once all the students have their apple, ask a handful of students how they knew which apple was theirs (most will refer to the color, size, shape or other special features).

-Then make a list as a whole class of how people are the same and discuss the importance, as well as how people are different.

Standard: 5.3

Standard 5 Social Studies: Civics, Citizenship and Government. Key Idea 3 - Central to civics and citizenship is an understanding of the roles of the citizen within American constitutional democracy and the scope of a citizen's rights and responsibilities.

Name: W. Brian

1. Understanding (objective): Students will understand that visual cues can help to decode the meaning of written words in many picture books.

2. Assessment: I will know that my students understand my objective listed above because they will participate in a retelling and sequencing activity requiring them to use a wordless picture book to create their own written story.

3. Learning Activity: I will use (or have used) the following activity to support the teaching of the above stated objective.

• Gather the students in the reading center

• Introduce the story showing the front cover

• Begin the picture walk with modeling of the predictions and think-aloud strategy to show the students what is going on during a picture walk.

• When story is finished have students turn to a neighbor and discuss the sequence of the story, major events, and what might be going on throughout the story.

• Have a few students share their ideas with the class by drawing their names from the "name cup." (a cup full of popsicle sticks with names)

• Hand out the mini-books give the directions for students to create their own story to accompany the pictures.

• Regroup in the reading center to read stories that were created by the students.

Standard 1: Students will read, write, listen, and speak for information and understanding. As listeners and readers, students will collect data, facts, and ideas, discover relationships, concepts, and generalizations; and use knowledge generated from oral, written, and electronically produced texts. As speakers and writers, they will use oral and written language to acquire, interpret, apply, and transmit information.

Standard 2: Students will read, write, listen, and speak for literary response and expression. Students will read and listen to oral, written and electronically produced texts and performances, relate texts and performances to their own lives, and develop an understanding of the diverse social, historical, and cultural dimensions the texts and performances represent. As speakers and writers, students will use oral and written language for self-expression and artistic creation.

http://www.emsc.nysed.gov/ciai/ela/elacore.pdf

Name: Emily Vozzo

1. Understanding (objective): Students will learn about chemical change as they, explore, observe, and record what happens to pancake batter as it cooks. (When the batter cooks it turns into a spongy-solid cake like matter).

2. Assessment: I will know that my students understand my objective listed above because each student will complete an observation log and T-Chart (grpahic organizer) comparing Chemical and Physical Change.

3. Learning Activity: I will use (or have used) the following activity to support the teaching of the above stated objective:

* Students will orally define Physical change from previous lesson.

* Students will close their eyes and think about what would happen if they left their bike outside in the rain (rust would form).

*Students will examine an old lamp with rust spots on it.

* Students will state whether they think the rust is the same material as the metal or iron (no).

*Students will write down the definition of chemical change

*Students will explain what they notice as the biggest differnece between physical and chemical change.

* Four students at a time will observe the pancake batter as it cooks, as the rest of the class completes a T-chart comparing physical and chemical change.

Learning Standard 4: Science

Students will understand and apply scientific concepts, principles, and theories pertaining to the physical setting and living environment and recognize the historical development of ideas in science.

Performance Indicator: Describe chemical and physical changes, including changes in the state of matter.

Name: Leah

1. Understanding (objective): Students will understand that...

- Students will read the twelve-table sheet they are given with a partner with 90% accuracy.

- Students will write the law in their own words with 90% accuracy.

- Students will tell the class about their law with 90% accuracy.

- Students will write a one-paragraph essay explaining if their law is fair or unfair with 90% accuracy.

2. Assessment: I will know that my students understand my objective listed above because...

- After the students have had time to complete the above tasks each pair will come to the front of the room to,

o A. Read the group their right

o B. Tell the group what it means in their own words.

o C. Tell if they find it fair to all people

3. Learning Activity: I will use (or have used) the following activity to support the teaching of the above stated objective. List it here....

- The teacher will ask students to tell her who the plebeians were and who the patricians were.

- She will ask them if anyone remembers the code of law that was set into place to settle differences in Rome at the time.

- She will remind students that the constitution that the patricians wrote was called the twelve tables.

- The teacher will tell the students that today in class each student will be paired with another student and given one of the tables, or basic rights that the Romans had.

- She will tell them that with their partners they are to complete each of the following steps,

o 1. Read the right.

o 2. Write what it means in your own words.

o 3. Write if you think it is a fair right to all.

o 4. Prepare to teach the class about your right.

- After the students have had time to complete the above tasks each pair will come to the front of the room to,

o A. Read the group their right

o B. Tell the group what it means in their own words.

o C. Tell if they find it fair to all people

- After each group has gone the teacher will add anything she feels the group may have left out in their interpretation and allow students to ask questions or add comments about the law.

- After all pairs have gone the teacher will distribute a study guide that has all of the 12 laws on it and also the homework assignment for the evening.

Name: Allison

1. Understanding (objective): Students will understand that...

-To make something in a drawing look closer to you, you draw it bigger.

-To make something in a drawing look farther from you, you draw it smaller.

2. Assessment: I will know that my students understand my objective listed above because...

-Students will verbally describe how artists show that things are close by drawing them bigger and far by drawing them smaller.

-Students will create a drawing that shows that shows three different sized fish at different distances and then verbalize to the teacher which fish is closest and which fish is farthest.

3. Learning Activity: I will use (or have used) the following activity to support the teaching of the above stated objective. List it here....

-Teacher will read the book, "The Rainbow Fish," by Marcus Pfister to the class

-Class will discuss the use of size to create distance in the illustrations.

-Teacher will demonstrate how artists draw things big to make them look close and small to make them look far.

-Students will trace a fish tracer onto 9"x12" good paper and add details.

-Students will draw a medium and small fish in the background along with other underwater objects.

-Students will verbalize to the teacher which fish in their drawing is closest and which is farthest.

Name: Mary

1. Understanding (objective): Students will understand that...

The students will be able to understand and successfully utilize the concept of character traits to create a character sketch.

2. Assessment: I will know that my students understand my objective listed above because...

Throughout this lesson teachers will assess the students learning by monitoring their discussions during their group work. Also by their presentations and the evidence shown in their graphic organizer.

3. Learning Activity: I will use (or have used) the following activity to support the teaching of the above stated objective. List it here....

1. Model the use of the graphic organizer, what a character sketch looks like and what is expected when completing one.

2. Students will get back into their original pre-arranged groups.

3. Assign them a character from the read aloud book Chrysanthemum. There will be 6 groups. Two groups will be assigned the same character.

4. The students will complete their graphic organizer and the character sketch using our model as guidance throughout.

5. Groups will present their character to the rest of the students. The purpose of the presentation is to get the students comfortable with presenting but also to compare what the rest of the groups in class came up with for their character sketch. (The character sketches will be hung out in the hallway on the lockers or in the hallway at the top of the stairs.) Depending on time this may need to be completed either later that day or the following day.

Name: Jessica

1. Understanding (objective): Students will understand that.. the skeletal system works with the muscular systems in order to help the body do all activities: sitting, standing, walking, bending...etc.

2. Assessment: I will know that my students understand my objective listed above because... during the hands on group activities students will be observed. Careful note of their discussions and interactions with the chicken bone will be recorded. The students will aclso be responsible to drawing, presenting, and acting out what they have come to understand.

3. Learning Activity: I will use (or have used) the following activity to support the teaching of the above stated objective. List it here....

1. The students were put into groups. In each group students had the opportunity to observe, manipulate, take apart, and experiment with chicken bone thighs.

2. As a class we utilized the chicken leg bones to give students an authentic experience to see how the bones and muscles work together and have parts that connect the two.

3. After doing all the work with the bones and muscles students were able to draw what they observed and learned through their experience.

4. After about a week student groups worked on a small play or video recording of what they learned and how they wanted to portray that to their classmates. They were able to draw and make props and costumes to show that what they have seen the body looks like on the inside.

5. The hands on activties and dramatic play experiences worked to increase children's understanding of the topic.

Name: Elizabeth

1. Understanding (objective): Students will understand the characteristics of a Haiku poem and accurately compose their own Haiku about autumn.

2. Assessment: I will know my students understand my objective listed above because the students will compose their own Haiku poem and I will assess their final piece of writing using a rubric. I will be checking to see that the correct format was used along with the mechanics of the poem.

3. Learning Activity: I will use (or have used) the following activity to support the teaching of the above stated objective. List it here...

a. As a class the students will discuss what they like best about autumn and things that happen during that season.

b. In order to help the students build a list of vocabulary for their own poems the students will break up into groups to brainstorm ideas and words that have to do with autumn. In their groups the students will use a "five senses" sheet to brainstorm things that they see, smell, hear, taste, and touch during autumn.

c. After the groups have finished brainstorming words the groups will share their ideas and the teacher will write the words on chart paper according to the sense. These charts will serve as a word bank the students can pull from when writing their own Haikus.

d. The teacher will model how to write a Haiku by have the students come up with a class poem. The students will then write their own Haiku poems about autumn.

e. The students will write a rough draft first that will be checked by the teacher. The students will then write a final copy and share their poems with the class.

NY- New York State Standards• Subject: English Language Arts (1996)

• Learning Standard 2 : Language for Literary Response and Expression

Students will read, write, listen, and speak for literary response and expression.

Students will read and listen to oral, written, and electronically produced texts and performances from American and world literature; relate texts and performances to their own lives; and develop an understanding of the diverse social, historical, and cultural dimensions the texts and performances represent. As speakers and writers, students will use oral and written language that follows the accepted conventions of the English language for self-expression and artistic creation.

Level : Intermediate

• Key Idea : Speaking and Writing

Performance Indicator : Write stories, poems, literary essays, and plays that observe the conventions of the genre and contain interesting and effective language and voice

Performance Indicator : Use standard English effectively

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Be the change that you want to see in the world.- Mohandas Gandhi

~chris

Educational Technologist
* - cell: 517-6265
* - http://btcactus.org
* - http://onthetrails.org (blog)

Blogger Test

2009-06-24T08:16:00.001-04:00

This is a test to see if I can post to my blogger account from gmail.

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~ + ~ + ~ + ~ + ~ + ~ + ~ + ~ +~ + ~ + ~ + ~ +
Be the change that you want to see in the world.- Mohandas Gandhi

~chris

Educational Technologist
* - cell: 517-6265
* - http://btcactus.org
* - http://onthetrails.org (blog)

The Educational Philosophy of Buffalo State Graduate Students, Summer 2009

2009-06-23T13:36:00.002-04:00

Twitter Stream of Project Analysis

2009-06-23T13:19:00.003-04:00

Today I used twitter to record my thoughts about a project I was working on with a 4th grade teacher. The kids read old biographical books about American Patriots prior to using the computers. The teacher wanted the kids to work together to create a summary of the biography and then put all of these summaries together.

