Of Books, Blogs, and Videos. Transforming the Classroom

This year has been an adventure in integrating technology. Our school acquired a cart of iPads as part of a pilot project in innovative learning. Our goal was to use them in class to see if and how they changed the way we teach and learn. The project was not just about using ipads in class but about discovering how using them would change the learning experience. My class got 5 iPads to use full time and I got  personal  Ipad to use.


Integrating technology was not new to me, but the iPads were. The first thing I did was to explore many  of the Apps that were available to use in a variety of applications. I looked at apps that helped  learn math facts, others that let you create books, video and music, and still others that let you download and read eBooks.  I had intended to try it all.

Including the MacBooks, my goal was to use this equipment to create online portfolios of student work to motivate students and to allow parents to follow their progress throughout the year. We started with publishing  a creative writing assignment for Halloween. Each child followed the writing process in planning, drafting, editing and publishing their own story. They learned how to create a webpage, took photos of their illustrations and posted both. During the process they learned how to use Dropbox,  how to upload pictures from iPads and then download them  to use in a blog. We worked through many problems, and their resolution and enthusiasm grew with each success. They learned to value each others opinions and to rely on each other for support.

 Then we started blogging...and writing took on new importance to the class.  The students began to take charge of their own learning. They stared blogging about class activities. Laterthey took on a new role as a character from our novel and their blogs became her diary.

I had started a blog as well to experience it myself and  record and reflect on our progress.

"We started to blog with the idea of blogging once every week or two. We now blog every day we are together. The kids are always looking for more ideas to blog. They write more now. They are more creative in their blogs and they are always busy taking pictures of their work with the iPads to publish their work in their blogs.
 "From My Blog at the time  (Blogging a Class Changer)

 About this time we finished our Literature Circle novels and started a new project. We worked in our groups of four  to create a video of the books. The students  rewrote the book as a play, created sets, characters and scripts and used the ipads and MyStopMotion to create animations of the books. They used iMovie to do voice overs for them. I showed them briefly how to use the app and gave them very basic instruction on iMovie. They took up the challenge and became directors, actors, and producers.
                                                                                        
   

"We jumped in feet first and again the class surpassed all expectations. We all started together but soon leaders emerged and as problems were encountered, solutions were found. Everyone was proud of their finished movie and gained a deeper understanding of the elements of a story. As I watched and listened I realized just how important this was to them and marveled at their new found expertise in setting and character portrayal. " (Reflections on Innovative Learning year 1)

We also took on the researching of the building of the CPR and its importance to B.C. We watched several YouTube documentaries on the building of the railway and took notes. We then set out and found old pictures of Immigrants working on the railway and the dangers they faced. We used Book Creator to meld our notes and pictures and created voice overs for the books.  I wondered if students would emerge from the project with more than just  technology skills and they impressed us by answering questions on their books, When I asked them if making the book helped them learn they said ."Yes, cause the information keeps traveling around your head when you need to  use it."

I am amazed at all we have accomplished and how we have grown as a team. Technology has become entwined in my daily classroom routine. I don't plan how and when to use technology. On any given day, you will find some of my class filming or doing voice overs as others are drafting and still others are blogging. Some are busy taking photos of their latest artwork or making illustrations for their blogs. Some may even be using the time to finish up some Math or scrapbooking. We have many projects on the go and we are often all in different stages of creating. We have blocks of work time and students help each other, teach each other, work together and  technology is just another tool in our crayon box.
 
As we worked through each project I worried about the time involvement for each. Were we taking too long?  Was each project and effective use of time? Would students finish with a deeper understanding of the content they used? How could I evaluate each student's learning effectively?

It is gratifying to know that the students  think they have learned more and have a deeper understanding of the content we set out to learn about. They felt that they would remember more about the topics than if they had just read about them, answered questions, or written reports.
My personal observations of the time they spent actively engaged and the collaboration required in creating the movies, books, and blogs would mirror those of the class.

 

"I have learned as much as I have taught and am excited to try new projects next year.  Each new project we finish seems to open a new door of possibilities for another."

PS We never got to those Math apps or any of the other teaching apps. In May I erased them from the iPads and we are all happy filming, writing, taking photos and building portfolios. We used Pinterest to bookmark our work and highlight out portfolios Our adventure has just begun. We are already looking to next year.

Pinterest Portfolios  
http://pinterest.com/mrsdycksclass/

www.mrsdycksclass.com
http://www.youtube.com/user/lrdyck12511
www.trackermax.blogspot.ca
http://pinterest.com/mrsdycksclass/
www.mrsdycksclass.wikispaces.com

Linda Dyck
Gr 4 teacher
Surrey, B.C.

