While most of us have never formally studied Latin, we’ve still felt its influence on modern language and popular culture. Scores of books and films, including Rick Riordan’s Percy Jackson series, Disney’s animated Hercules, and the upcoming feature Wrath of the Titans are based on Greco-Roman mythology.  In retelling these tales, the legacy of the ancient world lives on.

In this spirit, our seventh grade Latin students recently completed a mini-unit on mythology for which they created short digital stories based on well known Roman and Greek myths.  Using NoodleTools, Photostory, books, and Internet sources, they crafted a script, collected images, and produced a final product that captured the essence of the myth and honored the culture from which it came.

[There is a video that cannot be displayed in this feed. Visit the blog entry to see the video.]

Manageable and Meaningful

To make the process manageable and meaningful, a simple project wiki was used to communicate background information, required elements, and deadlines. Having everything in one place improved the students’ organization and enabled the teacher to better monitor their progress over the course of this endeavor.  Equally as important, it also served as a central repository for the completed stories, allowing the students to view and learn from each other’s work.

Because myths are based on oral tradition, there is no one official version of any story.  Consequently, the first major task after selecting a topic was to locate at least two renditions of the myth.   Based on their findings, students used Google Docs to write a condensed, common storyline in their own words and shared their drafts via NoodleTools.  For those not familiar with this resource, NoodleTools helps students search intelligently, assess the quality of results, record information using online notecards, and properly format their bibliography.  We use a paid version of the service that integrates with Google Apps for Education, but they also offer a suite of free tools that are extremely useful.

Digital storytelling is an art form that requires careful attention to the selection and pairing of words and images.  And as any screenwriter knows, having a well written story is one thing; having a well written script is quite another.  To make the transformation, students used a storyboard to chunk their prose into narrations, then sketched representations of the main ideas in the story before looking for actual images from these sites:

• Flickr Creative Commons: http://www.flickr.com/creativecommons
• Quality Image Search: http://qualityimagesearch.com/
• Encyclopedia Mythica: http://www.pantheon.org/areas/gallery/

To evaluate the projects, we developed a rubric that focused on three main areas: the research process, the storytelling process, and the final product itself.  By emphasizing the thinking processes, not just the tangible product, students received feedback that could shape as opposed to judge their learning.

Myths Rubric

If you have a favorite Greco-Roman myth and/or would like to use some of these resources with your students, feel free to visit the project page for more information.  Gratias visitando!

This year, in an effort to incorporate more interdisciplinary, thematic experiences into the curriculum, our fifth grade team participated in and received training from the Monarch Teacher Network.  Their program, which began in 2001, has enabled more than 3600 educators to “teach essential skills in literacy, math, science, geography, technology, Spanish, the arts and social studies… through the captivating story of monarchs.”

Using science and Spanish as the anchor disciplines, students acquired caterpillars, observed them transform into chrysalises, and later released the adult butterflies into the wild.  In addition to studying the life cycle of this unique insect, they also learned about Mexican culture and acquired key vocabulary words and phrases in the target language.  As a capstone for the experience, they created stop motion animations, narrated in Spanish, of el ciclo de vida de la mariposa Monarca.

[There is a video that cannot be displayed in this feed. Visit the blog entry to see the video.]

 Stop Motion Animation

Stop motion animation, in which objects are moved in small increments between individually photographed frames, has been used since the earliest days of film.  While those of us who grew up in the 1970s may recall watching classic stop motion holiday specials such as Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer or Santa Clause is Coming to Town, the technique has made a comeback with today’s youth thanks to popular features like Wallace and Gromit and Adult Swim’s Robot Chicken series.  Although these technologically sophisticated animations are the result of large teams of creative professionals working in concert, simple yet powerful tools like SAM Animation make stop motion viable for even the youngest of learners.

Animation projects can be made with free tools like Windows Live Movie Maker, but the benefits of using an application dedicated to the task are well worth the nominal expense.  Live onion skinning, chroma keying, time lapse photography, and multiple audio tracks are just a few of the features that SAM and other animation programs offer.  As shown in the clip below, getting started is literally as easy as 1-2-3.

[There is a video that cannot be displayed in this feed. Visit the blog entry to see the video.]

Getting Started

Like any project, stop motion animation requires careful planning and preparation.  To make the endeavor manageable for teachers and successful for students, here are a few points to consider:

• Because animation is multifaceted, cooperative learning groups of 2-3 students are ideal.  Creating and moving models,  capturing and arranging images, and recording audio are all tasks that can be shared and/or rotated.
• Provide students with a storyboard so they can organize their thoughts prior to starting the project.  Having rough sketches and snippets of dialog in place before building or filming can save hours of time.
• Modeling clay (even Model Magic) can be expensive and difficult for students to manipulate; not everyone is a sculptor.   Legos, plastic figurines, even drawings made with colored pencils can be effective alternatives.
• External web cams are a must.  Integrated cameras, though seemingly convenient, face the user and thus can’t be consistently positioned to capture images on the wall or floor.  The cameras we used cost less than $20 each and proved extremely capable.
• Don’t just judge the product, evaluate the process.  The thinking and learning that occurs during a project of this nature does not always come through in the final video.

To learn more about how stop motion animation can enhance your teaching, visit the SAM Animation homepage and download a free trial version of the software.  The possibilities, made one frame at a time, are truly endless.

