After examining the National Education Standards for Teacher (NETS-T), I believe I should focus on two standards and indicators: Standard 2, design and develop digital-age learning experiences and assessments, indicator a, design or adapt relevant learning experiences that incorporate digital tools and resources to promote student learning and creativity; and standard 4, promote and model digital citizenship and responsibility, indicator a, advocate, model, and teach safe, legal, and ethical use of digital information and technology, including respect for copyright, intellectual property, and the appropriate documentation of sources (ISTE, 2008).
To achieve these goals, I will examine my curriculum documents to look for content areas that can be enhanced with technology use. For example, my seventh grade students will soon be reading one of two novels, Call of the Wild or Hatchet. Both of these deal with an individual’s ability to adapt to his/her surroundings. In the past, I have provided background knowledge of the setting and time periods through paper documents, lectures, and pictures. This time my students will participate in a web quest that I have found on the internet. In both cases, the web quests have been created by another teacher, but I have created a task sheet for my students that will incorporate parts of the already created website, mainly the links to informative sites, and use the information they find to create a product incorporating that information in another way, such as a diary entry, a poem or song, a skit, a news article, etc. While doing this I will also advocate, model, and require appropriate documentation of sources, both text and graphics.
I set a goal for myself for this year. I plan to modify at least one curriculum-required assignment so that technology is embedded. After the first assignment, I plan to survey the students about their interest, engagement, and comments about using the technology to learn background knowledge for the book. Once the second assignment is modified to embed technology, I plan to extend its use by sharing my work with colleagues who teach the same course. At this point, I hope my enthusiasm and my students’ enthusiasm for the projects is such that other teachers will want to participate. Hopefully, the student projects will be shared with other classes and parents. Then, I’ll ask for a class set of wireless computers!
National Education Standards for Teachers (NETS-T) located at http://www.iste.org/Content/NavigationMenu/NETS/ForTeachers/2008Standards/NETS_T_Standards_Final.pdf.
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I think by changing the activities you use for researching and learning about the backgrounds and environments in your particular novels, that the students will gain more from it. They will be actively engaged and working together with their peers to complete their web quest. By putting the technology tools in the hands of the students, they will be more vested in the class.
ReplyDeleteHi Donna,
ReplyDeleteI've taught Reading classes before, to high school students, and I've struggled with them a lot. Reading is not something that students tend to do a lot of here in Mexico, especially if it's required reading for a school subject. What I did was something that may have gotten me in trouble with school higher-ups, but like most things around school, they never found out, or they didn't care enough to look into it. The class I taught had a suggested reading list, which is a list of books that may be assigned to students to read throughout the course. I took that list and threw it out and made my own list. I have a large collection of books (mostly novels... something to read on the beach), and I distributed those instead. I loaned them out to my students, with an individual note on each book as to what they should look for. I think having them read something that I personally enjoyed and having an idea as to what they would find in the books helped them get through it a lot easier than reading something "required" by their school (which included some wonderful books, by the way, but just the fact that it was imposed on them immediately created a negative perspective).
As for integrating technology into this class, at the end of the course, instead of having them write a book report, I had them do a video book report, which is make a video photo slide show using pictures that have something to do with the book or the book's subject matter, and doing an oral report on the book. They uploaded the video to youtube, and that was that... I think they enjoyed it.
Keep up the good work!
Donna,
ReplyDeleteYou make a nice contribution to the topic. I also believe that I will manage what you want - to modify at least one curriculum-required assignment so that technology is embedded.
I have already tried to change the way I teach and every time I come with a change to what students used to do in the past, they seem to appreciate this. This is the reason why I believe we should carry on, motivation is one of the key issuesin the learning process.
Cesar - Like you, I tend to do things that I believe are in the best interest of my students regardless of whether the "higher-ups" might approve. I've been fortunate to be in a school that does give us a good deal of freedom, but I live by the advice given to me by a veteran teacher early in my first year. It is easier to ask forgiveness than it is to ask permission!
ReplyDeleteDonna,
ReplyDeleteI was introduced to "Hatchet" in a literature class in college and was hooked. The webquest with the story would be so much fun!
Frank