Shared Lesson II

My main goal when searching for a resource that could be applied to the second shared lesson was to locate something that could be related to both special education, which I just finished teaching, and language arts, my specialty. Many lesson plans are so specific that it would take much effort to modify them enough so that they could be applicable to such differing domains. The article "Virtual Technology: Bringing the World into the Special Education Classroom," offers some really intriguing possibilities for both the special ed classroom and the English realm.

The authors, Therese M. Smedley and Kyle Higgins, suggest employing technology in order to create such activities as simulations and virtual field trips. I really liked the idea of the virtual field trip, which can be utilized as both an advance organizer and a stand-alone lesson. The most interesting possibility would be engaging advanced students, such as college-prep juniors and seniors, in a lesson that takes them to places that they would otherwise be unable to go, such as the distant setting of a novel or the environment of the author as he/she created a work. One idea that I had pretty immediately was the notion of supplementing James Joyce's Dubliners (1914) with a virtual field trip to the various cityscapes of each of the work's fifteen short stories. There is certainly an abundance of information, photography, and video available on the web that could reflect the Irish landscape, as well as the moods of the characters during the period. This sort of exposure and imagery is otherwise unavailable, short of a very expensive physical field trip. I can easily imagine students developing a greater interest and appreciation for the book when offered such an involving task.

The virtual field trip is a class activity that could easily be applied to many age groups, from elementary classes to college courses, as well as many achievement levels, which seems to be its most valuable asset (an impending trip to the zoo could be anticipated with a virtual field trip to the African jungle, or the zoo itself). This is an exercise that has a lot of potential and flexibility, and one that increases the odds that meaningful learning ensues.


Applicable standards (NETS-T):

IB. Demonstrate continual growth in technology knowledge and skills to stay abreast of current and emerging technologies.

IIA. Design developmentally appropriate learning opportunities that apply technology-enhanced instructional strategies to support the diverse needs of learners.

IIIC. Apply technology to develop students' higher order skills and creativity.

Learning by Design

The "learning by design" model described by Koehler and Mishra is clearly an advancement of the typical methods undertaken by teachers and pre-service teachers in professional development exercises. While we have often been influenced to merely learn the basics of technology, and resigned to the constraint therein, the learning by design approach dictates that a more profound and beneficial process results. Facets of this technique, such as collaboration, problem-solving, and intensive involvement, offer teachers and prospective teachers the opportunity to not only learn how to effectively integrate technology, but also how to pass on such skills to their students, which is obviously vital.

Admittedly, many of my own classroom experiences have been hampered by a relative deficiency in technological skills, which has prevented me from being able to fully explore the advantages of classroom integration. I am improving, however, and many of the issues from the article parallel the trial-and-error qualities of creating my home page, which is still a bit of a sad work in progress. Although the dominant role of collaboration has been lacking in this activity, constructing the home page has forced me to learn many skills from scratch, slowly, rather than merely being reliant on lecture notes or textbook nonsense. This is representative of a design problem from the article, "Designing is a Holistic Skill," and it has certainly been useful to experience the process firsthand. I know that this will be highly productive in my classroom, as I now will be a much more confident guide for my students when they are faced with similarly challenging tasks. This is the most important aspect of the learning by design approach: developing an experiential understanding of the obstacles that they will certainly encounter and the frustration produced by them, as well as being much more adept at scaffolding their efforts throughout difficult lessons. Good news for me...and for them.

Small group without the small group

In "Examining Literate Lives as Students Engage with Multiple Literacies," Tierney, Bond, and Bresler further our discussion of educational technology, and offer relevant points of view related to both the benefits of integration and the obstacles preventing it. For me, the most intriguing elements of their article are the student excerpts, and the manners by which students responded to new forms of communication and collaboration. Although group projects take many forms, I was drawn to the flexibility and range afforded by engaging in multiple literacies within the small group framework. Yet I was reminded of the difficulty in maximizing such potential within a language arts curriculum, and consequently sought an article offering examples of the utilization of technology as a catalyst for writing instruction. In Making Thinking Visible: Writing in the Center, Mary Nicolini describes the writing-as-thinking focus of Penn High School (Mishawaka, IN), and outlines several manners by which technology can facilitate learning.