Social bookmarking is nothing new; itLists.com started the concept of shared bookmarks way back in 1996.  Of the myriad tools developed since that time (remember Backflip, Simpy, and Furl?), a handful have withstood the fickle nature of the Web 2.0 world, including Digg, Delicious (recently acquired by AVOS), and Diigo.  While each has its strengths, we are in the process of migrating students from Delicious to Diigo because it offers free education accounts that teachers can manage and monitor.  For those unfamiliar with Diigo, this short clip provides a nice overview of its many features and benefits:

Diigo for Education

As noted on the Diigo for Education website, educator accounts are special accounts provided specifically to K-12 and  higher-ed faculty. Once your Diigo Educator application is approved, your account will be upgraded to have these additional features:

• You can create student accounts for an entire class with just a few clicks (and student email addresses are optional for account creation)
• Students of the same class are automatically set up as a Diigo group so they can start using all the benefits that a Diigo group provides, such as group bookmarks and annotations, and group forums.
• Privacy settings of student accounts are pre-set so that only teachers and classmates can communicate with them.

Student accounts have the following special settings to protect their privacy and safety:

• Classmates in the same class are automatically added as friends with one another to facilitate communication, but students cannot add anyone else as friends except through email.
• Students can only communicate with their friends and teachers.  No one except their friends can send message, group invite, or write on their profile wall.
• Student profiles will not be indexed for People Search, nor made available to public search engines.

Accounts can be created quickly and without the need for student email addresses by uploading a simple CSV file.  Once the data has been imported into Diigo, groups and users can be managed via the Teacher Console.

Diigolet or Diigo Toolbar

After accounts are created, students will still need to add either the Diigo Toolbar or Diigolet to their browser before they can annotate and save websites.  The Diigo Toolbar includes a wide suite of tools, is available for Firefox, IE, and Flock, and is recommended for experienced users:

Although Diigolet is not as feature-rich, it can be set up with a simple drag-and-drop, works for all major browsers, and is well suited to middle school:

Bookmarking

Saving bookmarks in Diigo is simple but to be effective requires an understanding of how tags work.  Students, and especially younger children, have been conditioned to organize their physical and digital materials into folders.  This time-honored system, while appealing to many adults, is severely limiting; content must be pigeonholed into a specific container.  With tags, a site can be saved and retreived in numerous ways using whatever tags (keywords) that best describe it.  The Social Bookmarking in Plain English video from CommonCraft, though focused on Delicious, can also be applied to Diigo and used as an introduction to the concepts of tagging and folksonomy.

In addition to choosing tags, users can also opt to share a bookmark to a group.  By default, our students are organized into groups by graduation year (e.g. Class of 2017).   With one click, teachers can share a website to the entire grade or set up groups for their specific courses.  Similarly, students can create Diigo groups for tasks such as research projects and easily share materials with other classmates.

The Social Side of Diigo

At the risk of restating the obvious, Diigo is a social tool; students can create groups, develop networks, send messages, and establish an online profile within the confines of their school account.  Although these features may not be as appealing as those found in Facebook or Twitter, they do provide a safe, secure environment for introducing concepts related to social networking and netiquette.  Whether you choose to address the issue or not, students will find and use these social connectors; I would encourage you to embrace the opportunity and make the most of the learning experience.

For more information, please visit the Getting Started Guide and FAQ area of the Diigo for Education site.

1. How does your passion affect and reflect who you are as a person and learner?
2. How does technology affect and reflect who you are as a person and learner?

The Digital Literacy curriculum, which I’ve written about extensively in the past (see links below), has served our students well but has not been without its challenges; nine lessons spread over three months can make for a compacted, disjointed learning experience.

• Session 1: Passion-Based Learning
• Session 2: Social Networking
• Session 3: Social Bookmarking
• Session 4: Effective Search Strategies
• Session 5: Website Evaluation
• Session 6: Copyright and Fair Use
• Session 7: Networked Learning
• Session 8: Differentiating via Student Expression Styles
• Session 9: Final Projects

This year, in an effort to relax the pace and increase cohesion, I have extended the course by one month and reworked some of the topics to more directly support the essential questions.  The first major revision to the curriculum was the inclusion of a learning styles inventory.

C.I.T.E Learning Styles Inventory

Unlike expression styles, which focus on how students demonstrate understanding, learning styles address how students acquire understanding and are frequently divided into three main types: visual, auditory, and kinesthetic.  The C.I.T.E Instrument (Babich, Burdine, Albright, and Randol, 1976)  organizes and refines these styles into nine major categories as they relate to information gathering, work conditions, and expressiveness:

Auditory Language  These students learn from hearing words spoken. They may vocalize or move their lips or throat while reading, particularly when striving to understand new material. They will be more capable of understanding and remembering words or facts that could only have been learned by hearing.

Visual Language  These students learn well from seeing words in books, on the board, charts or workbooks. They may even write down words that are given orally, in order to learn by seeing them on paper. These students remember and use information better if they have read it.

Auditory Numerical  These students learn from hearing numbers and oral explanations. Remembering telephone and locker numbers is easy, and they may be successful with oral number games and puzzles. They may do just as well without their math book, for written materials are not  important. They can probably work problems in their heads, and may say numbers out loud when reading.

Visual Numerical  These students must see numbers on the board, in a book, or on a paper in order to work with them. They are more likely to remember and understand math facts when they are presented visually, but don’t seem to need as much oral explanation.

Auditory-Visual-Kinesthetic Combination  The A-V-K students learn best by experience, doing, and self-involvement. They profit from a combination of stimuli. The manipulation of materials, along with accompanying sight and sounds (words and numbers seen and heard) will aid their learning. They may not seem to understand or be able to concentrate or work unless totally involved. They seek to handle, touch and work with what they are learning.

Individual Learner  These students get more work done alone. They think best and remember more when the learning has been done alone. They care more for their own opinions than for the ideas of others. Teachers do not have much difficulty keeping them from over-socializing during class.

Group Learner  These students prefer to study with at least one other student, and will not get as much done alone. They value others’ opinions and preferences. Group interaction increases their learning and later recognition of facts. Class observation will quickly reveal how important socializing is to them.

