Parents No Comments »
| Final Paper |
| Analysis and Action Plan |
| 1/14/2011 |
TCNJ
Technology Trends
I. School and Technology Tools
I work at New Generation International Schools in Cairo. I have been working there as middle school language arts teacher for four years. Although the school has a huge premises and a lot of facilities in regards of buildings, classrooms, and resources; it has not yet entered the world of blogging.
Our classrooms have no computers or smart boards. If we want to play a video or use power point presentations, we have to use data shows, which are not always available at all times. We have around 72 computers in our school, some of them belong to the admin team and the rest are available at school computer labs. We have two computer labs: one for elementary and another for middle and high school. Students use computer labs during computer classes, and if a teacher wants his/her students to use the lab for a project or an activity, she/he has to check for lab availability. Computers, which are used in our school, are either Dell or HP and they are not on a replacement cycle; since most of them are considered new. (4 years old). PCs are either XP or Windows7.
Teachers can use computers which are found in their school lounge; which is not such a good idea; as there are only four PCs available at teachers’ disposal and our school faculty consists of 72 teachers!!!!!
Since teachers are not assigned their own computers and don’t have any in their classrooms, each teacher brings her/his laptop to class and uses it for presentations, activities, and applications.
The school network is wireless. We have good internet access, which is usually strong if the sever is working and running. Sometimes the signal is too weak and the internet connection is too slow, but I guess that is the case everywhere. There are three different connections, one for each floor, and are protected by a password.
Computer teachers provide IT support whenever they are free to do it. However, there is no time for any workshops on technological instructions or methods of applying them in class. Teachers tend to develop their technological skills on their own or in most cases by providing peer support for each other.
Our school has a website which provides students and parents with information about the school. Each teacher also has a user name and password to log in, post messages, or send assignments. Unfortunately, it is not that user friendly and a bit complicated to use. That is why students created email accounts for their classes and this is how they communicate with their teachers and peers. I regularly use class emails to send assignments and attach worksheets and handouts. I sometimes attach power point presentations to be at students’ disposal. But the major problem we face is that sometimes some students tend to delete documents and attachments. So, I think that blogging is the best solution for that problem and I intend to create my classroom blog from now on.
So far, technology in my classroom has been restricted to downloading movies from U tube, preparing power point presentations, using some educational games like jeopardy and crossword puzzles. We also created group walls on Face book as a social network, where students got to reflect on group and peer presentations. Face book has served that purpose so far. I have always wanted to use comic strips and other technology tools but never found user friendly ones except when I was introduced to web 2.0 tools.
II. Action Plan
After being introduced to web2.0 tools and learning about their different types and applications, I believe that they will have positive affective-motivational effects on students’ learning and comprehension of different skills and abilities. The power of technology tools lies in transforming abstract and static concepts into more concrete, vivid, and lively activities. Thus, they actually serve different needs, abilities, and learning styles. I chose the following tools to apply in my classroom:
- a. Digital Animation:
I have always tried to introduce plot stages to students using pictures. Recently, I have begun using downloadable movie clips to serve the same purpose. However, static pictures were not always the perfect tools for students to visualize and describe the impact of a story’s different plot stages on the course of events and characters’ development. Moreover, finding a movie clip that exactly matches lesson objective did not always exist, and in some cases very hard to find.
By using digital animation, I can manage the setting, characters, and events that help achieve lesson objectives. In addition, digital animation will provide a wide variety of visual and sound effects which can facilitate students’ comprehension and allow them to identify, infer, analyze, as well as, critique plot stages. It will also guide them through the process of identifying foreshadowing elements and predict events based on evidence from the movie. Later on, students will be able to write the rest of the story and create the rest of the events.
Lesson 1: Plot Stages:
- Learning objectives: Students will be able to identify the setting of a story and analyze its effect on different plot stages. Students will also be able to predict events based on foreshadowing clues.
- After that ,they will write the rest of the events and create digital animation for them
- Lesson objectives are all standard-based
- Tools: Computer /Data show/Website: www. goanimate.com/Prediction charts
Students will be divided into mixed ability groups and then watch the movie clip to answer questions about the plot stages. Students will be prompted to pay attention to the different visual and sound effects in order to determine the impact of the setting on the mood and characters. Students will then be asked to predict what will happen in the story (rising actions/climax/resolution) giving evidence from the movie clip that foreshadows their predictions. At the end, groups will write the rest of the story and create events based on their predictions using digital animation. (Instructions and images will be provided on the blog).Since almost all students own lap tops, they will go home and watch website tutorial, create their accounts, think of events, and then share within their groups to choose the best animation that support predictions and clues.
go animate.com
Activity Questions:
Q: What is the setting of this story?