So, here was my Twitter Stream - that I want to clean up later today:

btcactusSo - Biographical Books + TeacherSites + EtherPad + Google Sites = Student Collaborationabout 1 hour ago from web
btcactusOk - we published our work to Google Sites - https://sites.google.com/si...about 1 hour ago from web
btcactusok, we finished editing - Punctuation, Capitalization, Spelling and Spacing - and we have a finished productabout 2 hours ago from web
btcactusGroup Editing - more eyes than twoabout 2 hours ago from web
btcactusI need to recruit for the eSharing summer program.about 2 hours ago from web
btcactusRevise/Edit step #1 - teacher reads posts and asks for details - step #2 - kids add more details - step #3 - kids editabout 3 hours ago from web
btcactusWhen you right click on EtherPad - there is a check spelling option available - this only works for Firefoxabout 3 hours ago from web
btcactusWriting needs to be organized when using EtherPad - teachers can teach kids how to organize or they can pre-organize the padsabout 3 hours ago from web
btcactusWhat does it mean to describe someone in a biography?about 3 hours ago from web
btcactusRevisions by editors can be done in all caps.about 3 hours ago from web
btcactusI need to setup the puzzle center on my site to share with otherabout 3 hours ago from web
btcactusKids need to learn past tense verbageabout 3 hours ago from web
btcactusOnce the kids are done typing we will do group revising. - I will give them something to do while I revise their work - and they will fix itabout 3 hours ago from web
btcactusThe kids read biographies, recorded notes on paper and they are now summarizing their information on EtherPadabout 3 hours ago from web
btcactus1. Divide the class into components.about 4 hours ago from web
btcactusOk, Twitter test - EtherPad with 4th grades composing biographies - http://bit.ly/lDEAP

Homework and Classroom Web Sites: an EtherPad Test

2009-06-23T06:54:00.003-04:00

This was a test to see how EtherPad would work with graduate students. I had them comment on the ideas below and then I copied and pasted them into blogger. EtherPad has so much educational upside.

Please tell us your thoughts about these two ideas:

1.) “Sometimes we have to put our foot down, ... but before we deliberately make children unhappy in order to get them to get into the car, or to do their homework or whatever, we need to weigh whether what we're doing to make it happen is worth the possible strain on our relationship with them.” Alfie Kohn The Homework Myth

2.) Teachers continue to think that a classroom web site is for kids to use at home. Kids do not want to go to their classroom web site to practice skills (while at home) anymore than they want to open their Social Studies books (while at home). I say this because I have been working with teachers and kids for over 15 years - so, I say this from experience.

Classroom web sites should be created to provide information for your students while in school. If they use your site at home, that is just frosting on the cake!

What do you think? Here is the original EtherPad.

Start here:
In regards to the first quote, I think many times parents and teachers get stuck in their ways and find it necessary to stick to certain rules just for the sake or sticking to rules. If you give children some ownership, I find they will be more apt to making the rights choices and not give you a hard time. I think we do still need to have high expectations for students, however you need to build a relationship with them. This will allow them to feel more comfortable with you and respect your way of teaching. If you work with your students, I find that you will get a lot more accomplished and enjoy your day as much as your students will. I work in a school with special education students, and I find that building a relationship is very important. You have to pick your battles with some students and allow them ownership with certain things.

I think that a classroom website should be a appealing to student's, teachers, and parents. There should be academic activities that are fun and engaging for students. These activities should be connected to their learning. Teachers should use the website during the day and show students what is available and how to use the website. Many students may not know how to use a computer, therefore teachers need to show students how to reach the website and navigate within the website. Teachers need to know their students in order to plan accordingly and know what interests and motivates them. It is also a way to show parents and other family members what is going on in the classroom, what students have accomplished and how much they have learned. I would include the classroom rules, policies, samples of students work, daily schedule, menus, and any other activities or event that is happening. _Mary

I think that a classroom website should reflect a teacher’s personality. When a teacher is outgoing and energetic, that attitude transfers onto their students. When a teacher is excited about learning and teaching, their students will be eager to learn. A classroom website is a tool that can help teachers and students during this teaching and learning process. The most valuable learning takes place when students want to learn. A teacher’s website can be used as a fun tool to encourage student learning both in and out of the classroom. --Anne

Relationship with your children or students is extremely important if we want them to gain knowledge from us as parents or educators. If a child or student does not respect us or value the material we are presenting them with then they will find no use for us at all. Children must see the value or importance of what we are expecting them to learn or understand if we want them to become good students or learners. Forcing students or children to do everything our way can cause them to lose interest and respect for us so maintaining a positive relationship I feel is the first step in a positive learning environment. The fact that creating a classroom website to promote more learning in the classroom was not something I have used in the past. The idea however seems to be a great one because if it is educational as well as fun and students are taught to use it frequently in school they may go home and want to share the exciting things they are learning with their famililes. Ms Z

I completely agree with the first statement. I feel as though students need structure. We must put our foots down or else children do whatever they want. However, everytime we do this we do put stress on our relationships with our children. Most people believe that children will love you no matter what, which I do feel is true. However, I do truly believe that we can only push children so far before they grow to resent us. Therefore we must determine whether or not putting our foot down is worth the risk. We can't just do it because we think we are the parents and we have the power.
I consider a classroom web site to be a great resource inside and outside the classroom as long as it is used effectively. It can't be just another homework assignment that we force kids to do because of course they will not want to do it. Also, we can not just expect kids to do it for the same reasons we can not expect them to open a Social Studies book by themselves. We have to show students that using the web site can be fun. Most students love computers. Therefore, it should not be that hard to convince students that it would be more exciting to work on the computer opposed to completing another worksheet. The internet provides us with so many more possibilities to make learning fun and exciting and it would be a shame to waste this resource.

I think the importance of a classroom web site is for students to want to go home and practice the skills they learned during school hours. I'm not saying that I would provide homework from the web page that students must complete at home. However, I believe it is a great opportunity for students to show their parents and siblings what they are doing during school. The internet is the age of today and we need to show our students the correct way to use the internet. Also, I believe it is a motivational tool because it seems that children love to use computers. It is just something different than pen and paper. If homework was assigned from the class web page I feel that students would be more excited to be able to 'play on a computer'! - John Mayer

I think the classroom website can be a wonderful learning tool students can use both in and out of the classroom. At home students can use the classroom website to show parents their work and practice specific skills. I think the classroom website is a great motivational learning to, as well.-roseyv

I agree that a teacher website is a great tool for students to use inside and outside of the classroom. In our district, we put many lessons on the website for our teaching assistants to use during their computer lab time. We have one teacher who puts her homework assignments on her website so students and parents can access them. I am trying to get classroom mini labs in our district so teachers will be more inclined to have students use the internet during class and hopefully get the teachers to use their websites for more than picture posting. I always put my foot down if I think it will benefit the person (even if they can't see how at that moment). ~ Queenie

I believe that a classroom website is useful in both the classroom and outside of school. The classroom website may be beneficial inside of the classroom because a teacher could post areas where students can practice specific skills. A classroom website may also be beneficial outside of the classroom because parents might want to be involved with what their child is learning. A parent may be able to help practice with their child certain skills that their child needs to strengthen by using the tools on the classroom website. I believe that a classroom website would make the relationship between the teacher and students or parents stronger because it would create a welcoming classroom environment where everyone is sharing throughout the learning process. -Olive

I think that parents and teachers can get so caught up in the moment and demand that things be done a certain way even though there may be an alternative that is just as satisfying that the child/student has in mind. I say this because as a JP we talked to a school social worker at an alternative school where she made it clear that the kids were given some leeway in how they did things and they still accomplished their goals and tasks (for instance: rather than force the kids to sit in a chair, allow them to sit on a table or floor.) Work was still getting done, and the students had more control over how and where they were doing it. Empowering the student/child to make decisions and be responsible for their own actions is one of the main goals of education/child rearing.
As for the teacher website, I think that this is a tool that can work inside the classroom, inside the home, and will hopefully encourage parental involvement when they see all the things that are presented and can witness, first hand, the learning that their child is participating in. I remember when I was a kid by the time I got home from school I had NO idea what we had done that day, I was just happy to be home. When homework time came, I had forgotten what needed to be done, had forgotten materials at school, etc. Having access to the same information at home and at school allows for more continuity that children often need. Don't make school and home such distant places from one and another, allow some integration and see where your students and their parents will take it.
-Abby's Dad

I think a classroom website should be interactive for the students to use throughout the day. Students should be familiar with the site and should not feel lost at any time. Students should feel that they enjoy their time on the site, and learn at the same time. I think that parents should be able to log onto the site and there should be a parents section where they can read about what their children are doing in school and read about what they are learning. As for using the site at home, I dont think it should be new information, no homework should ever be a new idea. I think the website for home work options should be interactive games and activities. Things that can be done wiht younger or older brothers and sisters, moms and dads... and something that is not required.
-Frost

In reference to the first quote I know that as a teacher I set high expectations for my students but at the same time I form relationships with the students. Sometimes the students are unhappy when they are asked to do an assignment over again but it is for their own good when I know they can do better. As for the classroom websites I think that it is important for children to use them while at school. Depending on the area you teach a lot of children may not have a computer at home. These children need to be given the opportunity to learn technology and use it while in the classroom. If every child in the class had a computer they could come in to the class in the morning and check the website to see what the schedule is for the day, the lunch menu, homework assignments that are due etc. I think this would be a cool way to start the day. I also think having the access to the website at home is beneficial for extra help on an assignment or if they forgot what the homework is for the week. I think that every teacher should have a classroom website. If nothing else it gets the students on the computer and familiar with using the web.- greySt

I agree with each of the statements. I think it is extremely important to pick your battles with kids and focus on the things in life that actually mean something. I feel parents, guardians, and teachers would get much further if they approached children in a respectful maner. Nobody said you have to be their friend but you should give them respect. When its time to put your foot down you will know. As far as the classroom website goes, I feel it definately should be utilized in school and hope that children will take it a step further and want to use it at home. If you make it interesting and interactive it will happen on its own. As teachers it is getting harder to depend on families to make sure children get their homework done let alone exploring a classroom website. -Mia

I think it is important for children to have homework in order to create a foundation that they can build upon during their later years of education. There are cetain things that can and should be practiced at home (like multiplication tables, writing letters, numbers, names) so that valuable class time is not compromised by repeating steps that could/should have been done at home. It is important to have a good relationship with your students and if you start them off with the expectation that they will have homework and it is expected to be completed, then they will eventually understand that it is not an option but a requirement. (I used weekly packets so they could break it over the course of 4 evenings and I NEVER gave homework on the weekends). As for the second question, the website should only be used while at school. I can see this type of activity having a distinct advantage when it comes to centers time because it allows the teacher to tailor the material and delivery toward their class instead of using one of the big "EdHelper" type websites. Whatever they do at home only helps you because you can advance them on to more complicated lessons and materials while still allowing others time to complete the original assignments in class. - Dr.B

Choose your battles....We as teachers (and as parents) need to determine if the (home)work we assign is busy work or truly reinforcement for a task that is the foundation on which we are building. If it is something of value, something that the students will be building on, yes, sometimes we have to be the bad guy and put our foot down. Not many of us really like to do homework (occassionally you will come across the model student who actually enjoys learning and therefore does not mind doing homework of any kind - but those are rare gems.) We also should try to show our students (and children) the value of that particular task - show them how it will benefit them in the future.
My belief is that a classroom website can be used both in and out of the classroom, by students and parents alike. Class websites can contain anything from a list of assignments, to additional practice, to links to informational or instructional websites. By providing this information on a class website it is there for the students if they forgot to write their homework down, if they are out of school for any reason, and so that the parents are more intouch with what their child is learning in that class. ~Shirley U. Jest