Oral Expressive  These students prefer to tell what they know. They talk fluently, comfortably, and clearly. Teachers may find that they know more than written tests show. They are probably less shy than others about giving reports or talking to the teacher or classmates. The muscular coordination involved in writing may be difficult for them. Organizing and putting thoughts on paper may be too slow and tedious a task for them.

Written Expressive  These learners can write fluent essays and good answers on tests to show what they know. They feel less comfortable, perhaps even stupid, when oral answers or reports are required. Their thoughts are better organized on paper than when they are given orally.
Descriptor Source: http://bit.ly/neY1gb

The C.I.T.E Instrument, which is freely available online in PDF form, consists of 45 forced-choice Likert items which, when scored, indicate whether a particular style will have a major, minor, or negligible affect on the respondent’s learning.

Going Digital: Google Forms

Administering the C.I.T.E Instrument via pencil and paper to ~140 students is neither convenient nor efficient.  Consequently, I requested and received permission to convert the survey into a Google Form that could capture student data on a Google spreadsheet.  The first sheet in the document contained the student responses for each question which then flowed into a second sheet that automatically tallied the scores for each learning style.  This information was then passed to a third sheet that indicated whether each style was major, minor, or negligible for each student.

Explaining the details of how this document was created is beyond the scope of my intent here, but for those wishing to learn more, here are working models of both the form and spreadsheet:

• Link to a formatted copy of the C.I.T.E Google Form (includes formulas)
• Link to a formatted copy of the Google Spreadsheet  (includes sample data)

Although Google spreadsheets are relatively easy to create, they are not a suitable format for sharing individual student results.  Thankfully, a simple download from Google Docs into Excel and then a mail merge into Word can create customized, professional looking reports in minutes.  Below is an example with the student’s identifying information removed.

Sample CITE Learning Styles Report

Implications for Teaching and Learning

Student data, no matter how carefully gathered and presented, will not affect the teaching-learning process unless understood and acted upon by all.  Our Learning Specialist, Mead Ploszay, and I discussed the students’ results with them, explaining each of the nine learning styles and stressing the importance of becoming self-advocates.  With a common vocabulary and shared understanding, our teachers and students can collaborate and begin identifying the most effective strategies for acquiring knowledge and skills as vested partners in learning.

Although our results only represent a limited population, they do reveal a few trends worth noting.  Consider the graph below which represents the average scores on the inventory for each learning style (click the image for a larger view):

Auditory-Language, or learning from hearing words spoken, was the lowest-scoring style followed closely by Expressiveness-Oral.  While lectures, discussions, and oral presentations are an everyday experience for most students, they may not be the most effective method for many learners, particularly females:

This simple exercise was but the first step toward developing “Digitally Literate” students.  Over the course of the next three months we will actively leverage these findings and discover how technology (and our passions) affect and reflect us.  In the mean time, I would invite you to explore the aforementioned resources and consider how you might apply these ideas to your classroom; teaching students how they learn may be the most importance lesson of all.

The process of preparing and sharing my remarks gave me fresh insight into the role of passion in learning and the importance of providing students passion-based learning experiences.  Although the slideshow and accompanying resource page discuss these in more detail, I think a few points are worth featuring in this space:

Invisible Expertise

Students possess incredible knowledge and skills that we may never see because we never take the time to ask.  All children have deep-seeded interests that motivate them but our hectic daily schedules, over-stuffed curricula, and focus on assessment data often precludes us from engaging them on anything not related to the course syllabus.  How can we profess to inspire life-long learning when nearly the whole of our emphasis is on the short-term acquisition of “core content”?

Students First

If we expect students to explore and understand our passions (i.e. our subject matter) they must first come to explore and understand theirs.  The relevance and  meaning that we strive to create/attach to our lessons cannot be fully appreciated by learners if they have never experienced them before in a truly personal context.  Intellectual empathy cannot be taught, it must be discovered.

Context –> Mastery

The knowledge and skills acquired in a passion-based learning experience are mastered more completely and thus can be more readily applied to new situations.  Research has clearly demonstrated that motivation influences learning, yet we consistently expect students to transfer concepts and processes that were “learned” in less than optimal settings.  Students don’t care if it will “be on the test” as much as whether they can actually use what they’ve learned in real life.

Expression Styles

Utilizing different learning styles can help students learn but they do not help them demonstrate what they know.  Essays and oral presentations are not the only measures of cognition.  The concept of Expression Styles, as described by Kettle, Renzulli and Rizza, provides students options for sharing knowledge in a format that best suits them.  What is the purpose of trying to “reach all learners” in terms of input but then limiting the methods by which we assess their understanding?

Thanks for Coming…

I’d like to extend a sincere thank you to everyone who attended the session in person today (what a fun and thoughtful group!) and hope that readers find these materials useful.  As always, please dive in and use whatever you like to your benefit; sharing it what it’s all about!

Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection, the basis for his seminal work On the Origin of Species, is an overarching theme in our seventh grade life science course.  As a year-end experience, our students complete “The Evolution Project“.  This multi-faceted, well scaffolded endeavor includes and combines scholarly research, public speaking, technology,  and differentiation into a truly meaningful and memorable learning experience.

Background and Task

To make the project easily accessible and the students’ progress highly transparent, the entire project structure is organized on The Evolution Project wiki. To begin, students are provided the following background and task:

Background: Up to this point in our short study of evolution, you have learned about evolution and how it happens through natural selection. Mutations in DNA and new combinations of DNA from sexual reproduction can lead to variation in the individuals in a species. This variation can be harmful or helpful. If helpful, the organism is left with an adaptation that makes it better suited to its environment, thus increasing its chances for survival against the natural pressures from predators, competition for living space and food, and changes in an organism’s environment.

Your Task: You will choose one of the options below as your final project for the evolution unit. All class time and homework time will be dedicated to completing this project. You will present your project, using PowerPoint, in front of the class, and it will be video recorded and streamed live over the internet for others (like your parents!) to see.

