Stretching Limited Resources

The issue comes up time and again as educators brainstorm innovative technology integration ideas: limited resources. How can technology be integrated effectively into teaching and learning when there are practically no resources to purchase tools? Is technology a non-starter for cash-strapped districts and schools? Does a lack of a laptop for each student mean that whole-class projects are unworkable?

Absolutely not!

We are often tempted to think that each student must have their own computer to effectively implement a technology-infused project. But 1:1 computing, while a laudable goal, isn’t remotely necessary for student to benefit from the rich experiences that technology can offer. Consider…

Scheduling

Perhaps you have three computers in the provebial “back of the classroom.” Have you thought about how you can schedule their use to ensure that each student has ample access? If not, consider your guided reading groups and centers that you perhaps use for traditional language arts instruction. You may have a small group you work with for direct instruction while the rest of the class is divided among the completion of various activities (centers) such as reflective writing, vocabulary development, or peer editing. Why couldn’t computer use be one of those centers? It might take only 10-15 minutes for a student to write a reflective blog entry or respond to a message board prompt, meaning you could make it through half of your class in just one 60-minute language arts block. Need more time for project work? Most technology-based learning projects work better in small groups rather than individually, so resources can be stretched farther – though the occasional computer lab visit or laptop cart use certainly helps. And if you’re creating learning menu-style project lists where not every choice is technology-based, your students can engage in the kind of variety of experiences that are necessary to build a robust education without needing computer access at all times.

Software

Do you think you need high-priced software such as Adobe Photoshop or Premiere, Pagemaker, Inspiration/Kidspiration, or even Microsoft Office in order to meet student needs? Hopefully not! There is an amazing amount of free resources, both general and educationally-designed, to meet needs. Intel’s Thinking Tools, Glogster, VoiceThread, Photo Story, Movie Maker, Rubistar, Bubbl.us, ThinkQuest, Wikispaces, PBWiki, Edublogs, Weebly, TeacherTube, Google Docs, Google Earth, Picasa, SketchUp, Zoho, Bubble Share, Gcast, OpenOffice, Kerpoof… these form merely a tiny fraction of the free tools available to support your efforts. Each has its own advantages and disadvantages, so find the tools that best meet your needs. Then share the knowledge! Your colleagues will love you for it.

Hardware

Okay, so generally you’ll need some kind of robust computing devices to implement many of your plans, whether desktop computers, laptops, or netbooks. But what about other computing resources? There are numerous low-cost digital video cameras available such as the Flip Video line. Most of today’s digital still cameras can also capture fair-quality video. Skype, when combined with an inexpensive webcam, can provide a video-conferencing alternative to expensive Polycom systems. They can also be used for make-shift but effective document cameras when paired with a stand or tripod. $15-20 voice recorders / mp3 players obviate the need for iPods. Student cell phones that support text messaging or web browsers can get you research capabilities through Google and other sites. They can also be used as a replacement for student response systems by using such a site as Poll Everywhere.

The Risk of Blogging

Have you ever questioned whether the act of blogging is a good outlet for your creativity, insight, and desire to connect with fellow educators? Have you wondered what might happen if views posted on your personal blog conflicted with those held by key influencers in your work environment? If so, check out this Point/Counterpoint article in ISTE’s Learning and Leading with Technology May issue for two contrasting views on the topic.

Digital Language Arts V: “When I Grow Up…”

Continuing the last thread of using career roleplaying as a vehicle for authentic application and assessment of reading and writing skills, we present a few more ideas that leverage technology tools to serve as creative outlets for students. Keep in mind it all starts with high-quality reading material – students must be engaged with something interesting, relevant, and illustrative in order to bring out the passion and desire to produce/create/comment. It makes no sense to give a creative, technology-rich assignment to students that have no interest in the prompt material. Fire up their interest and they’ll fire up their effort!

Idea 1: Poem recitation (professional poet)

Standing up and reciting a poem of their own hand can be an embarrassing experience for students. They are sometimes hesitant to engage in the social risk of putting a voice to their own thoughts and emotions live and in front of their peers. However, technology may offer hope here. You can task students with using audio recorders for their recitations. These may take the form of dedicated hardware such as iPods with microphones or inexpensive mp3 recorders, or you may use computers with audio recording software such as the free Audacity or the built-in recorders for Windows and Mac OS X. In any of these cases, students have the ability to play back what they’ve recorded. This is essential in getting them to become more and more expressive over time; they can re-record until they are satisfied with their tone, pronunciation, rhythm, and so on. Further, when they hear their own words read aloud, they are more likely to go back and edit for greater clarity, and, as appropriate, different rhyme schemes. And perhaps inexplicably, having their recorded file played for the class may well be a source of pride to them, rather than embarrassment – having had the chance to perfect their recitation means there is far less fear of perceived incompetence. Bonus points go to teachers that find a means to post the audio files online for a greater audience to access.

Idea 2: Investigative journalism

Many students love to find out the whys of controversial issues that they care about it, whether in a large social context or near and dear to their daily lives. They may become passionate about the deteriorating environment in their neighborhood, the choice and healthfulness of the food served in the cafeteria, or the children exposed to violence on a daily basis in war-torn regions. A greater teacher will tap into and feed such passion through the selection of reading material that helps students come to deeper understandings and that offers interesting and diverse perspectives. Having been engaged with such material, students can take on the roles of investigative journalists through the creation of video reports or documentaries. Working in groups, student teams can be tasked with researching additional material to supplement their class readings, can interview key figures associated with the issue, and can produce a compelling video statement that brings everything together with their own particular conclusions. Skills of research, writing, and interviewing are combined with creativity, editing, and self-presentation. As was mentioned before, bundled video-editing software such as Windows Movie Maker and iMovie offer very powerful tools for such work.

