Virtual Teachers

http://team9a.weebly.com/index.html

This lesson met 21st century skills in the following way:
     Students will be collaborating by working in pairs to creatively produce their own Weebly page and blog. They will choose one of the nine elements of digital citizenship, which is currently linked through a button on the second page of my educational Weebly. They will use critical thinking and their creativity to design a Weebly page that reflects a captivating way to showcase one of the nine elements. They will need to communicate with their peers and teacher as they create. Weebly also has an app for iPhone and iPad, which provides more availability for reflective responses.
     This activity meets common core literacy standards in that students need to comprehend the materials they will use. They will need to collaborate with each other in order to create a final product where they will showcase their ideas and knowledge.
It meets the writing standards as well because students will need to use a variety of digital text, determine what's best to incorporate into their presentation, and cite their resources. They will need to gear their product to a specific audience. In effect, students will build upon their current knowledge through investigating a real-life issue: Internet safety and being a responsible digital citizen. They will integrate prior knowledge, technology and a range of resources.
     This lesson has impacted me by increasing student engagement in 21st century skills.  My students were very excited to see my initial blog and many of them already have their personal blogs.  By creating an educational blog with a focus and forum for discussion on Weebly (for free), my students can take ownership over their technology use in a positive way. Because there isn't a class specifically devoted to digital citizenship, it is up to the individual teachers to take the initiative. Students will become more aware of how their technology use leaves a digital footprint and how that can affect their future endeavors. They will also learn about digital health and wellness topics like Internet addiction. Communication about etiquette, law, and buying/selling on the Internet will make them more responsible Internet users. Having these conversations opens the door for increasing amounts of collaboration between peers.
   How has this impacted me as a teacher? At this point, I'm happy to leave my approval filter on. Some of my students have shown through their blogs that they think it's 'funny' to write inappropriate responses. This type of behavior makes me reflect on the message I give-that communicating through technology should still be formal for education. The following standards apply to what I am trying to achieve with my blog:
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.9-10.1d Establish and maintain a formal style and objective tone while attending to the norms and conventions of the discipline in which they are writing
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.9-10.4 Produce clear and coherent writing in which the development, organization, and style are appropriate to task, purpose, and audience.
Teachers should consider the maturity level of their students when deciding to maintain a blog. They also need to have specific purpose and incorporate a rubric for types of responses. I think that students aren't used to blogging for educational purposes. They need to practice etiquette rules because they seem to think all online responses are for social reasons only. Students seem to pick up that message from their peers, not the teachers. It's important that teachers use guided lessons, such as from Ribble, to show correct technology use. Just because students appear more tech savvy doesn't mean they have the foundation for positive technology use. Establishing this foundation will ultimately create more appropriate adult users which can lead to better career opportunities.

http://kidblog.org/MsStLaurentsclass-4/wp-admin/post.php?post=4&action=edit

I decided to use kidblog to create a user friendly blog as another tool to have discourse discussions in our classroom. I chose this for a few reasons. First, I am not familiar at all with blogging and wanted to understand how a blog works and the ways it may be utilized in the classroom. I also know that many of my students are already actively connected to social websites and wanted to give them some guidelines and a structure where  they could practice writing their own opinion or respond to another students opinion on a number of different topics.

To begin working on our in class blog, I first had a discussion with my class about using social media websites as a form of communication. As a class we discussed guidelines students should use when writing an opinion on a topic or responding to someone else's idea and came up with a list of rules to follow. For my first post, I simply stated an opinion about a topic students would be interested in. The task for students was to write a response to the statement and give evidence or support to justify their opinion. Then they were to comment on at least two other student's blogs and give clear reasons why they agreed or disagreed with that student. As we become more competent bloggers, students will be asked to provide ideas for the class blog and we will also be adding a math blog to discuss different approaches to solving various math problems.

The goal of this assignment is for students to use their creative thinking skills to communicate their own ideas on a variety of topics. I want them to be able to support their own opinions and be able to effectively agree or disagree with another person. Also I would like all of us to become more proficient in using technology in the classroom. The skills of writing to support claims with clear reasons and relevant evidence and using technology to produce and publish writing as well as interact and collaborate with others are found in CCSS standards for grade 6; W1 and W6.

