Blog 11: Critical Thinking in the Standards

4^th Grade Math

I feel that all of the math standards involve critical thinking. Students are constantly making decisions they must be able to support with their answers. They must find the best way to represent their findings. Not only must they check their reasoning for finding an answer, but they must also critique other students’ answers. They must be able to determine whether answers make sense. This is an important skill when it comes to critical thinking.

One particular standard that stuck out to me was:

MCC4.MD.3 Apply the area and perimeter formulas for rectangles in real world and mathematical problems. For example, find the width of a rectangular room given the area of the flooring and the length, by viewing the area formula as a multiplication equation with an unknown factor.

Students must be able to understand finding area and perimeter of shapes and apply those formulas to real world situations. Students must be able to come up with situations that they may need to use these formulas outside of school. To enhance those critical thinking skills, teachers could have students actually use those situations to complete activities. One piece of technology students could use to complete the example in the standard is geometer’s sketchpad.  This allows students to create those shapes and layouts with their equations.  The software can also be used with interactive whiteboards for whole group activity. Does anyone have other pieces of technology they have used with this type of standard before?

Blog 10: Critical Thinking

Even though I am not a classroom teacher, I do teach critical thinking skills to students who visit the media center. One of the biggest skills I teach is finding credible sources when students are conducting research. Students must be able to understand why a particular source is a good choice for them and if the source contains accurate information. This skill is important because everyone will use it in his or her lives someday. Being able to think critically about things allows someone to make a judgment call or dig deeper into the meaning of something important to them. One thing I would like to work on more with this skill is getting students more involved and practicing this skill in the media center. I do not have many teachers sign up for a class about this skill. I typically am working one on one with students who happen to come to the media center for research. So, trying to get teacher buy in is something I am constantly working on. Also, finding good lessons to teach these skills can be a challenge sometimes. I would like to have a good resource of lessons for myself. Any thoughts about good lessons?

Blog 9: Telecommunication Projects

When I think of telecommunications, I think of people using technology to communicate with one another. The most common type that I think of is video conferencing, however, I believe it applies to any type of communication made with technology. Here are some projects I have found that could possibly be used with students in my school.

Where in Pennsylvania

This is actually a project I cam across while searching for examples for my project. In this project schools from different areas within a state or county learn about each other’s region through telecommunications and research. Students work together as a class to create a presentation about their city or region without giving an exact location. They present their presentation using video conferencing software to another school and the other school has to guess what region or city they are talking about. At the end of the presentation and searching the exact location is reveled to the other school through a videoconference. To learn more about this project visit:

http://www.magpi.net/Community/Programs/Where-Pennsylvania

Down the Drain

In this project students collect date about the usage of water amongst their friends and families. Students will work together to find out the average amount of water a person uses and then compares that to other people around the world. Through this website, teachers and students can submit their data and then compare their results with other classes around the world. A discussion board can also be found on the site.

http://ciese.org/curriculum/drainproj/

The Great Bean Race

Classrooms from different countries compete with each other to grow the tallest bean plant. They create  a controlled experiment to try and grow a bean plant. Classrooms communicate with one another through emails. At the end of the race the winner is announced to everyone. This particular site has many different kid friendly and safe projects dealing with telecommunications.

http://www.epals.com/project-detail.php?id=e8d4727a-b860-469e-81e0-cc5c89b4a42c

Blog 8: eLearning

Being a student in the IDD program at UGA has allowed me to become more familiar with eLearning. All throughout my school years and undergraduate years at college, I never really experienced the eLearning setting. Everything I did was face-to-face and if technology was used in the lesson, it was not true eLearning. In chapter 8 Egbert discusses how with eLearning the teacher and the students have to understand the differences between traditional formats of teaching and eLearning styles. She mentions that eLearning is not just moving a traditional format into a new medium. I think often, teachers who are not familiar with eLearning practice that method simply because they have not educated themselves what a true eLearning environment is. An eLearning environment is student-centered, so I also think teachers have a hard time giving that much responsibility to their students, including myself at times. However, we are living in a digital age and our students are growing up understanding technology better than us, so we need to be practicing this type of teaching. One point I thought was interesting from this chapter was mentioned by Setzer and Greene (2005); “High-poverty districts are among the most ardent supporters of using eLearning to provide services that the district cannot otherwise afford to provide to students”. After participating in eLearning courses for my graduate degree and reading about this style of learning, I can see how this situation can be more affordable. Not only can it be more affordable, but I think it is also more effective in those situations. From my experience, many times, students who come from poverty, have a hard time focusing in the classroom and completing assignments. I think eLearning is a great solution to get them more involved and make the learning more about them.