The task options, while focused on evolution, represent three levels of academic challenge.  This tiered approach to differentiation allows students to choose the option that best suits their abilities and aspirations.

Option 1: Humans are environmental scientists and conservationists who work to study organisms and the environment in which they live. These professionals try to prevent endangered species from becoming extinct. An endangered species is one that is on the verge of extinction. CHOOSE AN ENDANGERED SPECIES and research the following questions/topics. (“B+” level of difficulty)

1. Why did you choose to research this species?
2. Where does this species live and what survival pressures does it experience there?
3. Which variants within the species might be better adapted to survive the pressures? (This might not be in the research, so you might have to infer it for yourself)
4. How are environmental scientists and conservationists helping to save the species from extinction?
5. Service/action component: You do something to help in addition to researching this topic

Option 2. Humans are evolutionary biologists who study how species evolve (when and how they appear, change, or go extinct). They also study how different species are related. CHOOSE A LIVING OR EXTINCT SPECIES and research the following questions/topics. (“A-” level of difficulty)

1. Why did you choose to research this species?
2. When did this species appear in Earth’s history?
3. Describe the environment and adaptations that led to the selection of this species.
4. Describe the evolutionary history of this species: From what organisms did this species evolve? Who are some of its ancestors? (Use a clade or branching tree in presentation).
5. What evidence supports the common ancestry or relationships identified in #4?
6. If extinct, describe the environment/circumstances that led to its extinction. Which organism(s) came next? Or…
7. If still living, what’s next for this species?

Option 3. Humans are the most powerful organisms on Earth, and we are intentionally and unintentionally interfering with the selection of other species because of our behavior. Just one example is how we develop land for our own use, which can destroy the habitat for other species naturally found there (like with endangered Asian elephant). CHOOSE A HUMAN ACTIVITY and research the following questions/topics. (“A” level of difficulty)

1. Provide an overview of this human activity: Describe what your human activity is and why humans do it.
2. Identify some species whose selection is affected by this human activity. Complete the following for each example:
   • Name of species:
   • Location of human interference (if applicable):
   • How is this organism evolving because of this human activity? Or, if no change has been documented yet, predict how these organism(s) might evolve as a result.
   • What evidence shows that this organism is affected by this human activity? Look for data and statistics.
3. Why should we be concerned by the impact of this pressure? Why should we care?

To help students chose the best option, they are provided possible topics and resources, including a list of human activities that have the potential to drive natural selection:

• Land Development/Destruction
• Use of Antibiotics (antibiotic resistance)
• Use of Herbicides (herbicide resistance)
• Use of Pesticides (pesticide resistance)
• Over-Fishing (commercial)
• Hunting/Poaching
• Genetic Engineering
• Selective Breeding
• Pollution

Once they have selected a task option and specific topic, they begin the research process.

Research Wiki

Each student group is provided a wiki page that outlines the major components of the research process.  This approach provides several benefits, including the ability to better facilitate group work, see the contributions of each member, and allow the teacher to provide timely feedback via the Discussion tab.  Notice the formative feedback in the example shown below:

In addition to library resources, students are encouraged to locate relevant websites. Each site used, however, must be evaluated by the student using a simple Website Evaluation Form based on the The Big6 approach to research:
Website Evaluation

Visual Aid and Presentation

As a culminating activity and in lieu of writing a traditional research paper, students create an image-based PowerPoint (i.e. minimal text) and present their finding to the class.   The presentations are streamed live  and recorded via UStream.tv and parents are invited to watch at their convenience.  Students complete a peer evaluation for each  presentation and are required to view their own and fill out a self-evaluation form.  Sharing their work in this way helps develop their sense of audience, and the reflection that occurs as they critique themselves adds a valuable dimension to the experience.

Video streaming by Ustream
Making it Work in Your Classroom

The Evolution Project can easily be adapted to other disciplines and grade levels but there are a few points to consider:

• Provide Engaging Choices: In general, the research options engaged the students because they were timely and relevant.  Students will not invest themselves in something they cannot relate to or care about so the task must be meaningful.  Remember: not everyone enjoys your subject as much as you do.
• Leverage the Wiki:  Students appreciate the organization and collaboration benefits of using a wiki.  The Discussion tab can be a very powerful tool for monitoring progress and providing feedback, and the History tab provides insight into student contributions.  Collaboration does not mean divide and conquer; students must be taught how to work together even when they are apart.
• Visual Literacy is Important: A formal paper is not the only way to demonstrate knowledge.  The visual aids the students constructed required them to have at least a basic understanding of good design and visual literacy.  A picture can truly be worth a thousand words.
• Audience Matters: Streaming and recording the presentations raised the performance bar and helped the students appreciate the concept of audience.  Sharing beyond the classroom provides new opportunities for learning; you’ll be amazed how parents, colleagues, and even students will respond.

Last week I demonstrated how Wikispaces could improve student organization, make learning more transparency, and heighten teacher feedback within the study of Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird.  For the second entry in this series we’ll examine how MediaWiki can foster student collaboration, in and out of the classroom, in the context of Animal Farm.

Animal Farm

Animal Farm is “a dystopian allegorical novella by George Orwell.  Published in England on 17 August 1945, the book reflects events leading up to and during the Stalin era before World War II.”¹ Because World War II and the Cold War are major components of our 7th grade history curriculum, the students are grounded in the book’s setting.  To discover and understand Orwell’s commentary on revolution and corrupt leadership, however, the students were charged with teaching the novel to their peers.