Q: Describe the mood of the story (ominous-suspenseful-cheerful-sad)
Q: Describe the main characters
Q: Did the setting help you to predict and foreshadow the basic situation in the story? Give evidence from the clip
Q: Based on your predictions, predict the rest of the plot stages.
- Concept maps and Visual Representations
Most students have trouble when it comes to writing. They either do not know what to write or do not know how to organize their thoughts. This is why we use prewriting tools to help students brainstorm and outline their ideas in an organized and sequential order. It was proved that using higher organizers, such as concept maps, can improve students’ higher order thinking skills, as they prompt students to think, relate ideas to each other, and then organize them in sequential and analytic order,
I usually give students graphic organizers handouts to brainstorm before a writing activity. I also have them draw cluster diagrams or organizational charts which can help them to organize their thoughts and put them in to coherent paragraphs that consist of main ideas and supporting details. However, sometimes students fail to fill out certain graphic organizers either because they are not easy enough for them or they are just not appealing to their learning styles. Some other times, students’ drawings of web or cluster diagrams turn out to be a complete disaster, and instead of organizing their thoughts, they become more confused and distorted. That is why I already introduced my students to webspiration.com. I demonstrated and modeled how to use it .Students liked it so much, especially the coloring codes, which could color each diagram according to its function or type.
I will use digital concept mapping as a pre-writing tool to help students while brainstorming. I will also show them the outlines and print them to be at their use. Students will create their own concept maps, based on their different skills and styles
Lesson 2: Descriptive Writing
- Objectives: Students will be able to create their own mental maps and well constructed descriptive essay outlines using visual maps.
- Tools: Data show/website:www.webspiration.com/laptops
- Activity: I will present the topic of the essay in the center of a web diagram. I will use WH questions to help students generate ideas. Using webspiration.com, I will elicit examples from students and add topic sentences and supporting details for body paragraphs. After that I will add color codes to high light topics for different paragraphs: green is for titles, blue for topic sentences, and baby blue for supporting details. The next step will be showing students essay outline using doc button. Finally, I will go over the whole process of creating mental maps using web spiration website. Students will then practice creating their own mental maps and I will be monitoring their performance and progress. Students’ homework will be preparing descriptive outlines and mental maps for topics of their own choices.
- Research Skills: Google Search Engine/Wonder Wheel/Timeline
Teaching students how to surf the web and get correct information from trusted sites have been one of my major obstacles. No matter how much I tried to forbid them from using Wikipedia, somehow some students managed to use it without caring much whether or not the information was correct. Below average students have always found difficulty extracting information on their own and ended up copying and pasting information without even knowing what they were looking for. To sum it up, I have always felt that I was not good at teaching students proper research skills! But after learning about Google search tools, I think that they will help me to guide students and direct them properly with research.
- Lesson 3: Gender Discrimination
While working on my internship portfolio, I had to prepare a lesson that have students relate to other disciplines, and at the same time, tackle a problem in their community. They also had to think of ways to solve it .I chose to base my unit objectives on having students research about different types of discrimination in Egypt and any other countries in Europe and Asia. My lesson plan was based on discussing different types of facts that can clarify the concept of the problem for my students in order to think of ways to solve them. Ever since I prepared that lesson, I have been trying to think of the best ways in order to improve students’ research skills and achieve lesson objectives. That is why I will prepare this lesson based on using Google search to find trusted sites for students’ researches. I will start my lesson using a utube video clip which can help students with the concept introduced. At the end, I will also have students use Google timeline evaluate whether the problem is still, increasing, or decreasing inside their community compared to other countries within the last ten years.
- Bibliography Maker
It took us hours in the past to do standard bibliographies for papers, but since it is an essential step to cite resources, then it is an important topic for students to learn. However, students do not have to learn how to do it manually, thanks to modern technology. Students can use web 2.0 bibliography makers to prepare their APA or MLA formats. This is the last tool I will apply.
Lesson 4:bibme.com
- Objective: Have students site their researches and learn the importance of avoiding plagiarism
- Practice: While preparing their projects about discrimination, I will have students keep track of all web addresses that they visit.
- After that, I will have them try making their bibliographies at home and then discuss them the following day. We will get the opportunity to discuss and practice different features of the web tool
- Finally, we will discuss why it is important to use standard bibliography and where they should be on a final paper or project.
All four tools can actually improve students’ different skills and facilitate their learning. What I would like to work on is creating class blogs; I believe that they help us communicate, learn and have fun as well.
