In a typical middle school, a social studies teacher was contemplating how to commemorate black history month in a way that will leave a lasting impact on students who had no idea what type of life, humiliations, and struggles the black community in America had experienced. She decided to pick “The Story of an Escape: Flight on the Pearl,” from the Smithsonian Education series “Once Upon a Real Time: Telling the Stories the Past Tells Us.” The story is about the famous escape of slaves in Washington D.C. in 1848, which was a watershed in the fight of the anti-slavery movement in America. In view of the enormity of the task, she decided to divide the class to teams. The assignment was to read the story, understand it, identify and analyze the stakeholders, scenes, plot, and viewpoints. The teacher tried to avoid assigning roles because she felt that it was part of the learning process. Instead she advised students to record “story thinking” by hanging up large sheets of paper around the classroom and record their thoughts while working on the story. This, she thought, will help her students identify the main components in the story and make role assignments easier. Continue reading Meaningful Learning With PersonalBrain
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One of the major stumbling blocks that students face when conducting research is how to construct meaning from what they read. Research usually starts with a question or topic that the teacher has assigned or the student is curious about. In most cases, the students use a search engine to look up as many sources as possible for their research. Students often use advanced search to filter research results to fit their exact topic or age level. As they identify their sources, they usually store research results in a web-based research management tool such as Diigo or Zotero. As complex as this may seem, students as young as 8 years old perform this process almost flawlessly. The problem usually starts when they open a piece of text and start reading what it says. When students get to this stage, I can almost see the wall that is formed between the student and the text. They seem mostly lost. Why is it so difficult to read text, understand what it says, and identify the things that relate to the students’ goals? Continue reading Making Observations With Google Apps I know that I promised to continue my “Project-based learning Google templates” series, but I could not help myself but share my thoughts with you about a subject that has had me thinking for a while- typing. A few weeks ago, our school held an open house for prospective parents. As parents walked through the computer lab, one parent approached me and asked me about our computer program. I explained to her that we have one computer class per week in which students are researching and creating projects that relate to topics they study, using web-based tools (Google Apps). It was clear that my response was not what she was looking for and she kept asking: “Are you teaching typing?” I told her that due to limited computer lab time, students cannot engage in typing. She walked away and joined the group and I was left wondering: why are so many parents and teachers focused on the importance of typing skills? Continue reading The Obsession With Typing Imagine a classroom getting ready to start working on a project. The teacher has just assigned the driving question–a question designed to look into the heart of a discipline and serve the purpose of organizing and driving activities in the project. Getting ready to plan activities for this project turns out to be a challenging task for the students. The teacher, who anticipates the difficulty, decides to break the task into more manageable sub-goals and provides them with a project template designed to systematically guide them through the core components of a project: defining the task, documenting information sources, recording observations, inferences and questions. Using this template helps students become task driven, thoughtful planners, focus on one small thing at a time and pay attention to details. As a result, students end-up gathering a meaningfully organized body of information they can rely on to answer the driving question and write their project conclusions. Continue reading Planning the Task with Google Apps Last year, I introduced Google Sites as a presentation and collaboration tool for my students. They used it to create projects covering the California Missions, Native Americans, and each of the 50 states. On the surface, the sites functioned as an online replacement of traditional paper. In essence, students were able to create quite sophisticated projects with it. For example, students were able to embed a Google Map, marked with all 21 California missions into their site, long before Google enabled this functionality. But the main advantage of using Google Sites or the entire Google Apps package was that due to its web-based collaborative nature, students could brainstorm and work with their team members and access their files from anywhere. As the students learned to master Google Sites, the company kept adding new features almost daily. Some of these additions have opened up new possibilities for using Google Sites as a project-based learning template that helps students organize their work and manage the process of creating a project in teams. Continue reading Project-Based Learning With Google Sites  The Robotics Show Eddie carefully placed his robot at the starting point of the wooden maze which was located on the floor of the school’s auditorium. Parents and visitors joined the crowd that was patiently waiting for the Napa Street Elementary robotics show. Prior to this show, students’ robots and written reports were displayed on a big table at the center of the auditorium for all to see. The students were standing next to six laptops, making last minute changes to the programs they designed to drive their robot through a big maze. The students’ goal was to have their robots traverse the maze from start to finish using either a light sensor, a bumper, or no sensor at all. Continue reading Motivated to Succeed by Learning Robotics About a year ago, I started working with Balboa Gifted/High Ability Magnet Elementary School. The school hired me because they were looking for a person who will help them pursue new avenues in technology. The state of California was already experiencing one of its biggest financial crises, significantly affecting public schools and other state-sponsored programs and organization. My goal was to create a program that will be low-cost and effective. At the time, I wasn’t at all acquainted with any web-based applications. I knew that many companies were working on web-based applications and that it was considered as the trend of the future. I also knew that they were not stable enough to compete with existing desktop applications. As a fierce advocate of project-based learning, I was looking for web-based productivity tools that would help students create projects that reflect what they are learning in the classroom, in one or multi-disciplines. Students can utilize the tools to construct knowledge, develop innovative products, search, evaluate, and analyze information, develop their critical thinking skills, communicate and work collaboratively. A combination of web 2.0 products, particularly Google applications, fit my goals best. Continue reading Using Web 2.0 Technology in Elementary School In most cases this would be the place where I introduce myself and explain to you why I write this blog and what is its main focus. In this case I would like to reveal this information as I take you through a journey that started in my childhood and how it influenced my direction in life and ultimately creating this blog. As most people, I can’t recall most events in my educational upbringing, but there are a few defining moments and central figures that I will never forget. Those were usually inspiring teachers or unusual methods of teaching that I keep going back to to reflect on whenever a similar educational situation arises in my professional life. These instances are not always inspiring or positive in nature. Sometimes, they are just important lessons I learned while trying to cope with a problem or dilemma I encountered. Continue reading My Journey as an Educational Technology Specialist |
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