Blog 7: Communication

Communication is very important when it comes to collaboration. As a media specialist it is very important for me to collaborate with the teachers to understand where their students are and need to go in their learning. I am able to support the classroom teacher with classes I offer and resources they can use in the classroom if we are able to communicate effectively. This tends to be a challenge many times to be able to sit down in collaborative meetings with the teachers since I do not have a clerk in the media center. I tend to have to be creative when it comes to communicating with the teachers. Many times I have to collaborate through email, in passing or while eating lunch with teachers. This seems to work okay for the most part; however, I wish that I were able to be able to truly collaborate through meetings every week with the teachers.

Not only is it important for teachers to collaborate with one another, but also it is important for students to have an opportunity to practice collaboration skills amongst each other. For my project this semester, the students have an opportunity to work together and collaborate with one another on their projects. They are able to practice these skills by researching together and discussing the best way to depict their Native American tribe through Photo Story. While reading I thought it was interesting how Egbert described cooperation and collaboration as different terms. She (2009) stated, “cooperation generally implies that students have separate roles in a structured task and pool their data to a specific end, whereas collaboration means that students work together in different ways from the planning stage on” (p. 69). I have never really thought of the two as different terms, but this makes since. The students I am working with will be practicing collaboration and not cooperation for this particular project.  However in future projects it is just as important to practice cooperation skills, so this is something I would like to revisit one day.

To Increase Creativity or Not?

My project is going to be “A Day in the Life” of a Native American. Students are going to work in groups and choose a particular tribe they would like to learn more about. They will find facts and pictures related to their tribe. The pictures they find will be put into a PhotoStory to represent the facts they find. These facts will be put into a script and written from the perspective of a Native American.  They must use higher-order thinking skills to portray their tribe and not simply regurgitate facts. They will present their projects to the class. Since each group will be researching a different tribe, students will fill out an information chart to gather facts about the other tribes while watching the presentations.

Another piece of creativity or innovation that I could implement is student choice of presentation material. Students could have a choice of PhotoStory or some other tool similar to that. However, for this project I think that element is best saved for another project. This will be the first time students are introduced to PhotoStory, so I think that will be a challenge in itself. After students have been introduced to this software, they will have a better idea of what there is to work with for a later time.

Blog 5: Assessment

I feel that assessment is very important to student learning. When I was in the classroom I would plan a pretest and a posttest for my students. This was important because it would show growth or areas I needed to re-teach. That was a form of summative assessment I would practice. I also think that formative assessment is just as important. After teaching lessons I would do a quick formative assessment to check for understanding. Now that I am in the media center, assessing is little trickier. I do feel that I am still assessing, however I do so in a more informal way. I feel that my assessment is through observations. I teach students skills to become self-directed learners and as they visit the media center, I observe to see how they use those skills. If I notice that those skills are not being used correctly or even at all, I might suggest to the teacher to bring their students in for a class, or address the individual student. I wonder though is the only way that I can assess students as a Media Specialist? This is a concern of mine, because I have a flexible schedule which works on a as needed basis for classes. How can I truly assess a group of student who I do not see on a regular basis? Any thoughts?

Blog 4: Project-Based Learning

After reading the articles about project-based learning (PBL), I am not so sure that I have actually implemented a true PBL activity in the classroom before. Diane McGrath (2002) defines PBL as “teaching and learning around projects that are driven by an authentic question or problem that is central to the discipline/curriculum, involves the building of a community of learners, and culminates in the presentation of students constructed work to an outside audience” (p. 42). I feel that I have incorporated parts of this teaching style into my teaching when I was in the classroom, but I had factors of control that did not allow me to fully call it PBL. I think I honestly was scared to let the students have that much control and freedom when I as in the classroom because I was afraid of not meeting the standards. After reading these articles, I have a different opinion about that now. I should have let them experiment more themselves and ask questions to drive their own thinking. They would have been more motivated to learn something in a way that they would like to learn. I do agree that it probably does increase student test scores. I do think this type of learning works better with older students though. They are able to work more independently from the teacher to find answers to driving questions. I find that younger students are still unsure of themselves and still seek approval from their teachers. Hopefully by completing this implementation project I will be able to feel more comfortable with the teaching approach.

Reference:

McGrath, D. (2002). Getting started with project-based learning. Learning and Leading with Technology 30(3), 42-45.

Blog 3: Understanding LoTi Levels

           Unfortunately I had to miss class last week due to my school’s curriculum night. I was really looking forward to discussing LoTi more and understanding the different levels. However, I did go back and listen to the archive. I do feel better now that Won explained each level and gave an example of each one. My biggest struggle was between the levels 3 and 4. It seems like a level 3 is teacher-centered and students do not have much choice. But level 4 is student-centered and students have more choice and ownership of the project at hand. Knowing more about these levels, I will be able to narrow down my decisions about my project more this week I hope. I will also be able to find more examples and confidently be able to identify their LoTi levels.

