Where in the World is...

Just a short note to my friends...

I'm in the midst of a six-month hiatus and will return before the end of August. I will be back with more ideas for using technology to help our students learn!

Jo

Classroom Management and Project-Based Learning

A very useful article about classroom project management at Edutopia.org led me to an exciting fourth-grade web site. Terry Smith is the teacher of a class at Eugene Field Elementary in Hannibal, Missouri USA.

The classroom management article is well worth reading. The focus is on how you manage all the activity of both the students and you, the teacher, using techniques from industry, so that you can accomplish your goals. The techniques discussed do work. I can testify to that based on our use of them in the school district where I used to work. We used these ideas for everything from the classroom to the cafeteria, teachers to technology.

The article links to a Learning With Projects web page for Terry Smith’s class. This page links to projects pasts and present. Projects include class blogs, wiki pages, Taiwan, video conferences, Internet chess, world problems, using the XO – OLPC, Landmark project, monsters on the net, Monarch butterflies, coral reef project, an international writing project, and many more. Global friends that the students have made while working on these projects live in Taiwan, UK, Japan, Pakistan, Canada, South Africa, and the State of Washington. The home page for the class this year can be found at http://www.smithclass.org/index.html. You must explore this page to truly see these students’ projects.

“Kids use their thinking skills and communicate, plan, problem solve, create, and evaluate.”

If you want your students to learn and to think on a higher level, look at these ideas. If you want to integrate technology in the curriculum that you teach, start here. But, don’t think that these ideas are limited to the fourth-grade. Similar ideas can be used at any grade level.

Photo: http://flickr.com/photos/gaelic-arts/234996346/
License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en

Photo Resolution... Day 46

Pathway into the woods.

Journaling + Reflections + Technology = Thinking about Teaching

An online resource for language arts describes several different ways to use journaling in the classroom.

• Metacognitive Journal
• Double Entry Journal
• Reflective Journal
• Dialectical Journal
• Journal Activities
• Response Journal
• Learning Log
• Synthesis Journal
• Speculation About Effects Journal

The site provides ideas from which we can choose appropriate strategies for our own classrooms. As I examined the various descriptions, I saw ideas close to what I do in my classroom.

I ask my students to write reflections about various topics that we discuss. Our reflections have three parts: (1) description of the topic, (2) how the student will use it in his/her classroom as a teacher, and (3) the pros and cons the student sees in using the described topic.

In past semesters, these reflections were standalone assignments. Now, however, I ask the students to write these assignments in their blogs. If I were teaching high school students, I might ask them to post their reflections in comments to a blog that I maintained.

Julie Reed and Christopher Koliba in Facilitating Reflection: A Manual for Leaders and Educators state that

Journals are a written form of reflection in which students consider their service experience in light of specific issues, such as those contained in course content. Students can examine their thoughts and experiences through journals, and further the learning they have done in relation to the service.

I’m asking my students to reflect before they use these ideas in the classroom. And, of course, I hope they also reflect afterwards!

Before instructing students to complete journals, one must consider the learning objective that the journal is intended to meet.

I hope that my students discuss the ideas they learn in class with others in addition to thinking about the ideas themselves. By posting their initial reflections in their blogs, they are opening a door for communication and discussion with other educators (and pre-educators) throughout the world. They are also learning to be transparent. And, hopefully, this experience will set the stage for their involvement in collaboration with other educators.

Melissa Kelly, in an article about journaling for About.com, lists benefits of journaling, including

• Sort out experiences, solve problems and consider varying perspectives.
• Examine relationships with others and the world.
• Reflect on personal values, goals, and ideals.
• Summarize ideas, experience and opinions before and after instruction.
• Witness his academic and personal growth by reading past entries.

I think that by writing the types of reflections that my students do in their blogs, they are learning about the topics, thinking about them before use, and doing so in an open manner that invites others to discuss the topics with them.

This method of journaling is not confidential. However, it is a good start for students to learn how to think through ideas before trying them in the classroom. And being able to comment on their blogs allows others and myself to discuss these ideas with them. I like the extra benefits that technology adds to the journaling/reflections assignments.

Photo: http://flickr.com/photos/chrstphre/3141019947/
License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en

Photo Resolution... Day 45

Corn crib.

Photo Resolution... Day 44

Tree-lined drive. As a photo this should be lighter. As a study in colors and patterns I like the darkness.

Photo Resolution... Day 43

Late night stop at Starbuck's

Photo Resolution... Day 42

An evening ride on the new drive on campus