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    Digital Tools for Project Based Learning

    by Lindsey Fuller
     | Feb 12, 2014

    One of the greatest impacts of having 1:1 mobile devices in my classroom has been the opportunity to change the way I approached teaching and learning. I realized early on in this journey that I had the chance to give my students an incredible educational experience in the year they spent with me—and that even a single year could have far-reaching impacts on their future as learners.

    p: 21stCenturyEdtech

    As I began to form new ideas about how I wanted to teach, I realized that project-based learning (PBL) was one of the approaches I was interested in bringing into my classroom. Implementing a new technology and a new learning approach at the same time, with little to no training, was a daunting undertaking that required a lot of time spent researching. One of the more time-consuming tasks was figuring out the right tools for allowing the technology to enhance the learning without overshadowing it. A lot of trial and error was involved, but eventually my students and I figured out how our devices could be most useful in facilitating our learning.

    The PBL process begins with a driving, or "essential," question. Whether this question is teacher or student generated, a source for topic ideas can be highly useful. Technology gives both teachers and students immediate access to the happenings of the world at a level never known in years past. Apps such as Problem Based Learning Experience, Zite, and TED provide a deep reserve of real-world news and discussion points that can be developed into PBL experiences. These resources help keep PBL projects real and relevant for students, which is vital to creating an engaging learning experience.

    Once a topic has been decided and students are beginning their projects, organization and workflow are two areas in which technology can provide valuable assistance. Task list apps, such as Wunderlist and WorkFlowy, can provide students with a place to plan their projects, track their own progress, and create reminders for deadlines. As an added benefit, many of these apps provide the tools to share and even collaborate on task lists, making them highly useful for use by student groups. Workflow is an ever-present challenge in any classroom using mobile devices, especially when students are too young for individual email accounts. Showbie, Edmodo, and Google Drive all provide options for sharing documents, assisting the workflow process immensely.

    Another facet of PBL that can be greatly enhanced by technology integration is the research process. Students with internet access have a massive collection of resources at their disposal. General research apps, such as ArticleSearch and WolframAlpha, provide a rich variety of informational sources. For younger students, kid-friendly websites and search engines may prove most useful. Yahoo Kids, Internet Public Library's Kidspace, and Fact Monster are all excellent starting points. Along with finding information, an important aspect of research is citing sources—which can be difficult for any age group. Apps such as EasyBib and sites such as Citation Machine can ease this struggle and aid students in properly crediting their sources.

    Of all the areas in which technology can enhance PBL, creation of a product and presentation to an authentic audience is perhaps where this pair shines the brightest. It is impossible to do justice to all the possibilities opened to students and teachers when technology tools are utilized for creative purposes. Students can create graphs, documents, cartoons, books, movies, podcasts, and interactive presentations—and that is just the beginning. I highly recommend browsing the resources on sites such as The Buck Institute that are devoted to PBL, as these are bursting with articles, videos, and blogs that can provide inspiration.

    The ability to connect to authentic audiences is one of the most important pieces of PBL, and can be greatly enhanced by the use of services such as EduBlogs and Skype in the Classroom. Sites such as these allow both teachers and students the opportunity to connect with the world as they explore their ideas and present their projects.

    The technology tools that can be applied to PBL are endless, as are the creative ways they can be utilized. These are just a starting point. The effective use of technology and PBL in combination with each other enhances both aspects, so it is worth taking the time to try different apps and programs with your students to see for yourself how they work out. The goal is to figure out what is best for your classroom, so you can create a unique environment that will engage students in significant learning and help them develop the skills they will use throughout the rest of their lives.

    Lindsey Fuller on Reading Today OnlineLindsey Fuller is a sixth grade teacher in Decatur, Illinois. Her interests are classroom technology integration, literacy instruction, and Common Core curriculum development and implementation. You can read more from Lindsey on these topics at her blog, Tales of a 6th Grade Classroom
    One of the greatest impacts of having 1:1 mobile devices in my classroom has been the opportunity to change the way I approached teaching and learning. I realized early on in this journey that I had the chance to give my students an incredible...Read More
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    Annotating Online: Reading and Writing the Web

    by Chris Sloan
     | Feb 07, 2014

    Maybe it’s just me, but it seems like today’s students are being asked to read more nonfiction and compose more “informational” writing than ever.