I feel that as both parents and teachers we need to give up a little of our own control and let children find solutons on thier own more often. As we all know it is easier to learn by doing than by being told what to do and that mistkes lead to the greatest growth of all. By having faith in our children and allowing them to try things their way we will be empowering the youth of today to become independant, creative thinking, leaders of tomorrow.
In regards to classroom websites I feel that they can be powerful tools both in the classrooom and at home. I do agree that for the students their purpose is best served as a learning tool while in school but they also can provide for a resource at home. A website can also allow for an easy way to communicate what's going on in the classroom with parents and provide them with resources that may benefit their child. ~Wonderland

I totally agree with the first statement we should not force our students and children to do what ever we ask of them if it will strain the relationship. But I do strongly believe that they need to have consequences to their actions so they will learn the importance of what we are asking of them but allowing them to do it in their own time.
I believe a classroom website is a great tool that needs to be utilized more often in the classroom. It can be used as a great way to communicate with your students and your parents. Teachers can post assignments, extension activities, a calendar of upcoming events.If the teacher creates a fun and entertaining website student would me eager to use it at home and not just when they have to at school. An haveing your assignments on your website it cuts down on your paper work and allows you as a teacher to be more organized.
-Bob Marley

Your relationship with your students shapes the year you will have and the learning that will take place. In order to build trust and confidence in you, you need to be open, fair and trusting in your students. While giving them those attributes, you will see them give them back to you. It's great when your students come and leave smiling. Better is when you see them take pride in their work and enjoying what they are doing. Teachers can take some credit for that (not all, but some). I honestly never really thought about creating my teacher website geared at facilitating students while they are in school. It really makes much more sense to do it this way than to build it around your hope of them using it at home. In order to get the most from the time you have your kiddos in class and to utilize materials and resources effectively, all teachers should build their websites under the impression they will be used in school. This way students are able to easily access links, documents and graphics they may need to complete school work and look at your website as their number one (legit) resources on the web. It gives all the students a great starting point while using computers. - GETTINGMARRIED

I think that you can manipulate your battles with your students and children. It is very important to allow children to make their own decisions and choices. I think that if you manipulate the choices, you are manipulating the situation, but still allowing them to make decisions. I think that teacher sites are important and a good way to incorporate technology in your classroom. I think that it is important to first demonstrate how to navigate through teacher sites, and then allow your students to use the sites in your classroom. I do not think that it should be required to have students navigate teacher sites on their own for a few reasons. I know that yes it is 2009, however not every home has a computer. You would be singling out the students without computers. If it were my classroom I would offer extra credit work in some subject areas for students to complete on my site. If I had students that did not own a computer, I would allow them to stay after school to use a computer so they would have the same opportunity as the other students. ~ Hillary Clinton

I believe it is alright to "put your foot down" as long as you, the parent, teacher, and/or caregiver, are not doing it to make a child unhappy. Hopefully, you are doing it to protect or care for the child. For instance, I could tell the boys I babysit that they can only ride their bikes if they where helmets. In saying this, I am considering safety issues. If they decided not to where their helmets though, I think cuts and bruises would make them more unhappy that what I advised them to do in the first place. We live and learn. On the other hand, if I were in a classroom setting, and I asked a child to sit still, he/she would undoubtedly know I am bothered by their squirming. Relationships do not take shape when a teacher shows disrespect or a lack of interest in a child. The first scenario I mentioned demonstrates a caring relationship, whereas the second situation shows signs of tension in the student-teacher relationship.
In reference to the second quote, I feel children will definitely benefit from using their classroom website while in school. Kids could use the website to check the day's activities. In doing so, they will feel less apprehensive when they transition from one activity to another. The website is also a tool for accessing articles and assignments. In this way, teachers can save on paper and children do not have to read oudated textbooks. If the website were to be used at home, it would be a good reference for parents.
~Hermione

I also feel that it is acceptable and, at times, even necessary to "put your foot down". Children do not always make the correct choices and it is your responsibility as a parent, teacher, or caregiver to guide children in the right direction. I am a bit perplexed by the part that reads "...but before we deliberately make children unhappy..." I don't think that anyone deliberately makes children unhappy (and if they do then they certainly should not carry the title parent, teacher, or caregiver) we simply have the children's best interest in mind and often times children do not understand that. All relationships are strained at some point and adults and children don't always see eye to eye, so as the adult, it is our duty to teach, tell, explain, and help the children we mold understand what it is we expect and the reason for that. We are also responsible for doing this in a kind, nurturing, and respectful way. Thus, this should eliminate deliberate unhappiness.
As for the second quote, I agree completely. Although, it hadn't occurred to me that the children should use the classroom website while in the classroom, it makes total sense. If this tool is utilized during the day then the children are familiar with it and may want to check it out at home and share this with members of their family, thus making the connection between home and school stronger.
~Mrs. Smith

Rainbow Girl Skirt

2009-06-20T18:06:00.001-04:00

Brookey's Drawing 6/20/2009

2009-06-20T17:47:00.005-04:00

Brooke is my daughter, age 6, who was messing around with Tux Paint. I told her that I would publish her drawing and then "play" with VoiceThread.

Connecting Resources with Performance Indicators

2009-06-20T14:41:00.001-04:00

You should be able to tell a kindergartner at breakfast about your web resource and they should be able to visualize your web resource in their mind. That is how well you should know it.

The next section of the trail takes you into a journey into the New York State Standards. I am sure that you are familiar with them. I would like you to use this web version of the standards presented by AccelerateU.

Here is how I would complete Section III of the Organizer.

Please note: There is not one "correct" NY standard or performance indicator - in
other words - there is not a "right" answer for this section.

You are all studying to
be teachers or already are teachers, and these are the decisions you
must make everyday. Choose the standard and performance indicator that makes the most sense to you.

Think about this exercise like this:
1. I have found a great web resource to teach with

2. And I need to match it with a Performance Indicator(PI) because as a New York State teacher I have to teach the PIs.

3. So, as I look at the standards, key idea and PIs, the PI I choose will become the Performance Indicator that I can teach a lesson with and the evidence to my principal that I am teaching to the NYS standards, key ideas and performance indicators.

1. I would open the web version of the NYS Standards in a new tab. You should have the web resource still open in a tab.

2. I would then think about what New York State Standard makes the most sense (MST [Math-Science-Technology {stay away from Technology} - ELA or Social Studies)

3. I would click on the appropriate Standards Tab (MST, ELA or SS - shown in green above)
*For this thought map I am choosing ELA

4. At the top left of the standards page, you will see levels: Choose the appropriate level for your web resource (you may have a resource that can fit many levels - choose one)

5. Next look at the standards tabs and choose one (I have chosen English Language Arts)

6. Read through the Key Ideas on the left side of the web page and the performance indicators in the middle of the web page

7. Copy and Paste the Standard, Key Idea and Performance Indicator into Section III of the QuickNote Organizer that you think you would follow when teaching a lesson.

Pi.Licio.us Project Lesson Objectives Example

2009-06-20T08:38:00.002-04:00

Possible Objectives for this resource, Construct-a- Word:
KNOWLEDGE: Name - Students will be able to (NAME) the short vowel sounds they organized to a partner.

COMPREHENSION: Recognize - Students will be able to (RECOGNIZE) the short vowel pattern of ed by creating words that end in ed.

APPLICATION:Choose - Students will be able to (CHOOSE) words that end in the an sound by clicking on the appropriate tab.

ANALYSIS:Examine - Students will (EXAMINE) the word building patterns of a partner and a print-out of the Word Bank and circle words that contain the short a sound.

SYNTHESIS:Organize - Students will (ORGANIZE) words in a completed word bank in QuickNote by reverse alphabetical order.

EVALUATION:Evaluate - Students will (EVALUATE) a peer's organized word bank in QuickNote to see if they typed the words in reverse alphabetical order.

Leadership

2009-06-19T11:46:00.002-04:00

During this past school year, I created an eSharing project using TeacherSites message boards. The intention of the project is to promote writing and use Web 2.0 tools to facilitate formative assessments. This project started with one teacher in the United States and another in Singapore. Without promoting this project, I presently have 10 classrooms paired because of word of mouth. I believe in leading people toward ideas and getting out of their way. I lead by example.
Many schools force their teachers to populate their classroom web sites with district approved information and district templates (I am glad to see that you don't). If you look at those teacher web sites, you will find many of them have Welcome to School messages on their home pages. In Alden, we let teachers create web sites on their own and at their own pace; there was not any pressure to get them "done." I built a curriculum that taught teachers how to build their classroom web sites and offered courses at the local teacher center. Many teachers voluntarily took the classes and established their virtual classrooms. We now have 90% of the faculty with "voluntary" classroom web sites.
In 2002, I was working with a Technology Director in Alden who did not believe in the possibilities of wireless computing. He would not let me buy a wireless router to test with school money. I bought an apple wireless router with my own money, tested it and convinced him that wireless technology was the future. We now have a state-of-the art wireless campus equipped with 20 wireless laptop labs.
Last fall we bought Castle Learning software to "help our teachers prepare kids for the exams." I recommended it for another reason. As I sat in a meeting with teachers discussing it's value, I heard grumblings because the teachers did not think they needed another tool to grade children. I argued that this tool is more valuable as a teaching tool and that teachers could create formative assessments with it. Only one teacher in the room saw that vision. After a year of working with a handful of teachers and showing them how to use the software as a formative assessment tool, we now have a teacher center course, that I designed, to teach teachers that concept.

Teachers [leaders] open the door. You enter by yourself. (Chinese proverb) I won't force anyone to enter my room, but I will encourage them to peek inside and come in if they like what they see.

Schools Need to Think Different

2009-06-19T10:44:00.003-04:00

The U.S. Department of Labor estimates that today's learner will have 10-14 jobs by the age of 38. The 25% of the Chinese population and the 28% of the Indian population with the highest IQs are greater than the entire population of North America (Fisch and McLeod, http://shifthappens.wikispaces.com/).

Those statistics are staggering. In order to compete with so many intelligent people our schools need to BE creative and PROMOTE creativity. We need to DEMAND, not encourage students to reach higher levels of thinking. Students using technology can change a boring paper report on the rock cycle into a videocast hosted on the teacher's web site and shared with the world. Schools need to think differently and leverage the power of technology.
One way to leverage technology is to think of the classroom web site as more than just a communication tool. The classroom web site should be used to teach, assess, and publish, in addition to communicating. The classroom web site should be used during school and not thought of as something kids will use at home.
Schools also need to think differently about teaching writing. I have been in many districts where writing is taught to students only when they are preparing for state exams. In college, anything written must be in digital format, yet we do not prepare kids for this inevitability. I advocate for more writing to demonstrate understanding throughout the school year and that schools use the computer during the writing process.
In order for schools to teach writing and other subjects with technology, schools need to move toward a 1:1 computing model with wireless technology available campus wide. Creative funding needs to be explored and revenue streams created. As netbooks become more popular, the $100 laptop is not far behind, so this scenario is not as out of reach as one might expect.
The United States can't compete against the cheap labor found in India and China. We can't increase our population to the levels of China or India either. We can change the way we think about using technology in the classroom. Would you like to see a video presentation about how to solve polynomials (http://www.teachertube.com/viewVideo.php?video_id=11343&title=Polynomials) or read about it in a book? So would the kids!

