Wiki Rookie

I have never used a wiki before, but there are two things I have observed from exploring them this week. First, they are so new and so different, every one of them has instructions for use. Second, wiki is a fun word that everyone likes to play with, i.e. WikiWikiWeb, TWiki, etc.

This collaborative knowledge base idea seems very messy to my concrete sequential nature. But when I realize it is just a high tech way for a bunch of unrelated people to come to a meeting of the minds, I begin to see its value. I have been thinking about a bulletin board project for First Grade. I want to create a "pond" that groups of students can populate with plants and animals they found reading about the ecosystem. Imagine if they also did a wiki about ponds, with each group writing about what they learned and posting pictures of pond life! This could work, even for young students.

It is so important to teach teachers what is available in technology. Lots of traditional activities--like creating a bulletin board--are enhanced greatly with collaborative programs such as bookmarking, blogs, and wikis. I am eager to show my colleagues the value of what I have learned in this class. I know I will be met with resistance. Few people at my school feel comfortable with technology beyond the use of e-mail and the word processor. As new teachers begin their careers, and veteran teachers see them embrace technology in the classroom, I am sure we will see a move toward a more constructivist style of teaching. Maybe we could have a wiki about that...

Stealing Ideas

This week, I looked at website's for several elementary teachers. I was particularly impressed by http://www.pb5th.com from a 5th grade class in Florida and http://www.jsd.k12.ak.us/hbv/classrooms/Fontanella/fontanejhbvHome.html from a looping Kindergarten class in Juneau, AK.
What I liked about pb5th was the way the teacher integrated the website into every day and every week. He had a poll for students to vote on. He had lots of pictures. He had daily assignments. But the coolest thing was the daily entry by a kid in the class. No names, just initials. A different kid each day has the job to keep a log of what is going on in the class. They describe everything from the attendance to when the class goes to specials. The student entry I read also explained that he and another student were putting grades into the computer for their teacher. I really want to do something like this with my site. I think kids need to have a reason to write. So much of what we have them write in this day of FCAT Writes is totally abstract. If they could just practice communicating an idea, they could better understand the function of writing. They could understand why we want them to learn how to write.

The other site that I loved had a super word wall activity page. I have posted all the words our students learn throughout the year on our website. But our ideas for activities don't have any punch. Mr. Fontanella gave credit to Tara Olinger for the ideas he published. He kindly provided a link to her site--which didn't work!! Anyway, the ideas he "stole" from Mrs. Olinger will definitely come in handy as I "steal" them for our existing word list pages.

Mrs. Ritter's First Grade Critters http://http://www.myschoolonline.com/site/0,1876,23847-107973-26-2859,00.html was full of information. She had student work examples, a list of supplies (I'm stealing this idea, too), and the daily schedule along with lots and lots of other pages. I was interested in her curriculum page. They have adopted a textbook that we are voting on in our district. I really wanted to e-mail her and ask her about how she liked the series, but there was no e-mail address for her. There was a guest book, but the link did not work properly. She really needed a way for people to contact her.

In looking at the sites, only pb5th was completely up to date. While there had obviously been a lot of work on the other sites, and lots of projects posted, the teachers had not kept updating. I personally know this takes a measure of discipline, especially when you stay an hour past contract time every night just to get your basic responsibilities finished. The pb5th teacher had students working on the site every day, so he was motivated to keep it fresh. A good site has a reason for visitors to keep coming back. The teacher in this case has a reason to keep working on the site.

I am glad that I had a chance to explore and find good stuff to "steal". Actually, these sites have copyright notices. I will borrow and gladly give credit in accordance with our district's web publishing policy.

I still need to publish my web presence for this week's assignment. In the meantime, here is the grade level website that I maintain at our school. http://highmail.highlands.k12.fl.us/~daviss1/ The creator tool we have on the district server has good points and bad points. We are learning all the time. I'm sure this week's experiences will help us make our site much better.

Online Instructional Strategies for My Class

This blog outlines assignment option #3: "Find 5 pre-existing Internet-based instructional activities that you believe would be “worth it” in your educational context. Post a blog that provides a link to each activity, why you feel it fits with your context and how you plan to use each."

E-pals is a telecollaborative activity that offers several ideas, grouped by age, for students to connect and collaborate with students from around the world. In my classroom, I would choose activities for students age 6-11. The Flag Projects give a chance to get acquainted as both partners complete a chart about their flags. Then they design a flag together. I could incorporate this in several units including “Christmas Around the World”, “Communities”, and “Race Week” which is a unit that ties in our local Gran Prix race.

One virtual field trip I plan to take my class on is Explore the Planet Mars. This gives a lot of information visually as well as in writing so all reading levels can get something out of this. Students will be able to explore and react to life in a Mars colony. I can’t wait to hear what they think of the bathrooms!

The weblog strategy is one I am anxious to employ. I am having to jump through a few hoops, but the idea is to have students post one new thing they have learned. My students are just learning to read and write, so I figure two to five sentences will be sufficient to explain a new fact. I would set up the blog like Ms. Howard's Class Writing Blog so that individual students’ entries would all appear on the same page.

Looking at the hotlists strategy, I found that this may be a very useful school-to-home connection tool. Mrs. West’s Early Literacy and Basic Skills hotlist includes lots of things to have the students do as well as links parents will find interesting.

Since my students have a low reading level, the subject sampler strategy would be useful for their first foray into Internet searching. Since we will be working on a space unit and learning about force and motion, I have tapped NASA’s resources. Centennial of Flight: Rediscovering the Challenges of Flight is a subject sampler with lesson plans for all age groups.

Multiple Intelligences

During my education program at USF, Dr. Barry Morris introduced me to Gardner's Multiple Intelligences. At the time, there were only seven, but we were required to think of activities for all seven intelligences for every storybook we reviewed (50 during the semester). That experience taught me that I should think about incorporating lots of different kinds of activities as often as possible.

The problem with using Multiple Intelligences in practice is that to cater to students with a variety of the now nine defined intelligences, a teacher must do an incredible amount of planning. Along with that, varying the assessment to fit the activity will cause parents to wonder why and how students earn their grades.

The best application for MI in my opinion is to remind us that students have widely differing aptitudes. Learning activities should be chosen with this in mind. A teacher should offer as much choice as possible for skills practice and independent exploration of a subject.

Here are some links for a Multiple Intelligences study of the Space and the Solar System.
Verbal/Linguistic: Students make candy “meteorites” and describe them in geological terms. Edible Rocks Lesson

Logical/Mathematical: Find out when the sun and moon rise and set from the Old Farmer's Almanac

Visual/Spatial: Take a virtual tour of what a human base on Mars could look like. Interactive Mars Base

Bodily/Kinesthetic: A field trip near Mt. St. Helens in Washington state reveals terrain similar to Mars. Field Trip to Mars Also, students can print out and build paper models of Pathfinder Paper Pathfinder model

Musical: Listen to musical pieces created for the planets. Music for the planets

Intrapersonal: Students explore NASA’s space projects in detail National Space Science Data Center.

Interpersonal: This site gives a phone number to call for a daily three-minute recorded report about what’s up in the sky. Griffith Observatory

Naturalistic: Scientists have identified a new planet. Students find out what criteria are used to classify a body a planet. Article about a new planet

Existential: Find out how scientists are searching for signs of life and other habitable planets. Terrestrial Planet Finder

This was a lot of fun to compile. I hope you enjoy exploring it!