    The NCTE/IRA Standards for English Language Arts advocate for classrooms where students gather, evaluate, and synthesize data from a variety of print and nonprint sources (Standard #7). The Common Core College and Career Readiness Anchor Standard for Reading (#1) asks students to “cite specific textual evidence when writing or speaking to support conclusions drawn from the text.” The CCSS Anchor Standards for Writing (#7-10) stress that students need to be able to conduct short and more sustained research using multiple print and digital sources and to participate in shared research projects.

    If your students are like mine, most of them are doing the majority of their research online. And, if yours are like mine, they could use a little help. I’ve found that my students appreciate being introduced to tools that help them manage and organize the information that they’re finding. The good news is that there is a plethora of new tools available. Recent IRA TILE-SIG blog posts have touched on some useful applications for annotating online text. In “Using Apps to Extend Literacy and Content Learning,” Jill Castek discussed the app DocAS, as a way to mark up reading materials to show students’ emerging ideas. And in “Literacy Practices Through the UDL Lens, Part 2,” teacher Monee Perkins noted that her seventh grade students use Adobe Reader’s annotation feature to address complex text and provide them with another representation for text commenting.

    I’d like to add a few online annotation tools that I’ve used in my teaching and in my own research that are worth a look.

    Citelighter

    My favorite new app to use with my students is Citelighter because it combines the ideas of social bookmarking, note-taking, and citation-managing with some promising teacher tools.

    The students in my media production class used Citelighter to help them manage information they found while creating a Public Service Announcement about water use issues in our community. As each student in the group examined different perspectives on the issue, Citelighter’s browser toolbar allowed them to highlight, annotate, cite, and comment on important information as they found it. It even synced with their shared Google Doc so that their knowledge was constructed seamlessly (see graphic below). The students said that it made their collaboration easier. Additionally Citelighter’s citation feature formats sources in either APA, MLA, or Chicago style without the errors that happen on a lot of online citation formatting websites that my students have used in the past.

    Citelighter Image

    My students are excited about features that will streamline their own workflow, but there are some other things about Citelighter that interest me as a teacher. The student profile panel tells me not only the citations my students are generating in their research, but also how many sources they’re citing from. This helps me when conferencing with the students about ways that they might improve their research strategies.

    Citelighter also creates a “Cognitive Print” of the students’ progress on a particular writing assignment. The image below shows the different ways two students approach the composition process while researching. Student 1’s Cognitive Print shows a more consistent pattern of copying from sources followed immediately by writing and annotating. Student 2’s Cognitive Print shows longer periods of gathering of information and then writing about that information in one bigger block of time. Neither approach to the research process is “right,” but this information gives my students and me something more to conference about, and provides more information for their own self-reflection.

    Citelighter Image

    Diigo

    Diigo is a social bookmarking service based on the idea that when you bookmark a website on your computer, it’s only useful if you’re actually on that same computer. Social bookmarks, on the other hand, carry over to any computer as long as you’re logged in to a service like Diigo or Delicious. But even more powerful is the fact that you can share your bookmarks with others, and you can see what other like-minded people are bookmarking. Features like this facilitate social scholarship. Some colleagues in the National Writing Project and I have our students discuss their digital compositions on Youth Voices, and sharing bookmarks through Diigo gave us another way to collaborate (see graphic below). For practical ideas on how to implement Diigo in classroom settings, see Ferriter and Garry’s book, Teaching the iGeneration.

     Diigo Image

    Crocodoc

    Crocodoc converts Word or PDF documents to allow for collaboration via the web. Users can highlight key passages, share them with collaborators, and even send others the link to the annotated document. Crocodoc is similar to DocStoc or Scribd, but because it’s created with HTML5 (and not Flash) it works well not only with modern browsers, but also Apple’s iPads and iPhones. New York City teacher Paul Allison has his 7th graders use Crocodoc primarily to annotate readings and as another way to discuss course content.

    Crocodoc Image

    Mendeley

    When some members of my doctoral studies cohort and I were researching social media and civic engagement, we shared our findings with each other via Mendeley, a reference manager and PDF organizer. Mendeley is particularly useful for the kind of academic research done in graduate school. For example, when I would come across a journal article that I thought my collaborators would find useful, all I had to do was drag and drop the article on to the icon on my desktop; in addition to making it easier to share research, the program extracts the title, journal, keywords, and other relevant information. There’s a plugin available for Microsoft Word to make citing sources much easier in that application. Zotero also has many of these same features listed above. For an excellent example of Zotero in the college classroom, see Ballenger’s The Curious Researcher.