Student Outcomes: Everyone's Responsibility

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    Student outcomes are more than just grades on a report card or the results of a state exam, and they come in many formats throughout the school year. If one only thinks about the "97" on the Chemistry Regents or the "S" on the report card in Reading as the only student outcomes, they are missing the most important ones. The outcomes I am most interested in are those that can't be touched and are the least obvious. I am interested in the teaching, learning and thinking processes that lead to
the "97" and the "S". The "97" and "S" are just indicators of how students think at the end of block of time, so it is my
role to evaluate, refine and support teaching and learning processes that succeed, so that the indicators for all students are high. I believe that implementing the Universal Design for Learning (UDL) principles and formative assessments are two ways to support student outcomes.
    My role is to help teachers design instruction that teaches every student. One way to accomplish this task is to use the principles of Universal Design. Based on brain research, UDL was developed to give teachers strategies to teach all learners. Through classroom visits, staff development and curriculum/assessment discussion groups, we will work together to design lessons that enable successful student outcomes.
    Another way to improve student outcomes is to use formative assessments. In a meta-analysis study of research, Paul Black and Dylan Wiliam (1998b) found that frequent assessment feedback helps improve student achievement. Again, my role is to ensure that teachers know how to use formative assessments to adjust their instruction and that they teach students how to use them to adjust their learning tactics.
    There is no reason to think that teachers are not tied to student outcomes, they are. The above two strategies will help teachers feel more confident about their teaching when student outcomes are less than desired. But, as W. James Popham (2008) writes, "human beings are complicated beings," and in the end, the responsibility to learn is on the student.
    If an administrator is not deeply involved in evaluating student outcomes, they are not doing their job. A student's job is to produce high quality work, a teacher's job is to teach them how and the administrator's job is to ensure it gets done!

Formatively Assess with a Blog or Message Board

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Create a Del.icio.us Linkroll for Your Web Site, Blog or Wiki

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Formatively Assess with Web 2.0 Tools

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Curriculum Maps Reveal New York State Performance Indicators

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The New York State Standards are too broad to help teachers or students prepare for the state assessments. However, if one "unwraps" the standards, performance indicators are revealed. In order to evaluate the implementation of instruction that is guided by performance indicators, curriculum maps need to be developed. Once created, a principal will be able to walk into a classroom knowing that the learning being observed was strategically planned with performance indicators in mind. When the mapping process begins and teachers have recorded what they teach and when, three very important web resources will help them add performance indicators to their maps.
The first resource, the Data Mentor (http://datamentor.org), provides teachers with information from the New York State assessments that tells them how their students performed on specific performance indicators. Teachers will use this information to perform a gap analysis of their maps and adjust them, assuring that performance indicator gaps have been closed.
Castle Learning is the second resource that will ensure the teaching of performance indicators. Many believe that this software is used to produce grades, however that kind of thinking does not take advantage of this software's true potential, as a formative assessment tool based on performance indicators. Castle Learning provides teachers with real-time data analysis reports that uncover misunderstandings which guides instructional decision making. The proper use of formative assessments will ensure the principal that a culture of reflective teaching is in practice.
As technology integration increases, it is important that teachers use high quality web resources. I have created the Pi.Licio.us Project (http://www.myteacherpages.com/webpages/CShively1/index.cfm), the third web resource, that matches performance indicators with web resources. These web resources will be added to the curriculum maps guaranteeing the principal that instruction with technology is based upon performance indicators.
A principal can not visit every classroom to evaluate the implementation of performance indicators, but a principal can facilitate the building of curriculum maps. The maps provide a "roadmap of learning" and it is the job of the principal to build "roadmaps" using data, formative assessments and high quality instructional resources.

Tutorial: Setup and Install Del.icio.us for Social Bookmarking

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How to Take Notes with the Highlighter and Organize with QuickNote

2009-06-12T15:50:00.003-04:00

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Work Harder, Not Smarter

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Buffalo State College
State University of New York
Department of Creative Studies

Work Smarter, not Harder
Environmental Influences That Build the Foundation for Creativity
by Christopher Shively

Submitted in Partial Fulfillment
of the Requirements for
EDF 683, Facilitation of Group Problem Solving

Work Smarter, not Harder
Environmental Influences That Build the Foundation for Creativity

What is the use of running if we are not on the right way – German Proverb (Williams, 2002). This proverb summarizes my life at the present time. I am working on my administrative degree, am the instructional technology coordinator in my district, teach an undergraduate and graduate course, coach varsity football, parent two young kids and am trying to be a good husband. I am constantly running between jobs and responsibilities. In my heart, this lifestyle is not right; I am not living the right way.
I work so much because I am the only person earning money in my household. I feel that I am not working smarter I am just working harder. I have ideas swimming in my head that need working out. I am overwhelmed. I know that I have developed some pretty poor habits that contribute to the stress and despair I have been feeling. In Dr. Firestien’s book, Leading on the Creative Edge, creating a healthy lifestyle is one of the 12 components to nurturing a creative mind. The objective of this paper is to document the research I found regarding nutrition, aromatherapy, exercise and Feng Shui and how I am going to use these ideas to build a strong foundation for creating a healthy lifestyle and thus, a creative mind. I want to work smarter, not harder.
As the saying goes, without your health, you have nothing. People under too much stress undergo a measurable change in blood pressure, an increase in adrenaline, perspiration, heartbeat, and an elevation in glucocorticoids, which are potentially destructive hormones (Cunningham, 1997). Stress is happening to me and I need to be able to control it. I have a family history of cancer and I do not want to give in to the notion that I am going to get it too. My mother died at age 48 of cancer and she followed all the “top” procedures of the day. I want to make sure that I take an open-minded approach to my own health. I believe that a positive, pro-active approach to physical and mental health is the key.
Cunningham states that as early as the 1700s, physicians have written about the relationship between stress and cancer (1997). There is not a direct link to stress and cancer in today’s research, but if I can identify methods to handling stress, I can at least assure myself I tried to handle it.
Christine and Edward Ebert, in their book, The Inventive Mind in Science Creative Thinking Activities, identify conceptual blocks to creative thinking which are: information, stereotyping and habits. The conceptual block that contributes most to the whirlwind, which is my present lifestyle, is habit. And upon further review, the first bad habit involves nutrition.
Paul Pritchard in his book, Healing with Whole Foods, states that we of the “Information Age” tend to have mental hyperactivity. Energy from excessive thoughts can race through the head and cause irritability, unhappiness and headaches. Aside from headaches, I have been feeling the other two. Eating the proper foods and eliminating others can promote a calm mind, a mind capable of thinking creatively.
Since my schedule is pretty hectic, I have not eaten as well as I wish too and thus do not have the mental energy I want. I have been looking for fast solutions to getting food and eating at fast food restaurants was at the top of the list. The problem with that solution is the trans-fatty acids that are found in that type of food. “Trans fatty acids found in foods like french fries, margarine, potato chips and anything else with partially hydrogenated oil disrupt communication in your brain” (Franklin Institute, 2004). This communication breakdown in the brain only aggravates the creative thinking process. Instead of solutions to problems “coming to me,” I labor on policies, lessons and ways to stop opposing offenses. The good news is that this is easy to rectify, bypass the above-mentioned restaurants that serve those foods. This will also save money – another contributor to the stress.
There is a common public misconception that all fat in the diet is bad; this is simply not true. In fact oleic acid, a fatty acid found in myelin, the protective sheath that covers communicating neurons, is composed of 30% protein and 70% fat. Monosaturated oleic acid is the main component of olive oil as well as the oils from almonds, pecans, macadamias, peanuts, and avocados. (Franklin Institute, 2004). Although these foods/fats do not calm the mind, they do “clear the snow off the neural highways” so that ideas can flow more efficiently.
Pritchard claims that certain grains can be eaten that provide energy, endurance, calm the mind, and reduce blood pressure. Buckwheat can be used to reduce blood pressure and oats (which contain phosphorus required for brain and nerve formation) and wheat calm the nervous mind. He says that magnesium, lost in the milling process of grains, allows calcium to function properly in the tissues of the heart and nerves and restrains the “anxiety peptide, a complex of amino acids in the brain which appear to contribute to anxiety” (Pritchard, 2002). It is best to buy whole grain breads or flour.
Other foods that can contribute to the relief of anxiety and promote a calm mind are: cucumbers, celery and lettuce. Each has silicon in them, which improves calcium metabolism and strengthens nerve and heart tissue. Mulberries, lemons, dill and basil can all be used for their calming effects (Pritchard, 2002).
Having this information at my disposal is one thing, but putting these ideas into practice is going to be difficult. Typically, my day begins with a cup of coffee (not the best solution), my wireless laptop and designing lessons, evaluating lessons, working on my administration classes, reading the news online or paying the bills. I do this at 5:00 AM every day. I work for two hours, take a shower and head out the door without breakfast and sometimes without lunch. This is where a habit needs to change so that I can actually begin to create a healthy lifestyle. This is the hardest part of the paper to write because I am going to write what to do even though my mind is rebelling; but my heart is pushing forward. Theo Williams, in her book Creative Utopia, 12 Ways to Realize Total Creativity, tells her readers to unplug from the electronic world for a little while each day. Since “plugging in” first thing in the morning begins the chaos, I am going to stop that. I am going to eat breakfast, go to the gym, practice yoga or go for a walk and then head to my electronic workplace. I will need to think creatively on how to manage all the demands on my electronic time, though. Creativity is stimulated by play- and play requires energy (Eiffert, 1999), so eat – exercise and think!
Exercise comes in many flavors. As a former college football player and present day football coach, I am well aware of weight lifting and running as forms of exercise, but these can be excessive. There are reports that state that epinephrine (adrenaline) and cortisol (a hormone that increases blood pressure), were elevated from excessive exercise (Eiffert, 1999). The trick is to find exercise that is beneficial to the whole body, not just the muscles and in my case; I am looking for exercises that also stimulate creative thought.
We all have two hemispheres in our brain, the left, which specializes in linear, or logical, thinking and the right, which is our non-logical, pattern-making side of the brain and which is heavily involved in the creative process. The right hemisphere must be stimulated in the first stages of the creative process (Eiffert, 1999). The practice of Yoga enables one to reap the benefits of bilateral development and better communication across the hemispheres through a series of asanas, or poses, called sun salutations. Sun salutations are just a sample of the hundreds of asanas available. Other examples of exercise that facilitate the release of thoughts within the body are: dancing, swimming, roller-skating, walking, and martial arts.
Hatha Yoga, a yoga style that emphasizes physical postures, has been practices in the United States for many years. The one physiological aspect of hatha yoga, which has been scientifically investigated, is the changes that take place during diaphragmatic breathing. Diaphragmatic breathing elicits a greater parasympathetic response from the body, thus relaxing the mind (Seaward, 1999). Eiffert says to put oneself in a state of relaxation because the most creative individuals are those that are the most relaxed (1999).
Yoga in the morning and in the evening is a terrific solution to exercising that promotes the whole body, but what about relaxation techniques to relax the mind at work. School is the place where most of my stress occurs; yet, I can’t simply get out my yoga mat and start doing asanas. However, I can control my breathing. As I mentioned earlier, diaphragmatic breathing has a profound affect on relaxing the mind. Since we all must breathe, one can practice this art in any office, gym or practice field.
The premise of this paper has been one of creating an environment that fosters creativity. Nutrition and exercise are two vital and somewhat obvious topics to address. The last two concepts are less mainstream and might even be questionable by the parochial among us. These last two ideas are aromatherapy and Feng Shui. I decided to practice these two ideas as I composed the last portion of this paper. I lit a mint smelling candle to eliminate mental fatigue and unclear thinking and used a few ideas related to Feng Shui on my instructional web site.
Every semester there are students in my graduate and undergraduate courses that take my online class, about teaching with technology, who really struggle with the format. Typically, these are students who are thirty-five and older. These students do not normally use a computer for anything but they are anxious to take this course because they can accomplish the tasks of the course in their slippers and pajamas. Typically, these students have a difficult time copying and pasting information, saving files, manipulating tabs using the Firefox web browser, they print out everything, and would rather use the US Post Office rather than use email. They really should not be taking my courses, but they do. Normally, everyone succeeds but more than a few tears are shed.
The content and communication for these two courses is completely online, although I do encourage communication with my students via the phone, when they need to talk to someone. I use MyTeacherPages.com, a web service to host my lessons. Students do a lot of reading and constructing their own learning with the tutorials I develop and link to and I try very hard to make the format, or layout of the web page, easy to navigate.
According to Stephen Eiffert, in his book, Cross-train Your Brain: A Mental Fitness Program for Maximizing Creativity and Achieving Success, “by the time adults are 40, most are expressing less than two percent of the measurable creativity they demonstrated as young children.,” Since the anxious folks are typically in their thirties and forties, I am not surprised when they say, please just tell me when to click and when to move my mouse. This is pretty hard to do online. The most common complaint: “I feel so stressed out.” Before I continue, I would like to say that this feeling happens to 2 - 3 people per semester, this is not the vast majority.
I used to think that their lack of computer skills was the main problem, and it still might be, but now I am re-thinking that premise and am going to control the layout of the web site, so far the only thing I can think of that I can change, other than teaching on campus. So, I went and looked at my web page and felt that it needed a change to eliminate student stress.
Research has shown that highly effective people often function best in a totally relaxed state and Norman Vincent Peale, author of the Power of Positive Thinking, said that a relaxed person is a powerful person (Eiffert, 1999). As I reflected on my student’s comments from previous semesters, most troubled students said that they were stressed out, so I asked myself, what could I do to create less stress for my students. I decided to read Nancilee Wydra’s book, Feng Shui The Book of Cures, and discovered that certain colors and clutter can create disturbances in the psyche but these same attributes can also improve the psyche as well. Wydra says “Feng Shui identifies conditions in a living space that affect us in either positive or negative ways. A web page is not a “living space”, but it is a place and maybe the art of Feng Shui can help me help my students. So, my goal was to design a learning experience that calms the mind, sparks creative thought and teaches at a high level.
When a person who practices Feng Shui fundamentals looks at a living room full of clutter, their advice to the owner is to remove or organize the clutter. I decided to study my web site format and when I did, I noticed that there was a great deal of information on the home page. It looked distracting and cluttered, so my first step was to move sections of my web site that do not apply to my students directly, I moved them out of view; the “out of sight, out of mind principle”.
Colors are also important features of Feng Shui. An African Safari scene was the background of my web site with bright orange and black colors. I decided to change the background colors to green and white and changed the text and links to purple and pink. According to Wydra (1993), purple will elevate self-esteem, green will promote calmness and pink will relieve stressful situations.
Stephen Eiffert mentions the reticular activating system, or RAS in his book. He says the RAS stimulates our emotional, fight-or-flight limbic brain when we are excited and our more logical and creative cerebral cortex when we relax. If students are experiencing a feeling of being overwhelmed, perhaps by the amount of information or colors on my site previous to my changes, it is not surprising that they told me they were stressed. By eliminating the clutter of information and using calming, rejuvenating colors, I hope the stressed can relax and use the cerebral cortex.