Idea 2.5: Point/counterpoint debate

Using the same overall outline as above, students can create a video point/counterpoint debate of an issue instead of a report or documentary. This allows for divergent viewpoints in the working group to both be supported and acknowledged, and offers the further benefit of increasing the analytical thinking skills of students as each side attempts to trump the other’s arguments.

Idea 3: Multimedia newsletters

Many issues in our world are relevant and interesting to students without being controversial. Ask any student about pop culture – music, movies, video games, etc. – and they’re likely to surpise you with how much passion and insight they have. Since passion is one key to highly effective learning, why not tap into that? Task students with creating multimedia newsletters that inform and educate others about such topics. Students will exercise their writing skills not in the essay format, but in a variety of ways to persuade, inform, comment, and critique. By bringing in multimedia elements such as video clips, images, sounds and music, students gain more practice with the integration of media that is a hallmark of our current society. Tools such as Microsoft Publisher, Microsoft PowerPoint, Apple Keynote, or Apple Pages offer options, as well as do online tools such as Glogster.

ASCD Conference Afterthoughts

The ASCD annual conference has come and gone, and the Digital Language Arts team was proud to have connected with so many educators in our two presentations. It was inspiring to hear comments from so many people that are attempting to redefine their schools as places of exploration, innovation, and meaningful learning. We were also happy to engage in discussions concerning reading and writing instruction with educators from South America and Europe. There are innovative approaches to technology integration occurring all over the world, and yet we all share a common theme – engage students with relevant and authentic experiences and they’ll give you their all. Lastly, our very own team member, Nicole Sneddon, was recognized as one of ASCD’s Outstanding Young Educator honorees.

ASCD Annual Conference

The Digital Language Arts team will be presenting at the upcoming ASCD annual conference in Orlando, Florida, and we greatly look forward to connecting with so many educators from around the country. On Saturday, March 14th we will present 21st Century School Transformation: An Approach for Leaders from 4pm to 5pm. We will offer a mix of theory, discussion, and personal stories from our own public school experiences in an attempt to engage the audience with notions of meaningful school transformations. This session will be audio-recorded to be made available after the conference. And on Monday, March 16th we will present Digital Language Arts: A 21st Century Approach to Instruction from 12:30pm to 1:30pm. In this session we will offer a practical guide to the meaningful integration of technology into the teaching of reading and writing at the upper elementary level (or middle or high, too!) This will be a ticketed session.

Digital Language Arts IV: “Why Do We Have To Do This?”

One way to think about authentic work and authentic assessment is to frame them in the context of allowing students to roleplay in various careers. By doing so, students can learn to see their work in the context of the larger world, can better understand connections between disciplines, and can combine knowledge and skills from different areas of their school experience. They will also become more engaged and can even help engage their peers.

Consider the ideas below. Each can be used for assessment, review, or practice. Each involves reading and writing skills. Each can be posted online for various purposes, whether for review, for commenting by a larger audience, or as a showcase.

Idea 1: Recorded interviews of characters

How can students demonstrate that they understand a character’s outlook, motivations, and experiences in a novel? Have pairs of students write and perform an interview between an outside observer and a character from the material. The interviews can then be recorded as podcasts or in video form using such tools as Audacity, Garage Band, Movie Maker, or iMovie. Be sure to emphasize to students that someone that has never read the novel should be able to learn all of the most important insights about the character from the interview. For advanced work, students can write multiple interviews of the same character from different times in the novel, each representing a different part of their character arc. The interviews of different pairs of students, each from the same novel, can be collected and hosted online so that all students can use them as review material.

Idea 2: Multimedia advertisements for a novel

Students generally understand material when they are able to effectively entice other students to read it. Let students act as advertising executives by having them create multimedia advertisements for a novel. These might come in the form of radio commercials, television commercials, movie trailers, or kiosk-style presentations. Plot, theme, characters, and other important elements should be addressed by the advertisements. In addition to the software tools above, students can use Photo Story, PowerPoint, Keynote, Glogster, or VoiceThread.

Idea 3: Interactive sequels to novels

If you grew up in the 80s… or maybe even if you didn’t… you surely remember the Choose Your Own Adventure series of books. These engaging books allowed readers to make decisions that affected the plot – go through a door to face a magical dragon head-on, or circle around to retrieve a golden sword. The concept is perfectly suited to the electronic interactive tools available to students today. Have students become authors by creating a sequel to a novel wherein they take the main character and lead him or her through various further experiences. Using the technique of linking in such tools as PowerPoint, SMART Notebook, or any webpage editor, students can create multiple if-then decision points. Emphasize to students that they should write the character in ways that demonstrate that they understand the character’s outlook, motivations, and prior experiences, just as in the interviews above. For advanced work, students can include audio or links to external resources such as Google Earth to make their work even more engaging.

These three ideas are merely a snowflake on the tip of a huge iceberg. We’ll present more ideas for authentic application and assessment. Stay tuned.