Image Source: http://www.writeawriting.com

Because Animal Farm is the final book assigned in  7th grade English, the teaching exercise is a culminating event for the course.  Using a Discussion Group model that was employed throughout the year, students were broken into groups of 3-4 and assigned two chapters for which to create a lesson plan to teach to their class.  To ensure that all members of the group contributed and were held accountable, the assignment was carefully framed on the Animal Farm Project Wiki:

PROJECT GUIDELINES

Directions: Each group member will be responsible for 1-2 of the jobs listed below. The work must be evenly and fairly distributed. EVERYONE will be assessed on the “Lesson Plan.” ALL of your work should be loaded onto the wiki. Your grade will be based on your individual contributions on the wiki and during the discussion, but all the parts need to work like a single, fluid lesson plan. Please use the guidelines below to help you accomplish your tasks. This is the rubric on which I’ll grade your work.

Lesson Plan

Directions: Each group will have to write a formal Lesson Plan that identifies the goals for the lesson and the chronological plan for the class. You MUST publish a final copy on your group’s wiki page no later than the day before your discussion. For each part of your plan, include the approximate time you intend to spend. Check the schedule for the day of your discussion to be sure you have filled the time.

Discussion Questions

Directions: There are two components to this job. On the wiki, you will write a variety of factual (3-5), interpretive (3+), and evaluative (1-2) questions and their answers on the wiki. Write questions that will help your class better understand what happened in the novel and why. You might work with the Passage Finder to mix questions with important passages. Your answers should be based on specific details from the book. During class, you will be responsible to leading the discussion during class. As you lead, be sure that you develop the conversation, give students time to think, and draw everyone into the conversation.

Passage Finder

Directions: For this job, you should identify three important passages from the assigned chapters. You might choose these passages because they reveal character/plot development, irony, foreshadowing, interesting language, etc. During the discussion, be prepared to share these passages with the class. You might work with the discussion leader to see if you can choose quotes that lead to or answer a question. On the wiki, explain why you chose each quote in a paragraph. Why is this passage important for the lesson about these chapters?

Historian: Allusions in Animal Farm

Directions: Since Animal Farm is an allegory, its story is a mirror of many historical events that happened in Russia from the Revolution through the Cold War. Your job is to identify as many of these historical events as possible. Use what you’ve learned in history class or what you can find through research to help you identify these allusions. On the wiki, list the historical allusions in your chapters and explain briefly how the story in the book relates to the historical event in the chart provided. During the discussion, work with the passage finder and discussion leader to incorporate your findings into the conversation. If you find a great visual to go along with the historical event, you might use it as part of your “Wow!” factor.

Wow! Factor

Directions: What makes learning fun? What captures your attention, helps you remember an important idea, or makes a concept clearer? This is what we call the “Wow!” factor of a lesson. To save your lesson from being boring, create on Wow! moment. You have a lot of creative latitude with this. It might be a visual, song, comic, or movie clip. It might be a creative activity to involve everyone in the discussion or get the discussion started. It might even be a game. The key elements to the “Wow!” factor are 1. That it engages and impresses the class with its creativity, and 2. It is relevant to your chapters and works with your lesson plan. Be sure that you work with your Discussion Leader, Passage Finder, and Historian to complement their work.

Vocabulary

Directions: Find five words form the assigned chapters that you think would make good vocabulary words. On the wiki, define each word, provide the sentence from the novel that uses the word, and write an original sentence using each vocabulary word. Use the chart below to complete your work. During the discussion, point out each of the words. It would be great if the words were a part of a passage that will be highlighted during the class, though this is not a necessity.

Why a Wiki?

Group work and cooperative learning are not one in the same; for students to truly “cooperate” they need to collaborate.  Because this project spanned several days, involved work outside of class, and required that all group members were aware of all five tasks/roles, the project was organized using MediaWiki.  Unlike Wikispaces, MediaWiki (upon which Wikipedia is built) allows pages to be broken into separately editable sections.  For a lesson plan, having everything flow on one page is preferable to clicking through multiple links for each sub-set of the lesson (the template for the wiki page is available here).  Additionally, group members were able to work on their specific assignments (synchronously or asynchronously) yet easily see the progress of their peers.

Editing in MediaWiki does require a basic knowledge of wiki syntax and is a bit more involved than GUI tools like Wikispaces or PBworks.  Because this exercise is predominately text-driven, however, the learning curve is gentle and given some guidance, students will quickly master the essential elements of the tool.

Presentation and Assessment

As a culminating activity, each group presented their lesson to the class and was assessed using the following rubric:

Animal Farm Rubric

Evaluating collaborative projects can be difficult, especially if students have uneven abilities or levels of participation.  For that reason, every student was given a group and individual grade.   Because the lesson plan was a cooperative learning endeavor, everyone in the group received the same grade for the lesson’s overall design and execution (i.e. they were assessed as a team).  Each student was then individually assessed on his/her area of responsibility on the wiki (i.e. they were assessed on their own merits).  This two-pronged approach goes a long way toward fostering a true collaborative mentality and the idea that the whole is only as strong as the sum of its parts.

Just as the To Kill a Mockingbird project is easily adapted to other works, so too is our approach to Animal Farm.  If you would like to modify our efforts to meet your needs, I would invite you to visit the  Animal Farm wiki and explore wiki-fueled collaboration.

One of the major purposes of Technology in the Middle is to share examples of technology’s role in teaching and learning.  Consequently, to mark my return to the online world I’ve decided to begin a short, three part series featuring wikis in the classroom.  Although wikis are familiar to many, their  flexibility allows them to be used in new and creative ways.  I hope you find the first of these curricular vignettes useful and motivating.

To Kill a Mockingbird

Harper Lee’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, is a staple of our 8th grade English curriculum.  In an effort to breathe new life into teaching this classic of modern American literature, our English team designed a character study using Wikispaces and the concept of expression styles.  The goal of this project was to provide students an opportunity to “step inside the skin” of a character other than Scout in the novel.  We wanted them to imagine themselves as their character of choice  in a particular situation that moved them and was especially effective at revealing inner conflict or motivation.