I am currently a grade 4 teacher in Surrey B.C. I have integrated technology in my teaching for over 20 years and have given many workshops on how to do so. I am a past president of CUEBC and was Conference Chair of TELED, a  twin International conference on technology integration in Victoria, and New Orleans. I participated in Ministry of British Columbia investigation into k-12 requirements for the successful integration of technology in schools. As part of this year long investigation I was one of the co-authors of the final report Conditions For Success. I appeared on Working TV in a documentary on the pros and cons of using technology in elementary school.

In Our Own Words!

This is a documentary made by my students about our year long journey in project based learning with technology. The students interviewed each other and mixed in clips of their work. I asked them to  think about how the technology changed the way they learned and what they learned.

This is their voice.
This is what they want you to know about their adventures along the way.

"Using the blog is incredible because we can share our projects with the world

 When making our movies we cooperate with each other and get closer

A textbook has limited information when the web has millions of results

computers are very fast for searching up stuff

When we did our Barkerville journals it felt like we were there

When we are on Youtube looking at our movies it looks like we have fame and people we don't know, know us

In a group you an share your ideas and create something amazing

Kids feel like they have more trust 

Blogging about a book or something makes you feel like your in the book

If you bring your own technology you can work on your stuff at home too

Putting movies on YouTube might make it go viral

We learn by doing it

When we do blogs we have to research things and by getting information we are learning 

When you have a blog you can share your information with everyone elsse I really like our website because you can look back on it all"

Reflections on Integration

https://mrsdycksclass.wikispaces.com/

In 2007,  I found Wikis.  A way of sharing, publishing, engaging and promoting writing.  We started by writing every day, creating scrapbooks and a class Wiki. The Wiki  gave my class a reason to write and they took off.  This was a class that struggled with written output and the difference that our Wiki made was very evident. We were lucky enough to have an author and a game developer answer questions and chat with us through our Wiki as well. The students loved showing off their work and often took the time to go back and edit or re-edit from home. It surprised me to see students had made changes over summer and that we had traffic from all over the world as they shared their pages. 2007and 2008 were our Wiki years. We loved it. They are still up and my students stop by and visit their old work.

In 2009,  we acquired carts of Macbooks.  IMovie  and iPhoto and iWeb became tools of choice for telling our stories and we made DVDs of our work.  We  have continued making movies and have discovered blogging. Another success! Another reason to write. We blog every day, and since we received the iPads we use Book Creator and MyStopMotion to make movies and publish books. We have a class website, a YouTube channel and a Pinterest account. We are running out of year faster than we are running out of projects.

Technology has become entwined in my daily classroom routine. I don't plan how and when to use technology. On any given day, you will find some of my class filming or doing voice overs as others are drafting and still others are blogging. Some are busy taking photos of their latest artwork or making illustrations for their blogs. Some may even be using the time to finish up some Math or scrapbooking. We have many projects on the go and we are often all in different stages of creating. We have blocks of work time and students help each other, teach each other, work together and  technology is just another tool in our crayon box. If we can't get the Macbooks during specific times we change our day around and use them when we can. We usually work in small groups and some of us take on more projects than others.

I have always integrated technology, and I know many of my peers do not share my views on its importance in the classroom. They see computers as a way to teach typing, to learn math facts, or to research and publish a report. Many want a one on one ratio of computers to students and think of using computers as a acquiring a new skill. They want scheduled weekly times with computers and don't see the need to have ongoing significant access to them. Over the years, I have been steadfast in resisting scope and sequences, marking technology skills, promoting integration and arguing for increased technology funding for elementary schools.  I still believe that elementary school is the perfect place to use technology, as integration is the cornerstone elementary classes are built upon. We need to see technology as an essential tool for elementary students, a means for early intervention and a way to kick start literacy. 

Mindshift

I am excited to begin planning for the year ahead. There is so much I would like to take on. A new class, a new challenge,

From my twitter feed, today

KQED  MINDSHIFT HOW WE LEARN via Kevin Amboe

August 22, 2011 | 2:14 PM | By Tina Barseghian

Five Changes Every School Should Make

Make all learning real, relevant, tied to communities, with real application in the kids’ lives outside of the classroom. Example: Ban research papers—unless they are published online and have an informative, persuasive, or other real purpose for others. Learning should have an impact beyond getting an “A” on  the assignment.