    Mendeley Image

    Educators have known about the benefits of active reading for a long time; reading research has shown what effective comprehension strategies can mean for learning. Some of the best pre-Internet teachers I’ve known had their students read with a “pencil in hand”—making notes in the margins of their pages, judiciously annotating key passages, composing their thoughts in dialectical journals, and then sharing their findings in classroom discussions. Students now are doing their research online, and the habits of mind that good readers have always brought to bear on text can be facilitated through the use of new applications.

    Chris SloanChris Sloan teaches high school English and media at Judge Memorial in Salt Lake City, Utah. He is also a PhD candidate in Educational Psychology and Educational Technology at Michigan State University. Join him on the Teachers Teaching Teachers webcast every Wednesday at 9:00 p.m. Eastern Time at teachersteachingteachers.org.

     

    This article is part of a series from the International Reading Association Technology in Literacy Education Special Interest Group (TILE-SIG).

     

    Maybe it’s just me, but it seems like today’s students are being asked to read more nonfiction and compose more “informational” writing than ever. The NCTE/IRA Standards for English Language Arts advocate for classrooms where students gather,...Read More
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    • Teaching With Tech

    #IRAchat: Project Based Learning

    by Jonathan Hartley
     | Feb 05, 2014

    It’s Digital Learning Day and what better way to celebrate than adding a Twitter chat to your plans? On February 13th at 8pm EST, we’ll be hosting the next installment of #IRAchat. We’ll be discussing and sharing resources on the topic of project based learning (PBL).

    IRAchat on Reading Today OnlineAdding expert advice and guidance during the hour-long chat will be educational consultant and blogger Andrew Miller (@betamiller). If potential chatters are unfamiliar with PBL or need some foundational information before joining us on February 13th, Andrew wrote an excellent primer, “Getting Started with Project-Based Learning (Hint: Don't Go Crazy)” on Edutopia.

    What is #IRAchat?

    Inspired by the impressive resource-sharing that was happening in education-focused Twitter chats, IRA launched #IRAchat on July 18, 2013. The chat was originally bi-monthly, but due to its increasing popularity #IRAchat is now monthly.  You’ll be able to find the chat at 8p.m. EST on the second Thursday of every month.

    Each month’s chat revolves around a hot topic in education.  To provide insight and add depth to the conversations, a guest expert is enlisted to co-host each month’s chat. Following each chat, a Storify recap is assembled—you can revisit the highlights of each chat here:

    Digital Writing in the Classroom
    Invent Your Future on #ILD13
    Informational Reading & Writing
    Hacking Your Curriculum

    How to chat

    To join the conversation, you can simply search for the #IRAchat hashtag in Twitter. If you’re unfamiliar with Twitter, you can learn how to get started and make the most of your experience by reading “Harnessing the Educational Power of Twitter.”

    We look forward to chatting with you on Thursday and please feel free to tweet us with any questions you may have. Just use the #IRAchat hashtag in your tweet and we will do our best to help you with any advice or Twitter troubleshooting.

    It’s Digital Learning Day and what better way to celebrate than adding a Twitter chat to your plans? On February 13th at 8pm EST, we’ll be hosting the next installment of #IRAchat. We’ll be discussing and sharing resources on the topic of...Read More
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    Kidlink: Building Bridges and Promoting Social and Digital Inclusion

    by Clarisse Olivieri Lima
     | Jan 27, 2014

    My e-learning journey began when I joined Kidlink, a multicultural non-profit organization created by a Norwegian named Odd de Presno. His main idea was to establish a global network to promote collaboration and communication among youth from 10 to 15 years old. Within a few years of its creation, the Kidlink community grew connecting more than 190 countries.

    It was an amazing experience as we explored not only the potential of the Internet but also the kids' creative learning. The organization has become an Association but still runs its projects all over the world. I believe this is a good example of the use of technology to build multicultural bridges and lessen the digital divide.