Works Cited

Cunningham, J. B. (1997). The stress management sourcebook. Chicago, IL: Contemporary Books.

Ebert, C. S., & Ebert, E.S. II (1998). The inventive mind in science creative thinking activities. Englewood, Co: Teacher Ideas Press.

Eiffert, S. D. (1999). Cross-train your brain: A mental fitness program for maximizing creativity and achieving success. New York, NY: AMACON Books.

Institute, Franklin (2004). The human brain - Fats. Retrieved October 12, 2006, from The Human Brain Web site: http://www.fi.edu/brain/fats.htm#fatsbuild

Pitchford, P. (2002). Healing with whole foods. Berkely, CA: North Atlantic Books.

Seaward, B. L. (1999). Managing stress : Principles and strategies for health and wellbeing. Boston, MA: Jones & Bartlett Publishers, Inc.

Williams, T. S. (2002). Creative utopia 12 ways to realize total creativity. Cincinnati, OH: HOW Design Books.

Wydra, N. (1993). Feng shui The book of cures. Lincolnwood, IL: Contemporary Books.

How to Share Google Documents, Spreadsheets and Presentations

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Crickets

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Crickets live under rocks and logs in meadows, pastures and along roadsides.

Crickets start as an egg that hatches into a nymph. The nymph grows into an adult. Life cycle image.

They live for only a few weeks.

Crickets eat decaying plants, fungi and seedling plants.

Spiders, some wasps, ground beetles, birds, small rodents and lizards eat ants.

Ants

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Ants live underground in nests called ant hills.

Ants start as an egg that hatches into a larvae. The larvae grows into a pupa. The pupa turns into an adult. View their life cycle.

They live for about 3 months.

Ants eat sweet foods (like melted candy), seeds and other insects.

Worms, spiders, mites, fish, lizards, snakes, birds, mammals, flies and other ants eat ants.

Beetles

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Beetles live everywhere in the world except the polar regions and oceans. They live on plants, or tunnel underground.

Beetles start as an egg that hatches into a larvae. The larvae grows into a pupa. The pupa turns into an adult.

They live about 12 months.

Beetles eat plants, leaves, seeds, fruit, wood, fungus or other insects like aphids.

Birds, bats and many other animals eat beetles.

Dragonflies

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Dragonflies live in marshy land or in the still waters of ponds.

Dragonflies start as an egg that hatches into a nymph. The nymph grows into an adult.

They live for over a year.

Dragonflies eat ants, termites, gnats, caddisflies, mayflies and mosquitos.

Birds eat dragonflies.

Ladybugs

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Ladybugs live in forests, fields, grasslands, gardens, and even in people's houses

Ladybugs start as an egg that hatches into a larva. The larva turns into a pupa and then grows into an adult.

They live for about four to six weeks.

Ladybugs eat aphids, mealybugs and mites.

Birds eat ladybugs.

Praying Mantis

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Praying Mantises live in all the warm areas of the world.

Praying Mantises start as an egg that hatches into a nymph. The nymphs grow into adults.

They live for about 12 months.

Praying Mantises eat moths, crickets, grasshoppers, flies and sometimes other praying mantis.

Bats, birds, lizards, frogs eat praying mantises.

Honeybees

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Honeybees live in a hive which can usually be found in trees.

Honeybees start as an egg laid by the queen that hatches into a larvae. The larvae create a cocoon and turn into a pupae and then an adult male (called a drone) or a female worker bee.

They live for about 3 weeks in the Spring and Summer and for about 3 - 4 months in the Winter.

Honeybees eat honey.

Most predators leave honey bees alone because they sting, but one tiny mite, (larger picture of mites) weakens the honey bees but does not really eat them.

Monarch Butterflies

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Monarch Butterflies live throughout North and South America in warm places, but in the winter, they live in Mexico.

Monarch Butterflies start as an egg that hatches into a larvae. The larvae become caterpillars which create a protective covering around them as they enter the pupa stage. After the pupa stage, they become monarch butterflies.

They live for about 6 to 8 months.

As caterpillars they eat milkweed. As butterflies, they eat nectar and water.

Monarch butterflies are poisonous to most animals, but there are some insects and one mouse that eats them. They are: stink bugs, wasps, ambush bugs and a certain mouse in Mexico.

Wasps

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Wasps live in paper nests on trees, in attics, holes in the ground or in buildings.

Wasps start as an egg that hatches into a larvae. The larvae grow into a pupa and then an adult.

They live less than a year and some workers last only a few months. A queen may live for several years.

They eat nectar as adults, but some wasps feed their young larvae or dead insects.

Wasps are eaten by dragonflies, robber flies, hornets, centipedes, and spiders, blackbirds, magpies, starlings and mammals like mice.

Grasshoppers

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Grasshoppers live in meadows and fields.

Grasshoppers start as an egg that hatches into a nymph. The nymphs grow into an adult.

They live for about 30 days.

They eat plants.

Grasshoppers have many predators, some of them are: birds, beetles, rodents, reptiles, spiders and some flies.

Nymph

adult

Monarch Butterfly

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The Monarch is a common poisonous butterfly that eats poisonous milkweed in its larval stage and lays its eggs on the milkweed plant. Monarchs have a wingspan of 3 3/8 - 4 7/8 inches (8.6 - 12.4 cm).

Butterflies are beautiful, flying insects with large scaly wings. Like all insects, they have six jointed legs, 3 body parts, a pair of antennae, compound eyes, and an exoskeleton. The three body parts are the head, thorax (the chest), and abdomen (the tail end). The four wings and the six legs of the butterfly are attached to the thorax. The thorax contains the muscles that make the legs and wings move.

Literature Review

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Christopher Shively

LAI 529 – Literature Review

Define formative assessment
Define peer feedback
It is because of this low interest in authentic vocabulary instruction, that I have reviewed the research done on methods of vocabulary instruction and vocabulary acquisition. The research I review examines the following aspects of vocabulary acquisition as it relates to reading comprehension 1. Learning words through context, and 2. Direct Instruction of Vocabulary – this will include specific instructional strategies used to promote new word learning. The instructional strategies reviewed are 1. reading aloud, 2. establishing a reading purpose, 3. flashcards, 4.use of dictionary, 5.overview guides and 6. mnemonic vocabulary strategies. Direct Instruction will also include elements of vocabulary instructional programs.

Using Peer Feedback to Enhance the Quality of Student Online Postings: An Exploratory Study

Research Questions

What is the impact of peer feedback on the quality of students' postings in an online environment? Can the quality of discourse/learning be maintained and/or increased through the use of peer feedback?