21st Century Skills & Standards (Up-Date)

1.    Collaboration: Students were encouraged to work on this project with a partner. The rubric they were given also emphasized that both partners must participate in the creation and presentation to the class. Another student must run their PowerPoint or Prezi if they choose to present their information using either of those programs.
2.    Creativity: Students were not limited to using Prezi or PowerPoint- although all of them chose to present their information using one of those 2 formats. The rubric used for grading suggested the possibility of using another format such as an Info-graphic or podcast.
3.    Critical Thinking: The information that they present in their project is not directly available and must be created by them. They (collaboration) had to research the organism and determine how an organism’s physical, chemical and behavior characteristics can develop into an adaptation. They will present that to the class in way that demonstrates understanding of how a limiting factor or an adaptation effects a population as a whole.  While the characteristics of an organism are usually easy to find, the factors that limit a population’s success over time requires analysis. Some limiting factors are even beneficial to a population in the long run.
4.    Communication:  I demonstrate and teach the basic principles of  being an effective presenter- someone who communicates with their audience.  Before they present, I model the presentations of 2 or 3 projects from previous years. I show them the difference between a concise presentation and one that has so much text in it that it doesn't communicate the message that they want to convey. I then encourage them to comment on a presentation that has an enticing image and only enough text to support 2 or 3 specific points about the image. I then demonstrate how the presenter is the one who needs to engage the audience to create questions and interest. I review the importance of eye contact and speaking with conviction and enough volume to communicate effectively.
Students were totally engaged and excited by this project.  Many commented on how no one had ever taught them how to effectively present before. They completed a reflection piece that I found very interesting to read. I also asked them to include any suggestions on how we could improve the project. The most common suggestion was to have more time to work on the project. This project also allowed students to work at their own level and progress at their own pace.

This project supports  LS4.C   Adaptation    9-12   From the NGSS

Natural selection results from genetic variation of individuals in a species, competition for resources, and proliferation of organisms better able to survive and reproduce; Adaptation means that the distribution of traits in a population, as well as species expansion, emergence or extinction, can change when conditions change

Connie Baker

Glogster Project Introduction

Reflection & Analysis of Project

For my 21st century lesson, I used my team's existing wiki page (link goes to the page for the first poetry unit) to engage my students in discussion about a poem we read together in class. After reading the poem, I asked each student to post a response in the discussion area to the following question: "Why does Catullus call himself "the worst poet" and Cicero "the best lawyer"?" We discussed what should be included in a response, including connections to the historical and cultural context, connections between the two authors, and their personal reaction to the poem. Students had five days to post their response in their class period's discussion, after which I locked the discussion. In the next step, the students are reading the responses from each class and choose one they agreed with, one they disagreed with, and be prepared to explain why in a whole class discussion (which will be today and Monday). This activity corresponds to the following National Standards for Classical Language Learning: Standard 1.1 Students read, understand, and interpret Latin or Greek, and Standard 2.2 Students demonstrate an understanding of the perspectives of Greek or Roman culture as revealed in the products of the Greeks or Romans.

Some really cool things started to happen as my students completed the initial response. I had to administer a MAP test in the computer lab during the class period after we read the poem. With the time left at the end of the period, I encouraged students to go to the wiki and complete their responses. Students started discussing their responses with each other before posting, and I saw some working together on the writing skills, giving feedback like, "You kind of repeat yourself there," and "I think what you mean is ..." Also, students who posted later started making comments in their response such as, "Like XX said ...", which indicated to me that they were reading other students' comments and incorporating them into their thinking. I believe that this will enable my students to engage in a richer and more meaningful class discussion about the poem, because they have already done some pre-thinking about it and will have read other people's thoughts before discussing it face to face. In previous class discussions, I have found that some students are reluctant to volunteer their opinion in case they sound stupid. Since everyone's thoughts are already out there for everyone to see, we will be able to use the technology to support and encourage a richer class discussion.

Brief Description:
Students will create a lesson based on one of the stories from Building Academic Literacy--An Anthology for Reading Apprenticeship. During their lesson, students will "teach" the class their chosen story, provide students with information about the author, and demonstrate how to effectively use before, during and after reading strategies, during the class read-aloud.

Research Component:
Students will need to research information about the author including important facts, how literacy has impacted his/her life, and other biographical information. Students will need to create a presentation based on their learning and include this as part of their lesson.

Lesson components:
Students will need to…