    KidlinkThe first step to register in Kidlink is to answer four questions: (1) Who am I?, (2) What do I want to be when I grow up?, (3) How do I want the world to be better when I grow up?, and (4) What can I do now to make this happen? The answers to these questions populate a database that consists of rich material for collaborative projects implemented throughout the network. The material can offer good support to curriculum integration such as in writing, to express personal thoughts and compare and contrast ideas, or in mathematics, to analyze and interpret data using diagrams and graphics.

    The role of such a project in a globalized world is highlighted through a range of issues involving citizenship trends. By sharing a range of opinions and developing familiarity with different ideas, students overcome communication barriers and solve problems in a more cooperative manner. This way, as adults, they will take a more global and long-term perspective on issues, rather than acting to maximize local, short-term interests. In addition, Kidlink's participants live in countries from all over the world; in societies that have very different views on social, ethical, legal, religious, and moral issues. Kidlink encourages participants to value these differences and use them to gain insight into multiple views of a particular issue. In all activities, kids are free to honestly express their own views.

    Most of the projects had the goal of supporting students as they share information, experiences, and resources with their peers who have similar aspirations, and effectively use their knowledge and information tools. Together, they investigate alternatives and propose solutions to better their future world. Some of the projects, such as the multicultural calendar and the multicultural recipe book, also help students strive to protect their traditions and roots, which in turn, helps them understand and respect themselves and their culture.

    Online collaborative and multicultural projects such as those associated with Kidlink develop cross-curricular competencies that form the cornerstone for 21st century learning. These competencies, along with the 4Cs—Communication, Collaboration, Critical Thinking, and Creativity—are key to student success in college, career, and citizenship. 

    Clarisse Olivieri de LimaClarisse Olivieri de Lima is the Technology Coordinator of a private K12 school in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

    This article is part of a series from the International Reading Association Technology in Literacy Education Special Interest Group (TILE-SIG).

    My e-learning journey began when I joined Kidlink, a multicultural non-profit organization created by a Norwegian named Odd de Presno. His main idea was to establish a global network to promote collaboration and communication among youth from...Read More
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    The Right Tool at the Right Time

    by Julie D. Ramsay
     | Jan 22, 2014

    In today’s world, the topic of using technology in the classroom can be intimidating. In this monthly column, join one teacher on a quest to discover the best way to meet the needs of her digital-age learners…moving beyond the technology tools to focusing on supporting each student’s learning.

    pinterest boardRecently, I was in a professional meeting and an administrator mentioned that the teachers who he considers experts in using technology to support student learning will not be the teachers who you will always witness using technology with students when you enter the classroom. He went on to explain that the key element in someone being an expert is knowing when and how to use digital tools to foster and promote student learning.

    Upon further reflection, I have to say that I wholeheartedly agree with these statements. Teaching in today’s digital world provides us with a plethora of opportunities and tools. However, our focus should still remain upon our students and what they need. The assertion that “good teaching is good teaching” still rings true today; just because we have more options does not mean that those options are intrinsically better than practices we have used in the past.

    With that thought in mind, I wanted to share some strategies used with one tool that has proven to be very effective in promoting the learning of my diverse learners.

    The Writing on the Wall

    This year, I moved to a new school. Since I had the opportunity to totally re-think the classroom learning space, I did a lot of research about how to design an environment that promoted creative and reflective thinking. I wanted a space that would establish balance and calm while still sparking conversation and meaningful learning. (You can check out my Learning Spaces Pinterest board.)

    One idea that continued to pop up in different posts was to create spaces where students could collaborate and notate. This needs to be a space that is readily available, but also can adapt based on the needs of the learners. I came to the conclusion that I needed to have an “idea wall.” This would be an entire wall in my classroom that I can paint any color and then put a top coat over it that turns the entire wall into a dry erase board. We chose to use Idea Paint, but there are other choices available to you in different price ranges.

    Now I have this blank canvas that literally stretches from floor to ceiling and wall-to-wall. The first time I “accidentally” wrote on the wall, the students had a massive, collective gasp. Once they realized that it was a dry erase board, they cheered and ideas of ways to use it erupted.

    Of course, like with any novelty, students need an opportunity to play with any new tool. We began by having students share their knowledge of different punctuation practices that can impact the successful conveyance of meaning in one’s writing to an audience. Students eagerly gathered around, dry erase pens in hand to add their bits of knowledge into one collective bank of information. As we discussed their choices, students began adding to one another’s ideas and justifying the choices that they made in adding to the wall.