To ensure that students went beyond merely reporting the information given in the novel, the exercise was guided by three essential questions:

• Why did you focus on the particular character? What was your personal connection?
• How does your project inform us about any of these key themes: prejudice, ignorance, fear, meanness, tradition/history (a reluctance to change from the way things are), dignity, pride, selflessness, justice, empathy, hope, love, or courage?
• How did your understanding change or grow as you worked on the project?

In addition, students were to use these questions to move them to deeper understanding:

• Does the historical setting affect your understanding?
• Which character traits stay the same and which change?
• What is the evidence from the text that supports your idea?

Although writing is integral to any English curriculum, it is not the only way to demonstrate understanding.  To that end, students were given the option of crafting a final product using one of three expression styles: music, visual arts, and written language.  Because technology can support all three forms of expression, students were also given digital options for each product.

Music

Approximately 5% of our students choose to express themselves musically.  In addition to singing or playing an instrument, there are a number of technologies that support musical expression:

• Aviary Roc: Create music and beats completely from scratch and right in a web browser.
• Audacity: Free audio recording and editing software.
• GarageBand: Compose music on your Mac.
• Mixcraft Multi-track recording studio with free trial.
• TrakAxPC: Create music and video mixes on your PC.
• WolframTones: Combines Wolfram’s computational universe, music theory and Mathematica algorithms to render music.

Sample Project: Dying in the Dark

[There is a video that cannot be displayed in this feed. Visit the blog entry to see the video.]

Visual Art

Approximately 45% of our students opted for the arts.  In addition to the traditional plastic arts, there are a number of technologies that support artistic expression:

• Adobe Premiere: Video editing software similar to iMovie.
• ArtRage Draw and paint using your stylus as a brush.
• Glogster Interactive posters made from images, text, music and video.
• Pencil Create traditional hand-drawn animation (cartoon) using both bitmap and vector graphics
• Photoshop Elements Powerful image editing software that integrates with Adobe Premiere.
• Prezi Create zooming presentations live and on the web.
• Storybird Storybirds are short, visual stories that you make to share.

Sample Project: Raymond’s Mask

Written Language

Approximately 50% of our students elected to create a written final product.  For this project, students had the option of writing poetry, a short story, or a one-act play. In addition to word processing, there are a number of other technologies that support written expression:

• Blogs A blog is a type of website with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video.
• Publisher Create, personalize, and share a range of professional-quality publications.
• Myebook Online book creator that lets you design, publish, and share your work.
• ReadWriteThink Printing Press Create a brochure, booklet, or newspaper online.
• Wikispaces: Wikis are simple web pages that groups, friends, and families can edit together.

Sample Project: Boo Radley: Behind the Glass

That little Scout so young so sweet
So innocent prancing across the street
The things she goes through while she’s young
The ignorant talk from a person’s tongue
She can’t pick what her papa does
Only understand what was

She wants to play and be a kid
Oh how I wish I did what she did
Living her life without any fear
Only showing courage
I wish I were able to get out of here
Behind this window I hide my face
From the sunlight and the space

I try to be friendly by leaving little gifts
But in the end people just throw fits
They all have this idea
Of me as a killer
When I did nothing
Making my life like a story book thriller

Words don’t just hurt a person’s soul
Then leave you behind windows
Not wanting to go out for a stroll

My papa has this idea
Of a perfect kind of man
Well I’m sorry I’m not perfect
So to make you happy I ran

Everyone makes mistakes
Too bad mine are bigger than most
Now my reputation has left me washed up on the coast
I am swimming through my regrets
Drowning me in sorrows I wish I could forget
I’m stuck like the glue holding my rickety old chair together
I don’t want to be sitting here forever

People don’t understand
There is nothing to be scared of
I just wish I could be as strong as Scout
And take away all the doubt
I want to be able to break out from behind this glass
Feel free and alive
Facing the world at full blast

Why a Wiki?

Three teachers managing nearly 150 unique projects can be an overwhelming task, so the team created a To Kill a Mockingbird Wiki to frame the learning experience.  Each student was given his/her own page for sharing their work, including a digital representation of the final product.  Because wikis are typically viewed as collaborative tools, however, and this was an individual project, one may question why we elected to use a wiki.  The short answer: organization, transparency, and feedback.

Organization is an issue for many (perhaps most) middle school students, particularly with respect to long-term assignments.  By having an online template of the project guidelines, essential questions and deadlines, there were no materials to misplace or important elements to overlook.  Students, parents, tutors, and teachers were all able to reference the project at any and every point in the process.

With a web-based tool, students could work on the exercise from any computer with Internet access, and being able to easily monitor their progress made the learning experience more transparent.  Their reflections and revisions, all of which could be monitored by their teacher, provided a window into their thinking and reinforced our belief that process is just as important as product.

The wiki’s Discussion Tab provided an ideal place to provide  formative feedback and help students make course corrections as necessary.  Students crave feedback and such an approach is far superior to the all-too-familiar “assign it now, grade it later” model of assessment.  Collectively, these benefits extended the learning beyond the classroom (and the school day itself) and ultimately led to more meaningful work.

Presentation and Assessment

As a culminating activity, each student presented his/her project to the class and was assessed using the following rubric:
TKAM Rubric
Creating one rubric to assess a wide variety of final products did present some challenges; it can be difficult to evaluate music, art, and verse by the same criteria.  By focusing on the essential questions, oral presentation, and effectiveness of the  final product, however, we were able to construct a set of criteria that could be applied to all students.

Although this project was specifically designed for To Kill a Mockingbird, is could easily be applied to any number of novels.  If you would like to adapt our efforts to meet your needs, I would invite you to visit the To Kill a Mockingbird Wiki and discover first-hand how a simple wiki and student choice can facilitate creative, higher-order thinking.