Dependent Variables:

What are students' perceptions of the value of receiving peer feedback? How do these perceptions compare to the perceived value of receiving instructor feedback?

What are students' perceptions of the value of giving peer feedback?

Methods:
case study framework

semester-long, graduate level course

Using both descriptive and evaluative approaches

the students were asked to respond to weekly discussion questions (see Appendix for examples). In a typical week, students were expected to post at least one response to the discussion question (DQ) and one response to another student's post.

For this study, feedback was defined as: 1) a numerical score (from 0-2) based on Bloom's taxonomy and 2) descriptive comments supporting the assigned score and relating specifically to the quality of the post. Postings at the knowledge, comprehension, and application levels received one point; postings demonstrating analysis, synthesis, or evaluation received two points; non-substantive comments received zero points.

- first professors posted as a model and then students were required to post

- students submitted feedback to professors first and then they filtered it to students - thus promoting anonymity

Data:

Quantitative and qualitative data were collected through participant interviews, scored ratings of students' weekly discussion postings, and responses to both entry and exit survey questionnaires

the research team scored all discussion postings, using the same rubric that students had used

Two researchers rated all of the students' postings

At the end of week five, students completed a survey (13 Likert-style items and 5 open-ended questions)

Sample Size:

15 graduate students (10 female, 5 male) enrolled in an online technology integration course

Findings:

By the end of the course, students' perceptions of the importance of feedback in an online course had significantly increased

Although the quality of students' postings did not improve with peer feedback, neither did it decrease; suggesting that peer feedback may be effective in maintaining quality of postings, once a particular quality level has been reached

the semester, students' perceptions of the value of instructor feedback (M=4.6) had not changed significantly - it was more important than peer feedback

- due to student motivation

- time

- biases on the part of students

Additional benefits to receiving peer feedback included confirmation that their ideas were meaningful to others, as well as profiting from their peers' insights and perspectives.

When asked on the post-survey to rate the importance of both giving and receiving peer feedback, students rated them at the same level (M=3.7), that is, as important to their learning.

The main concerns for giving feedback related to consistency and fairness (n=4). For example, one student commented, "I think peer feedback is good but, in some respects, I don't know if I'm really qualified to give a grade to anybody."

Overall, more than half of the students (n=8) felt that the benefits of providing peer feedback outweighed the costs.

results showed no significant improvement in students' postings from the beginning to the end of the course

Notes:

- By asking students to provide constructive feedback to each other, instructors are inviting them to participate in each other's learning and thus achieve greater understanding and appreciation for their peers' experiences and perspectives.

students are offered the opportunity not only to reflect on the work of their peers but also on their own work, which over time can lead to increased learning

challenges

overcoming students' anxiety

receiving feedback

ensuring reliability

As Meyer (cited in Meyer, 2004) explains, "Questions created to trigger personal stories [do] so, and questions targeted to elicit information or higher-level analysis [do] so" (p. 112)

As Topping suggests, if learners perceive peer feedback to be invalid, they may end up de-valuing the entire peer feedback process. This suggests the importance of explicitly addressing students' perceptions up front and taking steps to counter their strong pre-conceived ideas of the relatively weaker value of peer feedback.

According to Dunlap and Grabinger (cited in Dunlap, 2005), "the process of reviewing someone else's work can help learners reflect on and articulate their own views and ideas, ultimately improving their own work

Help students understand not only how the peer feedback process works, but why it is being used (e.g., to provide additional feedback, to better gauge postings).

Model and provide examples of effective feedback prior to implementing the peer feedback process

Provide guidelines regarding how to provide effective peer feedback, such as "always begin with positive feedback and then offer information on areas for improvement.

Monitor the process and, in turn, provide feedback on the feedback, at least initially, to help the process run smoothly and to allow students to benefit from the strategy.

Ensure that the feedback is anonymous so that students can provide ratings without feeling pressure from peers

THE MEDIATING EFFECTS OF ANONYMITY AND PROXIMITY IN AN ONLINE SYNCHRONIZED COMPETITIVE LEARNING ENVIRONMENT

Research Questions

1.) Thus, this study examines the mediating effects of anonymity and proximity,

two important components manipulable with the support of networking technologies, on group dynamics within cooperating dyads.

Methods:

The present study compared the differential effects of three different competition modes (i.e., face-to-face team competition, decreased proximity team competition, and anonymous team competition)

- Three classes from the fourth-grade level of one primary school in the southem

part of Taiwan were randomly selected to participate in the study. In total, 103

fourth-graders (ages 10-11) participated in three instmctional sessions over

three consecutive weeks.

- online synchronous competitive leaming system, called Joyce, (allows leamers practice answering multiple-choice questions with competing opponents simultaneously face-to-face or via network)

Joyce provided randomized tests questions from a bank of questions

Treatments:

A- face-to-face - near each other

B- dyads were not near each other (decreased proximity) - names were shown on the screen

C - names were not revealed - pseudonyms were used

Data:

- A post-experiment self-report questionnaire was disseminated to participants to be completed individually. The questionnaire consisted of "Student Perceptual Impressions of In-group Processing" and "Student Perceptual Impressions of Classroom Climate."

- Semi-structured interviews with six students purposively selected from the target audience and expert reviews were undertaken during scale development to ensure validity of the measurement instruments.

Findings:

- subjects in Treatment A rated significantly less favorably on inner-group processing than

those in Treatment B and C

- students in Treatment C rated significantly more favorably on classroom climate than those in Treatment A and B

- Data from this study supported our proposition that anonymity and proximity are more favorable for in-group processing.

- Students participating in the physical separation and anonymity team competition conditions in this study perceived themselves to be more focused on

information-sharing and exchanging as compared to the face-to-face team

competition condition.

- In other words, anonymity and reduced proximity minimize the in-group process losses associated with face-to-face team competition situations and induce more task-related interaction and effective com-

munication within groups.

The present study also found that students in the anonymous team competition

condition rated significantly more favorably on classroom climate than those in

the other two treatment conditions.

THE INTERNET SELF-PERCEPTION SCALE: MEASURING ELEMENTARY STUDENTS' LEVELS OF SELF-EFFICACY REGARDING INTERNET USE

Research Questions

1.) Because students' perceptions of themselves play such a crucial role in forming one's view of self-efficacy and may ultimately impact success, it is important to

determine if the four major components of self-efficacy exist when children leam

to use the Intemet.

2.) if there are subsets of students in the classroom who view themselves

differently in terms of their ability to use the Intemet.

Methods:

- 170 fourth graders fi-om two schools, Applegate Ele-

mentary School in Ohio, and Lincoln Middle School in Illinois.

- participated in WISH (WorldGate Intemet School to Home) to get free internet access

- Lincoln - 90% black - 90% free/reduced lunch - teacher comfortable using the web

- Applegate - 15% black - 31% free/reduced lunch - only one 4th grade teacher was comfortable using the web

- One purpose of the current study was to investigate the structure of the ISPS

scale using exploratory factor analysis (EFA).

**** Students were given a survey to answer

Data:

- Factor 1 was named "Personal Self-efficacy." - describe children's evaluations of their Intemet abilities.

- Factor 2 was named "Comparison to Peers" reflecting a student's self-efficacy as compared to their classmates.

- Factor 3 was named "Physiological States", described the emotions that children felt when using the Internet

- Factor 4 was named "Social Feedback", thought to reflect social feedback provided by parents and others

Findings:

Cluster 1 - Internet Positive - 40% - skills comparable to others

Cluster 2 - Internet Able - 21% - skills comparable to others - but not as high as above

Cluster 3 - Internet Able - unsure - 25% - low agreement when comparing themselves to their peers

Cluster 4 - Poor Internet Attitude - 11% - low feedback from others

Cluster 5 - Negative Internet Feedback - 3%

1.) these findings suggest that children's self-perceptions of their Intemet

use should be considered as important as self-perceptions of their ability to leam

other content areas.

2.) Children may leam the Intemet quickly, but leaming such skills should not be trivialized because they do not necessarily represent a traditional subject area.

3.) This study showed that children do run the risk of being "tumed off from using the Intemet if the feedback received from peers and adults is negative and shows the importance of nurturing and supporting students while they are leaming these skills.

4.) Knowledge of children's self perceptions of their Intemet use can be very useful to the classroom teacher and it is thought that the groups that were found with this study may be generalized to the classroom.

5.) Children in the Intemet Able-Unsure group reported high positive self-efficacy

when using the Intemet, but may be overly critical when comparing skills to their

peers. In the classroom, these children could be targeted to boost their self-esteem

by not allowing them to be discouraged by comparisons to peers. This could be

done by pairing students with their more Intemet savvy classmates or assigning

them to work in teams on collaborative Intemet-related projects.

6.) Poor Internet Attitude and Negative Internet Feedback need to hear positive feedback about their skills

Notes:

-Bandura's Self-Efficacy factors - These are Performance, Observational Comparison, Social Feedback, and Physiological States.

Teaching Formative Assessment Strategies to Preservice Teachers: Exploring the Use of Handheld Computing to Facilitate the Action Research Process

Research Questions

The goal was to explore whether the introduction of handheld data collection tools and new pedagogical practices embedded in an action research project is a feasible expectation for novice teachers.

Dependent Variables:

The participants were all teacher candidates in the final semester of their elementary education program.

Methods:

Two year study

- two groups of teacher candidates

- handheld computing device ... used iPAQs

- QUEST (Rose et al., 2007) diagnostic

strategy of formative assessment within the action research process.

- DataInHand Software on handheld - software include a simple interface that permits survey development on

the computer (Likert scale, yes/no, short-response questions) and simple

transfer and retrieval of completed surveys to and from the handheld device.

-we asked participants to select one student identified with special needs from their student teaching experience to tutor one on one for 2 hours each week.

- participants created their own questions, tried them out and modified them to use for the rest of the semester

Year 2 modifications to the questions occurred because:

- Assessment instruments need to be short, and questions must

permit input via the stylus rather than the keyboard.

- Although open-ended questions yield rich data, they make field-

based data collection challenging.

- increased use of Likert-type items

because entering the data with the keyboard was difficult

Data:

Quantitative - see table

Qualitative

Sample Size: 32

Findings:

See table

- The coded data indicates that the

most suggested change surrounded the candidates’ frustration with the

hardware.

- Secondarily, candidates said that using the right software and

instrumentation were vital aspects of a successful experience.

- preservice teachers recognized the value of formative assessment as a method for improving instructional practice.

- Primarily, problems with the hardware provided challenges for the majority of the participants.

- Based on the quantitative and qualitative analysis of participant re-

sponses, the researchers decided that further integration of handheld data collection would require more modern and reliable tools.

- Participants in both groups agreed

that their understanding of how technology can be used for formative

assessment was enhanced by this experience.

Notes:

- QUEST Cycle

Questioning student understanding of a particular concept

Uncovering understanding and misunderstandings using a

problem

Examining student work

Seeking links to cognitive research to drive next steps in instruc-

tion

Teaching implications based on findings and determining impact

on learning by asking an additional question.