            I took the LoTi Questionnaire last week and it was interesting to see what I found. It turns out that I am a level 6 for my personal computer use. This makes sense because I feel like I have to trouble shoot technical problems at my school quite a bit since I am the Media Specialist. Also, I enjoy using technology, so this would make my level higher than someone who tends to shy away from using it. My other levels were pretty low. This was not a shock too much to me since I do not have a group of students I consistently teach on a day-to-day basis. My current instructional practices level was a 1 and my LoTi level was a 2. Again I think this is due to the fact I do not teach students everyday. The questionnaire said that my goal should be a level 3. However, I am striving for a level 4 since that is the minimum level our project should be. I think it would be interesting to find out how other Media Specialists compare and what they do to increase their levels. 

Blog 2: A Couple of Technology Integration Examples

The past few days I have been searching for examples of lessons that integrate technology into them. I focused mainly on trying to find 4th grade Native American lessons. However, it has been hard to find these lessons with an LoTi 4. I am also having a hard time distinguishing between levels 3, 4, and 5. They seem so similar to me. I plan to continue investigating these levels more and trying to understand how to label lessons. I hope that we will discuss this more in class this week.

1. Fact vs. Opinion and a PhotoStory

Overview: Students use photos and PhotoStory software to show understanding between fact and opinion. This lesson could be used in conjunction with a Native American Unit to show misconceptions presented about Native Americans.

Target Audience: 3^rd - 5^th Grade

Technology Utilized: PhotoStory, Computer with Internet

ISTE Standards:

1. Creativity & Innovation: Students must create a PhotoStory using pictures they find on the Internet to show misconceptions.

2. Communication & Collaboration: Students work together in groups to

create their PhotoStory and effectively communicate why they chose their pictures.

3. Research & Information Fluency: Students will search websites for pictures and use PhotoStory to organize their materials and present their ideas.

4. Critical Thinking, Problem Solving & Decision Making: Students need to use critical thinking skills to demonstrate why their chosen pictures are

considered misconceptions of Native Americans.

5. Digital Citizenship: Students must search appropriate websites for pictures while keeping a positive attitude to promote learning.

6. Technology Operations & Concepts: Students must be able to navigate the Internet to locate their pictures and troubleshoot any issues that may arise with obtaining pictures for their presentation.

LoTi Level: The LoTi level for this project is a level 4a. Students could use real pictures found on the Internet. In groups students use high-order thinking skills to discuss and demonstrate why these pictures are considered misconceptions or accurate depictions of Native Americans. Students must have a good understanding of the different tribes studied in the 4^th grade.

2. Native American PowerPoint Presentation

Overview: Students will research a particular Native American Tribe. Once they have gathered the necessary facts they will create a PowerPoint presentation.

Target Audience: 4^th Grade

Technology Utilized: Computer with Internet, PowerPoint software

ISTE Standards:

1. Creativity & Innovation: Students will create a PowerPoint presentation of the information they find on their assigned tribe.

2. Communication & Collaboration: Students work together in groups to

research and build a PowerPoint presentation about Native Americans.

3. Research & Information Fluency: Students will search websites for information regarding their tribe and organize the information into a Powerpoint.

4. Critical Thinking, Problem Solving & Decision Making: Students must be able to decide what information is pertinent for their presentation.

5. Digital Citizenship: Students must practice safe and responsible search skills while researching their tribe.

6. Technology Operations & Concepts: Students must be able to navigate the Internet to locate information about their tribes.

LoTi Level: The LoTi level for this project is a level 3. Technology is used to help master content, but the lesson is teacher-driven.

Blog 1: Project Ideas

I am a little overwhelmed right now with finding an idea for incorporating technology into a classroom lesson. I am currently a Media Specialist and therefore do not have a homeroom. I do like to collaborate and work with the teachers at my school, so this is a possibility for my technology implementation project. There are just so many things you can do with technology; I just do not know where to start. I have started brainstorming a few possibilities. I used to teach 4^th grade, so that is where I am thinking about focusing my attention.

One idea I have thought about is incorporating Glogster into a lesson. I love how Glogster works. One of the 4^th grade social studies standards is to describe and locate physical and man-made structures in the United States. I think it would be neat for the students to research a particular feature and create an interactive poster about the feature. Many students will never got to actually visit these features, so it would be great to put this together for students to feel like they are there. I feel like this would be at least a level 4 on the LoTi scale.

Another idea is to incorporate using idioms, adages and proverbs with technology. These are common phrases that students must be able to understand. They could create a classroom resource by using Powerpoint to put all of their phrases into one place. This is definitely at least a level 4 on the LoTi scale because people use these phrases in the real world every day and students must understand what the person is actually trying to say. In my past experience, students have enjoyed learning these different phrases.

Another option is to incorporate the Native American 4^th grade social studies standard into a project. Students have to research different tribes and they could create a Powerpoint presentation or web 2.0 tool to display their findings. 

I feel like I am on the right track with my ideas. I plan to really start digging into these ideas more this week. I also want to meet with a fourth grade teacher to see if she likes these ideas or if she has other needs to be addressed with the use of technology. I am looking forward to this project, because technology can make work so much more fun sometimes and it is incredible to see the creativity that students display when technology is involved.