Google Reading Levels

Google offers far more search features than most users realize, and their latest option adds the ability to limit search results to a specific reading level.  Granted, results can only be grouped as basic, intermediate, or advanced, but even this rudimentary classification scheme can eliminate texts that are too complex or simplistic.

To limit your search results to a specific reading level, follow these steps:

1. On the search results page, click Advanced Search below the search box.
2. Next to “Reading level” within the “Need more tools” section, select your desired reading level (basic, intermediate, or advanced) or choose to show all results annotated with reading levels.
3. Click Advanced search at the bottom of the page.
4. At any time, you can click the X in the right corner of the blue bar beneath the search box to go back to seeing all results.

Link to a YouTube Timestamp

The ability to link to a specific point in a YouTube video is not a new feature.  However, now instead of having to manually append the URL with #t=time, just right-click the video and select “Copy video URL at current time.”  For example, here we see the precise moment Clark W. Griswold receive his long-awaited Christmas bonus:

Although sites like TubeChop can perform similar functions (and can even generate embed code for the portion of the video you wish to use), they do require (1) an extra step and (2) that you watch the video on their site.  For quick access to a particular time in a clip, it’s hard to beat the YouTube Timestamp.

Prezi Color Wizard

PowerPoint may still reign supreme, but Prezi is rapidly finding its place as an engaging presentation tool.  The Color Wizard allows users to customize themes and font choices.  Paying users can add logos and drag and drop files to the Prezi Desktop.  Even the free version, though, is sure to spark creativity and, like the Jelly of the Month, is a gift that keeps on giving.  Enjoy!

[There is a video that cannot be displayed in this feed. Visit the blog entry to see the video.]

Now that Digital Literacy 2010 has drawn to a close, it’s time to look back on the teaching-learning process that brought us to this point. For each topic in the course, I have included (1) a link to an earlier post with more detailed information and (2) some general reflections/suggestions for improvement. Whether you are new to this space or have followed this series over the last 10 weeks, I appreciate your readership and hope you can apply some of the lessons learned here to your students.

Session 1: Passion-Based Learning The Digital Literacy course, which meets once every six days for a total of nine sessions, was originally conceived three years ago in response to the advent of our 1:1 Tablet PC initiative. For the first two years of the program, I taught what we as a middle school perceived to be essential technology skills. This year, in an effort to provide more coherence to the curriculum, I elected to incorporate a research project focused on Passion-Based Learning. Much has been written on the subject, but drawing on the work of John Seely Brown, Konrad Glogowski, Will Richardson, Lisa Nielsen and others, I’ve come to understand P-BL as an experience that empowers students to Discover and Consume, Communicate and Connect, and Create and Produce based on their deep-seated interests. In our setting, every student was exposed to the same set of indispensable skills, but applied them to the unique content of their choosing.

Helping adolescents discover their passion can be a difficult task. Some of my students, even after completing an Interest-A-Lyzer and reflecting extensively on the results, could not identify anything in their lives that inspired true passion; they have no idea what they like to do or what they do best. What greater purpose could we serve than helping students uncover their latent interests and abilities?

This talk on talent, passion, and achievement from Sir Ken Robinson provides an entertaining and inspiring look at why it is so important for all of us to discover the point where natural talent meets personal passion:

[There is a video that cannot be displayed in this feed. Visit the blog entry to see the video.]

Session 2: Social Networking

One of the outcomes for this course was for students to understand that learning can be informal, social, and networked. According to Pew Internet, 65% of teens 12-17 use online social networks as of February 2008, up from 58% in 2007 and 55% in 2006, and this upward trend is likely to continue. To help students experience the academic aspects of networking firsthand, I created the Digital Literacy Learning Network (DLLN). Powered by Schoology, the DLLN is a private community that provides (1) a space for student resources and learning activities and (2) an interface for exploring social networking.

The students’ first exercise within the DLLN was to create their online profile. Contrary to popular belief, the majority of today’s youth have a solid understanding of what personal information should, and should not, be shared. Although our walled-garden prevented anything inappropriate or confidential from being publicly displayed, it’s important for adolescents to develop good habits early so they are accustomed to being cautious when interacting in wide open networks. As one of the students observed, “What happens in the DLLN stays in the DLLN. If we do something something stupid here, nobody else will know. If we do something stupid on Facebook, everyone will know.” Smart kid.

Session 3: Social Bookmarking

In a 1:1 environment where computers are routinely reimaged, saving bookmarks locally just isn’t a viable option. While this would be reason enough to avoid “favoriting” sites, the social and organizational aspects of web-based bookmarks should not be overlooked. Folksonomies allow users to collectively classify and find information, and in an age of information abundance, are invaluable. Although many of our students have not yet come to fully appreciate the power of tags, they will as their use of and dependence upon the Internet grows.

To date, Delicious has been our tool of choice, but recent changes in their Terms of Service (they now require users to be 13 and register for a Yahoo! account) have given us cause to explore other options. Diigo for Education looks promising, and allows management capabilities, restricted access, and automatically connects learners in the same network; all positives for working with a middle school population.

Session 4: Effective Search Strategies

As I’ve said on many occasions, of all the topics in our 7th grade Digital Literacy course, Effective Search Strategies is easily the most relevant to daily life; everyone searches the Internet. Unfortunately, most students do not search well and left to their own devices, will not become proficient. Resources such as the 21st Century Information Fluency Project, Internet Search Challenge Blog, and Boolify provide structured, intentional practice with corrective feedback.

There is no one “best” search engine for students, but we’ve focused our efforts on developing fluency with Google because (1) it is arguably the best general purpose engine available and (2) most skills can be applied to other search tools.  Simple strategies, such as performing an Advanced Search, can greatly improve query efficiency.  The Wonder Wheel, which places your keyword in the center of a concept map and related terms around it, helps address the content-specific vocabulary that most students lack.  In the recently published Teaching the iGeneration, Bill Ferriter explains the Wonder Wheel in detail and shares tips for using it with students.  This reproducible worksheet from the book, courtesy of Solution Tree, is an excellent introductory activity for the classroom.