- Stiggins (2005) suggests, one reason for the recent resurgence of interest in formative assessment has been educators’ realization that once-a-year summative standardized testing doesn’t happen frequently enough to

affect specific day-to-day, week-to-week, or even month-to-month instructional decisions. Further, such testing fails to provide a sufficiently detailed picture of student learning to enable teachers to identify ways to help individual students.

Peer assessment for learning from a social perspective: The influence of interpersonal variables and structural features

Peer assessment involves collaboration in the appraisal of learning outcomes by those involved in the learning process, i.e., students

We argue that interpersonal variables play a substantial role in the process of peer assessment, since these might interfere with the appraisal and affect relating to learning outcomes.

Four interpersonal variables influencing learning from and with peers are discerned in this paper: psychological safety, value diversity, interdependence and trust

Psychological safety

Psychological safety, for example, prevents teams from perceiving differences in viewpoints as disagreements, creates room for framing a problem, and so promotes collaborative learning

When peers perceive their environment as safe for interpersonal risk-taking they will be less prone to such conduct as, for example, friendship marking

Value diversity

For students involved in peer assessment the task of using their knowledge and skills to review, clarify, and evaluate the work of others is cognitively demanding.

Therefore, we contend that low value diversity will have a positive influence on peer assessment for learning.

Interdependence

Learning from peer assessment occurs when there is a positive interdependence between the peers, i.e., when peers perceive that they are connected to each other in such a way that the assessment task cannot be performed successfully unless everyone participates in a responsible manner

Trust

The influence of confidence or trust in both self and the other in relation to learning effects is hardly addressed in empirical studies.

Scaffolding Young Children's Reflections With Student-Created PowerPoint Presentations -

Research Questions

1.) How do young children reflect upon their learning experience?

2.) How might they express their reflections through computer technology, specifically SCPP?

3.) Are there gender or age differences in their reflections?

4.) What functions does SCPP server in students' reflections?

5.) In what ways does SCPP support or challenge the students' reflective learning?

Dependent Variables:

K/1 classroom - University Primary school

14 students - 8 1st graders (one girl and seven boys)

9 W

2 B

2 A

1 Korean

Methods:

Project Approach Method

- interpretative study that focuses on social-cognitive dynamics

- Students were engaged in a three-phase project about measurement

- write/draw about what they know about measurement or how it has been used in their lives

- investigated how people in different professions used measurement

- drew tow and three dimensional representations related to their experiences and reflected on what they learned

Students:

- chose samples of their work

- with TA, they reflected upon their chosen work

- TA helped students build PPT presentations using scanned images and worked with the kids to type in comments - no student comments were altered

- Students shared their work with their parents at an open house

Data:

- spring semester

- observation and videotape

- interviews with teachers

Authors measured:

- outcomes of PPTs - length, structure, and layout

- data was coded - level and pattern of reflections, age, gender

- - analyzed complexity

- analysis of video

Sample Size:

14

Findings:

- students could create PPTs

- SCPP projects corresponded to objectives being taught

- level and patterns of reflection were not gender related

- older students reflected more

- students chose unique layout designs

- SCPP provided a means to articulate their thinking and reflection in a communicative way

- offered an alternative venue

- provided a means for teachers to assess student progress

- it made the SCPP a socially shareable event - open house

- digital literacy skills

- SCPP stimulated children's thinking about what they learned

- The TA typed for Jack who had writing issues - Jack also liked the one-on-one interactions with the teacher

- Working in small groups enabled the teachers to remedy the knowledge base while it was still forming

- teacher analysis of student ideas - measuring fire - will alter their approach to this unit in the future

- the semi-structured design provided enough of a scaffold to stimulate thinking because of the flow: What do you know, what do you learn, and how did you learn it

- meeting one-on-one compliments the group reflection of the Project Approach

Notes:

- Reggio Emilia - record children's discussions about their work - a reflective approach

PEER SCAFFOLDING OF KNOWLEDGE BUILDING THROUGH COLLABORATIVE GROUPS WITH DIFFERENTIAL LEARNING EXPERIENCES

Research Questions

1. Are there differences in the interaction patterns and discourse between a

more experienced group and a novice group in knowledge building?

2. Will the interaction patterns and discourse of the novice group change when

it collaborates with the more experienced group?

3. If the interaction patterns and discourse of the novice group change, will the

changed patterns be sustained when the more experienced group no longer

participates in the collaboration?

Methods:

Case Study

As a result, the two teachers

agreed that their students, 22 from Hong Kong and 22 from Toronto, all in fifth

grade, would collaborate through the online platform, Knowledge Forum

Scaffolds: in the form of word cues such as “New information,” “New idea,” “I

need to understand,” and “My theory.”

Stage 1 - schools worked separately on knowledge building of topics

Stage 2 - schools collaborated around the topic of ancient civilizations

Stage 3 - faded collaboration -

Data:

- focused on the students’ participation and interaction patterns on KF and their levels of engagement with respect to knowledge building, with special attention given to the change in behavior and discourse of the Hong Kong students over the three stages.

- to obtain statistical information—such as the number of notes created, number of build-on notes created, number of reads, and what kinds of scaffold used—for each student within a certain period

-focus-group interviews were conducted with Hong Kong students after the third stage to find out their perception of the learning experience and whether they perceived any

difference between the two classes of students when they engaged in collaborative

Findings:

- To summarize, when HK students began to collaborate with their CA peers,

they tended to write more notes that were linked with one another and no longer

confined themselves to the discussion of their own topic but joined in the

discussions of other topics as well.

-The results also suggest that these interaction

patterns among HK students were sustained even when the CA students were no

longer present on the discussion forum.

- the HK students commented that CA students tended to ask more

questions in their notes. Perhaps, the increase in their use of the scaffold “I need to

understand” in stage three reflected the HK students’ efforts to model how to ask

questions as a productive knowledge building activity.

** Stage 2 - It appears that the discourse of the CA students triggered their HK peers to advance in their level of knowledge building engagement. HK students’ notes also exhibited more advanced levels of knowledge building, especially in the negotiation of meaning (21%), while the percentage of information sharing notes dropped to 67%.

- In stage 3, the HK students did not build as much knowledge - It appears that without the disagreeing discourse contributed by the CA students, the level of dissonance became lower at this stage.

**** Secondly, the interaction patterns and discourse of the novice group changed

through collaboration with the more experienced group: more linked notes are

written, more disagreements and negotiations of meaning are expressed in the

discourse, and members no longer confined their participation to their own topic

but join in the discussions of other topics as well.

***The above results suggest that collaborating with a more experienced group in knowledge building can have a scaffolding effect on knowledge building for a

novice group of students.

Notes:

Computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL) is a relatively new

pedagogical approach to create a powerful learning environment in combination

with the ideas of collaborative learning and networked technology (Jarvela,

Hakkinen, Arvaja, & Leinonen, 2004).

In other words, for students to

become more advanced in knowledge building, they need to move from sharing or

comparing information to the discovery of disagreement, negotiation of meaning

and beyond.

A scaffold is: Wood, Bruner, and Ross

Ross (1976),

what happens between a tutor and a child: a “process that enables a child or

novice to solve a problem, carry out a task or achieve a goal which would be

beyond his unassisted efforts” (p. 90)

Piaget argued that because of the unequal power relations, interactions with an adult will simply cause the children to abandon their ideas.

a problematizing move is a form of action that calls something previously held to be unproblematic into doubt

This article opens up the possibility of peer scaffolding of knowledge

building by a more experienced group which generates more problematizing

moves.

Assessment-Driven Improvements in Middle School Students’ Writing

- many students get little informative feedback about their work. Often, this is because few teachers have the luxury of regularly responding to each student’s work and learning.

- Peer and self-assessment are key elements in formative assessment, because they involve students in thinking about the quality of their own and each others’ work, rather than relying on their teachers as the sole source of evaluative judgment.

- important to use a rubric

- "fishbowl" - student feedback activity

- COACH is an acronym for Commend (offer praise), Observe (note ways in which their writing is similar to the writing they are editing), Ask (ask the writer questions about what he or she meant or intended), Consider (always be considerate of the writer’s feelings), and Help (offer help in a useful way). - A formative assessment (self)

-valid rubric - based on NYS test rubrics

Click or clique? Using Educational Technology to Address Students’ Anxieties About Peer Evaluation

The ‘average’ student would be familiar with the process of grading presentations using clickers, as the technology is similar to the procedure on

mainstream television shows like American Idol, where audience members vote to support their favourite contestants, or with the real-time tracking of focus group responses to televised political debates. It was perhaps not surprising,

mainstream use of audience response strategies in television, that students equated peer review of presentations in the classroom with popularity contests and were anxious about possible peer bias, or the formation of ‘cliques’ based on personality, impacting on the validity of the results.

- The literature on the use of clickers discusses a number of advantages to their use, including active learning, providing feedback, increasing attention span and motivation

- Peer assessment can give learners opportunities to dynamically practice applying criteria, giving and receiving feedback, comparing their work with others, while also providing a framework for clearer goals and expectations.

- The overall benefits of peer assessment are understood to include the promotion of higher order thinking and cooperative learning.

- There is a general expectation in the literature that students will ‘over-mark’, that is, give higher marks than their teachers.

- In this study, both male and female students talked about not wanting to fail their peers, although the male students set this up as a preventative measure, as they ‘hoped they wouldn’t fail you’, while the female students wanted ‘everyone to do well’.

- anonymity might reduce social pressure, it also reduces responsibility, resulting in careless responses, or ‘ruthless’ feedback (Bostock, 2000).

- While the majority of students appreciated the marking criteria framework for the peer evaluation, some students found the numerical responses to be too limiting, and suggested that they would have welcomed the opportunity to add more commentary, either in an anonymous survey or in class presentation of the discussions.

-‘politeness effect’

- The students reported that the peer evaluation process encouraged ongoing and active engagement with the class presentations:

- Many students were concerned about their capacity to evaluate,

- their engagement with the class presentations, and of the reported parity of between student and teacher results, students persisted in their reluctance to formally assess their peers:

Conclusions

- Students appreciated the use of the clickers in the context of this peer assessment activity for their functionality, novelty and, most particularly, anonymity.

-The students’ caution in recommending the use of clickers as a part of the summative assessment process suggests that its effectiveness rests on its future use, as part of the process of learning, as a formative learning activity.

-However, the neutrality of the clickers in this peer evaluation context was undermined by their very familiarity, as students had been habituated to the process of voting using communication technologies in mainstream television popularity, talent, or game shows. This popular culture contextualisation potentially reinforced student anxieties about personality bias in the peer evaluation process.

Digital Photo Journals: A Novel Approach to Addressing Early Childhood Technology Standards and Recommendations

Research Questions

1. How does the digital camera project create meaningful technolgy integration within the physical space and learning environment?

2. And second, how does the activity of making a digital journal provide children with opportunities for social engagement and reflection?