Teach kids to think through, with, about, for–and create–new, interactive digital global communication. I don’t mean this as an add on. I mean rethinking all the subjects we now teach in view of the possibilities (what techies call “affordances”) of the digital age. That means getting rid of the “two cultures” binary. STEM subjects are impoverished without creativity, analysis, critical thinking. The Information Age is about putting back together the knowledge that the Industrial Age subdivided. A simpler way is to say have them all learn Scratch multimedia programming and think about the possibilities.

 Things I learned from my methods classes:

1. You need to make learning relevant. You need to tie it to the here and now. We learn best when we need to use  knowledge for a greater purpose. It is not good enough to teach skills and content for future use.

For example, if we require students to research a Canadian Explorer, and report back simply to receive a mark, they will. However, if we ask them to join that explorer on his journey, find out where they went, what they did, and  blog about their adventures, they live the part. They need to use all the research and tie into their imaginations, They need to create, to become involved. They will take away so much more and enjoy the experience.

2.  Children love to share. We all do. The bigger the audience, The more successful they feel. This year my class made videos that we posted on YouTube of their novel studies. They enjoyed the literature circles they participated in as they read their books, but they loved turning them into movies. They asked for one more chance to make a movie before the year ends so we are racing to do just that. This time, the excitement is much higher, the plans are more elaborate, the sets and characters are coming together quickly and after a few days we are almost ready to film. This one is all them. Their project. They are working at night and planning at recess. There have been trips to dollar stores for the extra sparkle and telephone conferences to create scripts. This is a true labor of love.

What I learned from my students:

3. It's not  about the mark. It's about growing, sharing and teaching each other. It's about working together  and appreciating and enjoying each success.  It's about being proud and celebrating. It is about being our best.

On Thinking About Learning

Last week my students were interviewed about their use of technology in relation to digital storytelling. They were proud and pleased to be able to share their work and eager to talk about it. As part of the process they showed off their videos of their novel studies, their blogs as a character from their books, and their research blogs. I listened to bits and pieces of their conversations but did not want to get too close to distract them.

During the interview they were asked if they learned better when they used technology. When they said yes they were asked how the technology helped them learn. One student replied that it made you become the character you were studying. This answer intrigued me as I never thought of it from that perspective before. As the year progressed all my students have  become the character they were studying and have been able to blog about their trips to Barkerville during the time of the gold rush, exploring Canada, trading furs and working as a blacksmith in Ft Langley, or working on the railway as a Chinese immigrant.  They have become characters in a variety of novels they have read and discussed in literature circles as  they made videos of their books as well.

Today,  I  looked at the book Making Thinking Visible.  It  has been twittered about this last week and I was curious to see what all the tweets were about. As I read a portion of the book on thinking and developing understanding, I realized that what I had watched this year was the unfolding of exactly that. I began to reflect on the thinking and collaboration involved in each project and how they contributed to understanding. The book asks us to reflect on "What kind of thinking does this lesson force students to do?" And so I did.

This year my class spent more time on each novel or project we worked on, and delved deeper  when they became a part of each. They worked in groups and each project they took on required them to problem solve as well. They needed to determine which parts of their story they wanted and needed to complete tasks assigned to them. They also needed to work together to find ways to portray their work. The work itself had to be divided up, and each portion of their projects required collaboration and preparation.

 When they made movies they spent hours deciding:

•  which were the key parts of the book they needed to tell the story, 
• how they would begin and end their movies, what sets they needed, which characters they would include, 
• how to change their stories into scripts, 
• how to add emotion and interest to their work, 
• which details to focus on. 

To film they needed to figure out:

•  how to set up their films, 
• how long each scene had to be to include the voice overs they needed to add, 
• how to find extra light to film, 
• how to use the apps to create their movies and books

By the time they had completed the project they had invested much time and effort in dissecting the content they were studying and reassembling it again.

When they blogged they had to make many decisions on

• the content they would include, 
• how to use details effectively
• what illustrations they would make, or what photos they would need  to include

 As we worked through each project I worried about the time involvement for each. Were we taking too long?  Was each project and effective use of time? Would students finish with a deeper understanding of the content they used? How could I evaluate each student's learning effectively?

It is gratifying to know that the students  think they have learned more and have a deeper understanding of the content we set out to learn about. They felt that they would remember more about the topics than if they had just read about them, answered questions, or written reports.

My personal observations of the time they spent actively engaged and the collaboration required in creating the movies, books, and blogs would mirror those of the class.