Image Source: technobuzz.net

In previous years I’ve devoted at least two class periods to search strategies; this year I only budgeted time enough for one and it was not adequate.  Thankfully, several of my colleagues are reinforcing the effective use of Google in their courses.  With persistent and consistent effort, students can become search experts.

Session 5: Website Evaluation

The cliché  “you can’t believe everything you read”  has never been more true; much of the information on the Internet is less than trustworthy.  And lest one believe this problem only applies to sites like Wikipedia or doesn’t affect well educated adults, consider the 2008 news story, which, based on a misdated source, caused United Airlines stock to plummet and cost investors millions.  Even the Bloomberg News Service gets fooled sometimes.

To guide our students, we utilize elements of New Mexico State University’s Evaluation Criteria as outlined by Susan Beck and adapted into this Website Evaluation Form:

• Authority: Is the author(s) of the site identified and qualified?
• Accuracy: Is the factual information correct and are the sources cited?
• Objectivity: Is the site free from bias or does it try to sway your opinion?
• Currency: Is the content up to date and do all the links work?
• Coverage: Is the information useful, detailed, and in depth?

Though far from foolproof, using a common set of criteria, and requiring students to evaluate each and every source they wish to use, does promote being a critical consumer.  Much like effective searching, website evaluation may take years to master but is vital for navigating our information-rich world.

Session 6: Copyright and Fair Use

If the “everything you read” adage had a corollary, it would surely be “not everything on the Internet is free for the taking.”  Of all the topics that comprise our curriculum, the intricacies of copyright, fair use, Creative Commons, and the public domain are among the most challenging for students (and teachers) to grasp.  Copyright law is complex, fair use guidelines are fluid, and what educators deem “fair” varies widely throughout the profession.   Shortly after teaching this lesson using the familiar “10% or 30 seconds” approach, I attended a workshop with Joyce Valenza who, as always, inspired and challenged my thinking.  Regardless of how liberal or conservative one may be with the use of media, it’s vital that we view students as content creators and make every effort to understand, model, and teach the proper use of creative works.

On a practical level, this means we should (1) require that students cite any creative work they use and (2) employ the Center for Social Media’s Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Media Literacy Education, which represents the education community’s current consensus about acceptable practices for the fair use of copyrighted materials.

Session 7: Networked Learning

With ~150 students in 10 sections working on specific (although frequently overlapping) topics, there was no possible way for me, as their teacher, to serve as a content-area expert.  Thankfully, our Digital Literacy Learning Network included a “groups” feature for connecting members and leveraging the idea of networked learning that we first explored at the beginning of the year.  Learning groups (similar to online study groups) were created for each research topic, and the students encouraged to join the group(s) related to their passion.  Members could post links, status updates, and share files and ideas with other students in the group.

Unfortunately, of all our endeavors this trimester, the learning groups were, in general, the least successful.  Most had minimal activity and for the few that did spark online conversations, much of the banter was of limited value.  In hindsight, time may have been a contributing factor; our students lead full lives and an optional activity such as this may not have sufficiently enticed them.  In addition, the notion of learning being informal, social, and networked is relatively new for them; these concepts are not typically valued or reinforced in most schools.  That said, this is definitely an area for future growth and will require the support of my colleagues.   Students need, in the words of Will Richardson,  “The ability to create, grow and navigate personal learning networks in safe, ethical, and effective ways” and we have to provide them with opportunities to make that happen.

Session 8: Differentiating via Student Expression Styles

In addition to letting the students base their research topic on their passion, I wanted them to be able to choose the form of their final product.  Because this is Digital Literacy, they needed to use some form of technology with the stipulation that PowerPoint was off limits.  To help them identify a suitable approach, I employed the concept of expression styles.  Unlike learning styles, which focus on how students acquire and process information, expression styles reflect the types of products students prefer to create to demonstrate their understanding.   The My Way…An Expression Style Instrument, developed by Karen Kettle, Joseph Renzulli, and Mary Rizza, identifies 10 broad categories of products/forms of expression:

• Written
• Oral
• Artistic
• Computer
• Audio/Visual
• Commercial
• Service
• Dramatization
• Manipulative
• Musical

After completing the questionnaire, students were presented a list of technology options relevant to each expression style.   In reviewing the final distribution for the class, it was interesting to note that nearly 70% of the students fell into one of three preferred styles: computer, audio/visual, and artistic.  The noted absence of writing stirred quite a discussion among our English faculty, but I hope it will also generate conversation about the types of assessments we use in all disciplines.

If the DLLN groups were our weakest link, the expression style preferences were definitely the strongest.  We now have a window into every seventh grade student, and I daresay this approach to differentiation has opened a door for rethinking (or at the very least expanding our view of) assessment.  I highly recommend using the My Way instrument with your students; it could be the best 20 minutes you spend this year.

Session 9: Final Projects

Grading nearly 150 final projects, covering scores of unique topics, created with dozens of unique tools, made for a busy week.  However, the process was greatly aided by using a common scoring rubic. While some projects demonstrated more care than others, all were worthy of a passing grade for this pass/fail course.  The real motivation, though, was not to earn a “P” on the report card but rather to create something of which to be proud.  Below is a but one example; others are available here.

Expression Style: Computer
Passion: Reading
Technology Tool: Alice

[There is a video that cannot be displayed in this feed. Visit the blog entry to see the video.]

Over the next few months, each student will have an opportunity to share his/her creation in advisory and in doing so, an important piece of themselves.  I can think of no better way to capstone what I hope has been a valuable and memorable learning experience for the Class of 2016.