Methods:

- k/1 classroom

- 21 students

- 8 boys 13 girls

- one digital camera and computer

- students took pictures all day, they were taught how to use the camera

- the pictures were uploaded to the computer, the students picked pictures and the investigators typed captions (dictated to them by the students)

- the investigators used open-ended questions

- the entire journal creation process was videotaped

- they displayed their journals to their parents at an open-house night

Data:

Findings:

- children had four basic approaches to talking about their pictures

-- descriptive approach - simply say what was on the screen

-- explanatory approach - described the reasoning behind why they took or chose particular pictures

-- situative approach - which relays the physical, temporal and social context of the picture (Sam and Bryan always sit together)

-- interpretative approach to reflection - children filling in details about the people in the photos

- it served as an opportunity for students to reflect on their environment and social networks with an adult

Embedding E-mail in Primary Schools: Developing a Tool for Collective Reflection

Research Questions

1.) How can e-mail be implemented in the classrooms so that children become

engaged in collective reflection?

2.) What is the reflective nature of the e-mail activities?

Methods:

First Design Experiment

- paired partnerships between schools (support measure)

- group emails - not individual

- fixed timing (email was sent on a fixed day and there were a fixed number of emails) (support measure)

- a paper worksheet was used (support measure) with email format simulated

- fixed reflection period (read email before the lesson and wrote email after the lesson)

Second Design Experiment

- worksheet was modified

- freewriting was inserted as a way to promote reflection

Participants

1st: - The schools were sited in villages in a rural area of Enschede,

the Netherlands. Both schools participated with one classroom (grade 5-6, aged

10-12). In total, 16 groups participated.

2nd: Three schools voluntarily participated in the second design experiment. The

schools were sited in villages in a rural area of Enschede, the Netherlands. All

schools participated with one classroom (grade 5-6, aged 10-12). In total, 12

groups participated.

Data:

- A range of data was gathered to gain insight in the teachers’ implementation of

the e-mail tool, the children’s motives to engage in collective reflection and e-mail

- use, and the reflective nature of the e-mails. Classroom observations and field

notes of all lessons were taken. Informal interviews were held with the teachers

after each lesson and at the end of the project. All design products, and e-mails

were collected. Semi-structured interviews with a few children (n = 8) randomly

chosen from one classroom were held after each lesson.

Findings:

First Design Experiment

- Thus, the support measures helped to practically embed e-mail use in the lessons, and create favorable conditions for collective reflection.

-the practicality of the e-mail tool we conclude that it fitted the circumstances at schools, and was successfully embedded in the lessons.

- In relation to the validity of the tool, we conclude that the children experienced

e-mail as related to the task, and wrote down descriptions and to a lesser extent

evaluations that witness the beginning of reflection.

- relation to the effectiveness of the tool we conclude that most of the reflections

were intellectual - but because of the teacher and not the researchers questions

- sometimes the kids wrote silly responses

- teachers had to prompt kids to ask questions

Second Design Experiment

- revised worksheet left out distractions - like the assignment

-Because of the three minute thinking and freewriting - The individual writings were used as a source for group writing. Composing e-mails now took less time. With the individual preparations at their disposal,

children had more to discuss.

- No unreflective, quiz-like questioning was found in the e-mails.

- the group emails included more did. The content of most e-mails was composed from all the freewritings of a group.

*** We concluded that the supportive measures helped to embed e-mail within the learning task (practicality), and encouraged individual and collective personal reflection on the process and products of learning (validity). The children wrote individual reports, and used these to compose group e-mails.

- Composing a group e-mail by using individual freewritings as a starting point

proved to be fruitful for collective reflection in various ways. First of all, it

provided the children with the opportunity to give expression to their own

personal voices, and defend these when constructing a group opinion. Besides

that, the freewritings made the children aware of different views that resided in

their groups. Reading each other’s freewritings often led to acknowledging the

uniqueness of each writing and to copying unique parts from each freewriting

into the group e-mail. Sometimes these unique parts were summarized in a new

group opinion.

- Implementing freewriting led to more extensive dialogues surrounding the

writing of e-mails. Hence, reflection not only occurred through writing, but also

through talking. And when receiving e-mails from the partner group, reading and

talking were prevalent activities. Thus, collective reflection with e-mail comes

about through a diversity of language-based activities.

Learning Through Teaching: Peer-Mediated Instruction in Minimally

Research Questions

"how does knowledge get transmitted, shared and/or acquired?"

Methods:

Participants:

A total number of 250 children (boys and girls) were selected for the study. The spread between the genders is more or less equal. In others words, the number of boys and girls in the study is more or less the same. These children are regular users of the learning stations. Their age ranges from 6 to 14 years; the average age being 10-11 years. A majority of these children study at the elementary school level (below grade 8). They come from diverse ethnic and cultural backgrounds. They are typically Hindus, Muslims and Christians.

1.) Students visit a MIE LS (minimally invasive education learning station) and interact with the computer

2.) A Reseach Consultant befriended the kids and wrote observations

a.)

- Number of children at the LS, their names and gender, nature of the children's interaction, which children were working together in a group, or was a given child working on his or her own. Further, the RC also periodically asked the children details of the activity or activities they did on that day, what new aspect they had learnt during the course of their visit to the LS, how did they perform that activity, from whom they had learnt it and to whom did they teach it to.

3.) Identification of learning methods adopted by the children at the LS when working in groups in comparison to while working independently at the LS.

4.) To map the course of development of computer literacy for each child, as leader or follower of the group, and the spread of information and learning from one child to another. It would help in the identification of leaders and members present in a group. Such an exercise would enable the evaluation of flow of information within the group and between groups, and provide an estimate of the number of children who stand to gain from any one group or leader.

Data:

Methods of Learning

- Trial and Error

- Rehearsal - something happens, the kids recognize something happened and make it happen again

- Self-discovery - something happens, the kids make it happen and then they want to know more

- Demonstration - one child shows another

- Verbal inputs - one child tells another

- Observation - children observe and learn

- Practice and Drill - This parameter reflects the capability acquired by the children.

Findings:

Independent Learing at LS

1.) Trial and Error - This activity serves as an indication of the inquisitive nature of young children. Trial and error is a fundamental initial method of learning, especially when there is no other source of receiving or obtaining information The figure clearly shows that the usage of trial and error was least used (4%)

2.) Rehearsal - Figure 1 indicates that children, to begin with, use this strategy by only 10%, but its use, although a little erratic, increases to nearly 30%. Hence, the child, while working independently at the MIE LS, employs this method constantly over the period of 9 months. The contribution of this method in comparison to the other methods is 14%.

3.) Practice and Drill - The contribution of this method in terms of its comparison to other methods is the highest at 52%, indicating the importance of practise and drill in learning contexts. the gradual increase of the use of this strategy--from 3% to 25% over a period of 9 months.

4.) Self-discovery - I do not know --> I know some things with the help --> I have learned on my own --> The contribution of Self-discovery as a method of learning is 30% as compared with other methods (Figure 2) over the 9-month period

Group Learning at LS

1.) Trail and Error - method drops completely after August

2.) Rehearsal - drops off after the initial months and then goes away completely - The total contribution of this method is 3% when compared with other methods.

3.) Demonstration - the usage of this method is erratic though continuous. In the beginning month, ie, in the month of August, there is heavy usage followed by a drop in the next month followed by a rise again. This pattern is observed across the 9 months. -- Imitation represents an act that one person copies from another. It is an educative step the child could not have attained on his own. Cognition derives from social realities that surround the child. Modelling by significant others has a special impact on young children. *** It also takes on the form that if he is teaching other children, there is an awareness that he must learn not only for his own self, but also in order to teach his group of collaborators.

4.) Verbal Inputs - The contribution that verbal inputs has is 4% as compared with other methods. results indicate towards the fact that other knowledgeable individuals, namely peers, serve to impart the required information. The two major learning methods adopted by children when they seek help of others are observation and enquiring about information from peers (experts-leaders) who have more knowledge about computer usage.

- Collaboration emerges as a core aspect of cognitive development and cannot be divorced from the social context.

**** Yet, the results obtained at the MIE LS indicate that young children are open to a variety of learning methods. Each learning method has its significant role in the entire process of learning computer skills.

***In the MIE setting, we find that the children's new capacities are being developed in the ZPD through collaboration in actual, concrete, situated activities with the help of more capable peers.

-- An important aspect that needs to be noted is that when children work in groups at the MIE LS, synergy is generated in collaborative contexts. This synergy provides a significant platform that produces or creates a learning environment via:

- motivation to learn

- Second, children in collaborative settings learn from one another. (this is in contrast to our schools where independent practice is the norm or requirement)

- group activity creates more activity and leads to learning from peers

***** The data on learning suggests that children require an approach in which children interact in small groups. It will allow them to observe, experiment, inquire and examine aspects of their environment. In this way, they make sense of their own experience and the world around them.

Inside the black box: raising standards through classroom assessment

assessment becomes formative assessment when the evidence is actually used to adapt the teaching to meet student needs

All these studies show that innovations that include strengthening the practice of formative assessment produce significant and often substantial learning gains.

Many of these studies arrive at another important conclusion: that improved formative assessment helps low achievers more than other students and so reduces the range of achievement while raising achievement overall.

For assessment to function formatively, the results have to be used to adjust teaching and learning; thus a significant aspect of any program will be the ways in which teachers make these adjustments

How Can We Improve Formative Assessment?

The self-esteem of pupils.

when they have any choice, pupils avoid difficult tasks. They also spend time and energy looking for clues to the "right answer."

many become reluctant to ask questions out of a fear of failure

Pupils who encounter difficulties are led to believe that they lack ability, and this belief leads them to attribute their difficulties to a defect in themselves about which they cannot do a great deal

What is needed is a culture of success, backed by a belief that all pupils can achieve

While formative assessment can help all pupils, it yields particularly good results with low achievers by concentrating on specific problems with their work and giving them a clear understanding of what is wrong and how to put it right

Self-assessment by pupils

The main problem is that pupils can assess themselves only when they have a sufficiently clear picture of the targets that their learning is meant to attain

When anyone is trying to learn, feedback about the effort has three elements: recognition of the desired goal, evidence about present position, and some understanding of a way to close the gap between the two

New understandings are not simply swallowed and stored in isolation; they have to be assimilated in relation to preexisting ideas

Tasks have to be justified in terms of the learning aims that they serve, and they can work well only if opportunities for pupils to communicate their evolving understanding are built into the planning

One common problem is that, following a question, teachers do not wait long enough to allow pupils to think out their answers. When a teacher answers his or her own question after only two or three seconds and when a minute of silence is not tolerable, there is no possibility that a pupil can think out what to say.

It is also generally the case that only a few pupils in a class answer the teacher's questions.

What is essential is that any dialogue should evoke thoughtful reflection in which all pupils can be encouraged to take part, for only then can the formative process start to work

Feedback has been shown to improve learning when it gives each pupil specific guidance on strengths and weaknesses, preferably without any overall marks

fixed I.Q." view -- a belief that each pupil has a fixed, inherited intelligence that cannot be altered much by schooling

"untapped potential" view -- a belief that starts from the assumption that so-called ability is a complex of skills that can be learned

ways of managing formative assessment that work with the assumptions of "untapped potential" do help all pupils to learn and can give particular help to those who have previously struggled.

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