    A Fly on the Wall

    When we participated in the Global Read Aloud, I added “Quotes That Speak to Me” onto the wall. I wanted students to think deeply about the text that they were reading in OUT OF MY MIND, by Sharon Draper, and WONDER, by R. J. Palacio. My goal was for them to consciously look at a text in the greater framework of their lives, making connections, drawing conclusions, and analyzing how an author writes to share others voices to teach all of us about different perspectives. 

    The choices that they made in sharing quotes from each book throughout this project gave me insight into how each learner viewed the world and how they were changing as not only readers, but also as individuals in their perspective of the world around them and their role within it. One student commented at the end of the Global Read Aloud that she was sad to see us erase the wall because it seemed to be living and growing alongside us as we read those two amazing books. Immediately, students broke out their devices to shoot photos and videos to document that learning experience. It became very personal to each of them.

    While involved in a mystery unit, we used our wall in two different ways. We were reading THE LONDON EYE MYSTERY, by Sioban Dowd, which included many British phrases and colloquialisms unfamiliar to my students.  The wall became a collaborative, evolving glossary to serve a resource while reading. Students became experts at using context clues to determine meaning. The other way we used it was as a “motherboard” in analyzing the text structure of a mystery. Students determined suspects, clues, and red herrings and wrote them on the wall. They learned to dissect the text critically to make valid predictions that could be supported by citing text evidence. The sharing of their independent ideas on our wall sparked many discussions amongst small groups of students. The wall was making their thinking visible to their peers, thus deepening the learning of all.

    The Thunderous Silence

    Yet another way that our idea wall had played an important part in our learning environment was when I facilitated a Chalk Talk. This is a strategy that asks students to respond to a quote, idea, text, or open ended-question, using only their written words. There must be complete silence while they reflect, respond, and generate new ideas. Students must actively read not only the text, but also one another’s comments and respond accordingly.

    I wrote a poem up on our wall. It was one that included much imagery, figurative language, and some deep meaning. Like most poetry, much is left up to an individual’s interpretation. I explained Chalk Talk procedures with my learners, handed each of them a dry erase marker and stepped back to let them proceed. Initially, I anticipated that this learning activity would have the duration of ten to fifteen minutes. 

    After thirty minutes of complete silence and active written conversations on the idea wall, they were still going strong. At the conclusion, my students demonstrated the ability to analyze a poem, identify elements, make connections with other pieces of literature, apply lines to personal experience, and value one another’s ideas, and empathize on a level many believe middle level students are incapable.

    Wall to Wall

    Could some of these activities have been done digitally? Yes, I will admit there are tools that provide students with similar abilities. However, what is missing with those tools that the idea wall provides is the human element. With our idea wall, every student had a voice. Having our idea wall strengthened the climate of our learning environment; everyone had a crucial role to play by sharing on the wall.  Without everyone sharing, the students realized their learning would not be as great. This wall facilitated thinking in a way I had not experienced using technology. It promoted the importance of each individual’s voice while fostering face-to-face conversation that some middle school students shy away from in class.

    Does this mean we will stop using digital tools? Absolutely not. We use many different technology tools to support learning. However, one of the first things that my learners share with visitors to our classroom in person or when we Skype with others is the fact that “we get to write on the wall.”  It’s become an integral part of their learning and their learning space. Every student has different needs. That is why as a teacher, we must take time to find the right tool at the right time, whether it’s digital or not.

    Julie D. Ramsay is a Nationally Board Certified educator and the author of “CAN WE SKIP LUNCH AND KEEP WRITING?”: COLLABORATING IN CLASS & ONLINE, GRADES 3-8 (Stenhouse, 2011). She teaches ELA to sixth graders at Rock Quarry Middle School in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. She also travels the country to speak, present, and facilitate workshops in applying technology to support authentic learning. Read her blog at juliedramsay.blogspot.com

    © 2014 Julie D. Ramsay. Please do not reproduce in any form, electronic or otherwise.

    In today’s world, the topic of using technology in the classroom can be intimidating. In this monthly column, join one teacher on a quest to discover the best way to meet the needs of her digital-age learners…moving beyond the technology tools to...Read More
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