Nicolini writes that "the best use of technology to teach writing is that of a "nudge." The obvious implication is that pushing students toward discovery, as opposed to the "production of essays," enables students to learn how to think, as well. Speaking as a classroom teacher, the hard part always seems to be coming up with ways to inspire students to look beyond what they "know" of reading and writing- that it is boring and unnecessarily time-consuming, and they'd rather be sending text messages to their friends. In a way, my favorite example from the article offers the best of both worlds. This process involves the formation of literature circles, with a writing-center chat room serving as the "small group" of collaborative learning. Students adhered to groups which had been initiated in the traditional classroom, but in this case a "moderator" led the discussion by writing as opposed to speaking, and the "connector" and "summarizer" followed suit. This reminded me of the Tierney article, and the range of roles evident within the context of multiple literacies, and seems to be the most significant educational advantage of technological integration. Whether it be through a frequency of communication or the variety of responsibilities, such learner-centered and collaborative tasks not only improve achievement, but also motivate students to stay involved. In this case the chat rooms model text-messaging, and offer students a domain that they are accustomed to. In addition to Daedalus, the chat program, Nicolini also cites Inspiration, a graphic organizer, and PowerPoint as tools that can be employed in a technology-supported curriculum. The "nudge" characteristic (as applied to tech-based learning) is certainly at work here, and one which teachers should focus on in order to truly move beyond the "show-and-tell" quality that we have previously discussed. It is important to be able to supply students with skills relative to the modern world (without overwhelming them), and both this piece and the Tierney article offer positive methods for doing so.

Twain on a Time Line

There is no question, from my experience, that spreadsheet technology within the classroom is most often utilized for "show and tell" purposes, when employed at all. The most personally relevant reason for this is an apparent difficulty in transferring the format to the language arts domain. There are not many useful examples of applicable lessons floating around, and most of the ones that I encountered deal specifically with skills such as spelling and vocabulary, which seem limited in their flexibility. Spreadsheets could certainly benefit students in verbal development, but as far as knowledge generation...remains to be seen. Presenting an unusual format for word recognition and vocabulary practice would provide a means for motivation, but the finite options for such tasks could also be achieved by other means.

I did locate one intriguing lesson plan that combines several disciplines and culminates with a pretty involved writing assignment. I would utilize it as a bit of a research assignment, which would require exposure to either a group of related (or unrelated) authors, or even the collection of writings of a specific author. The students would transfer the data to a spreadsheet, and would then create what is referred to as a Bio-graph, which could offer a meaningful representation of a genre of literature, the life and work of one author, related time lines, etc. The possibilities for such an assignment are exciting and much more varying than the spelling or vocab tasks, and they could be introduced pretty easily to several grade levels/achievement levels. The plan in its original form directs students to interview each other, but I would be more apt to include it with the study of literary periods or specific authors. One benefit of such an approach is that the spreadsheet format could be learned at the beginning of the year, with multiple uses parallelling multiple units. This seems to be a unique approach that incorporates technology appropriately, and it is probably more productive than assigning a chapter outline. Exciting!

Lesson at: http://www.readwritethink.org/lessons/lesson_view.asp?id=1021

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Currently I am filling in for the LD teacher at my school, so integrating technology into the classroom is sometimes difficult, but often interesting. I think that students with special needs usually appreciate the change of pace a bit more than traditional students, and are inspired to demonstrate that they, too, are technologically savvy. We have three desktops in our room, which seems like an inadequate amount, but in our small group setting it works. Most of what I have had students do involves simple fact-checking related to class discussions/assignments- although most of them are quite adept at related tasks, sometimes the temptations of games and surfing are too strong. Because they require such a high degree of individual support, and because I have but 2-3 periods per day with most of them, much of our tech use is contingent upon what their other teachers have assigned them.

I'm sure many teachers can echo the sentiment that a limited district budget prevents our system from truly taking advantage of all that technology can offer us, but I believe my school does a really good job of providing professional development opportunities related to tech-learning. Teachers have various workshop opportunities, and many inservices are directly related to further development of relevant skills. One area I would like to see us improve upon is in assessment. We have a brand new school with many modern benefits (increased # of computers, labs, etc.), but we might lack a universal focus of what we should do with all of it. I would be interested to know what the rate of use is in this school compared to the last, which had very limited capabilities. Obviously you can't really tell teachers to use the media center ten times a semester or else, and I think many of the faculty are somewhat reluctant to alter past practices, which is understandable. The average age of our faculty is relatively high, and old habits die hard, I guess.

Hello all- welcome to my first blogging experience! Hopefully you will find some form of inspiration, be it thought, humor, or outrage. Thanks for stopping by...