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Really? I don’t have time for this too! Is this another bandwagon that you want me to jump on?
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The NETS are really about transforming education in an age where being digitally literate is essential. Like learning to read, write, and solve problems, digital literacy needs to be an integral part of classroom instruction.
Here are some ideas of how the NETS can be integrated at the 3rd grade level. It is not as much about changing curriculum as much as it is about taking it to the next level.
It is not about the tool as much as about giving students the opportunity to learn, share, and participate in a world where communication is important and technology enables that communication with a much larger audience. There are many tools. Take the time to learn about the standards and how they can help you to transform your teaching.
Today I realized that we as educators need to be starting much earlier talking to and requiring students to respect digital content creation. It has become too easy to copy and paste without teaching students that plagiarism exists with digital content too. Images, music, words – all of this content needs to be cited. But it goes beyond citing, it comes down to searching for digital content that the author has given permission to be used by others.
Here is a slideshare by Glenn Wiebe that explains copyright vs fair use.
One place to start when using images with students is Discovery Education because the images if cited can be used in student projects. In an upcoming post, I will share how I do searches with my students using Google.
Early January, the third grade team started to raise silkworms from a grant through donorschose.org. If you have read my earlier blog post, you will remember that last year I successfully cooked the eggs using an incubator instead of hatching them.
So this year, things were going wonderfully. And then…. 15 silkworms died. We thought that it might have had to do with having placed them in smaller containers. After 45 minutes of discussion, our third graders decided that several factors could have been part of the demise of so many silkworms: over-population, condensation from cover being tight resulting in improper hydration, contamination from scat, or habitat design using a screen.
So we changed habitat arrangements by addressing these factors only to watch as slowly each silkworm started to die. The scientist we contacted said that it is a bacteria that has been passed from using paintbrushes to move the silkworms. The tool that we were using to protect the delicate silkworms was the cause of the mortality of our silkworms and project.
This has caused me to question what happens to farmers in India and China who raise silkworms. How often does this happen? How do you survive if your family income disappears because of nature? This lesson has changed from the life cycle of silkworms to a much deeper investigation.
Anyone know someone in India or China who raises silkworms? The lesson has just begun.
I’m suppose to be working on a post for my Wilkes project based learning course but right now the website is having problems – oh, Technology! So instead I will write about a recent project that we have done in our classroom that turned out beautifully.
Step 1: We started out by having each child pick an African animal that they are interested in. They had to find book resources as well as internet resources to research their animal. Here is a link to the document that they used – Animal Research.
Step 2: Next each student went to Discovery Education and found a close-up image of their animal and the citation for the image. We used iPads for this part but a computer would also work.
Step 3: Each student FaceJacked their image to reply to the six questions that they had posed. Many students changed their voices to make it sound like the animal was talking. On the computer, blabberize will do the same thing as facejack. We then sent all of the Facejack images to the students email address since the final stage of the project would necessitate using a computer.
Step 4: Using our green screen and flip camera on a tripod, each student recorded their questions one at a time for easy manipulation later in the project.
Step 5: Day 1 in the computer lab (about 45 mins.). We took all of the resources that had been collected – 7 green screen video clips (including 6 questions and an introduction), 6 facejack video clips, and one citation page and put them into iPhoto. Students also found one more image on DE to use for their background image and citated that image. Now we had all the parts.
Step 6: Day 2 in the computer lab (1 hour) – putting all the pieces together.
Using iMovie, students designed their title page.
Next the facejack video were pulled into the project area in order.
Between each facejack video, students placed their background image with 2 images at the beginning for the introduction and the first question.
I showed students how to check the length of the green screen video clip and match the image timing to the video clip.
Lastly each green screen video clip was dragged on to the image corresponding to the space before each answer. With the advanced settings enabled, a choice for the green screen would show when the video hovered over the already placed image.
Here are just some of the amazing projects that my third grade students created.
What is project based learning?
Project based learning is an in-depth student/teacher designed investigation that incorporates
1. Posing real-life questions that students want to find the answers to
2. Researching, investigating, and documenting the answers to the questions that are posed
3. Sharing the investigation and answers with a larger audience
What is the role of the teacher?
The role of the teacher is to guide children through the steps of posing a question that can be answered or investigated, gathering accurate information through accurate research and observations, and sharing the information in a way that others can benefit from the learning.
What is the role of the student?
The role of the student is to pose the question, gather information, and share what is learned. This can occur as a whole group, small group, or individual depending on the project.
Why is it effective learning?
Project based learning incorporates all areas of learning which engages students to pursue something that interests them, learn how to research, gather information, use resources or observations accurately, and share their learning with others. These are skills that all life-long learners need to have which is why project based learning is so powerful.
When I am not thinking about teaching and using technology, I am engaged in some fiber activity – spinning, weaving, or holding my angora bunnies. But until recently I never brought this part of me into the classroom. Last year I wrote a proposal for donors choose to get cardboard looms and a silkworm farm as well as a flip camera to document our learning. Let’s just say that I cooked our silkworm eggs instead of hatching them.
So this year I wrote another proposal and was able to get a class set of wood looms and another silkworm farm. Now I am a learner just like my students so this time I didn’t cook them.
Here is some of our footage using a proscope.
Our plan is to teach our students about the life cycle of the silkworm, document the cycle, harvest the silk from the cocoons, and weave with the silk.
For the past two years, I have had the fortune to be able to integrate more technology into my classroom through grants. One little known grant available to Wisconsin educators is the WEMTA technology grant. The deadline is approaching quickly – the last Friday in January. This grant has helped me to fund the expansion of our home literacy MP3 program and Beyond Cuentos.
Check out the example grant and go for it! What would you like to do in your classroom? What technology could help change your students’ learning?
Over winter vacation while reading one of my favorite blogs – Mind/Shift I learned about a really amazing story writing app with the power to design beautiful student created images or uploading other images.
Scribble Press is a free iPad app that gives children the tool to create wonderful stories that they can share by email, to the gallery, or converted to an ebook.
Here are two examples:
Enrique created a story about Butterscotch, our classroom bunny.
David created a book about big cats using DE images though he forgot to add his citation page.
I love apps that engage my students in wanting to write and being excited about writing stories. Our iPad is filling with stories that my students have been creating.
This isn’t the first time that I’ve written about using songs from DE to create fun interactive learning. I was lucky enough to have been introduced to this idea by Lodge McCammon (who currently has 45 different content based songs with lyrics available for FREE on DE).
We are studying magnets so I did a search for magnet songs.
Next I downloaded the song and the lyrics. Over the course of 15 minutes, students were divided into groups to create a part to the song. Using one practice run and two takes, the video was created in less than 40 minutes. The original footage was shot with a flip camera on a tripod in front of a green screen so that I could add another DE video to the background.
The song played over and over again…. later students could be heard singing the lyrics. Music is a powerful memory strategy. Add the element of music video and you have a very fun, interactive learning experience.
Resources
Music Makes It Memorable: “Magnets”. Prod. Music with Mar. Music with Mar, 2011. Discovery Education. Web. 18 December 2011. .
Magnets and Magnetic Fields. Prod. Summer Productions. Discovery Education, 2005. Discovery Education. Web. 18 December 2011. .
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