Nunaka Librarian

Project-based instruction builds on student’s individual strengths, and allows them to explore their interests in the framework of a defined curriculum.

Below are links to three exemplars of project-based learning. Each with a different topic, different grade level and from a different location, but all with common design principals. All three have a driving question that sets the tone and direction for the entire PBL project. The roll of the teacher in each example changed from front and center to more of a project manager and a guide. Teachers became learners along with their students during the PBL process.

“More Fun Than a Barrel of …Worms?!” – Diane Curtis, Edutopia

http://www.edutopia.org/more-fun-barel-worms

“Geometry Students Angle into Architecture Through Project Learning” – Sara Armstrong, Edutopia

http://www.edutopia.org/geomerty-real-world-students-architects

“March of the Monarchs: Students Follow the Butterflies’ Migration” –Diane Curtis, Edutopia

http://www.edutopia.org/march-monarchs

Benefits of project-based instruction that was consistent in the three exemplars include:

• Preparing students for the workplace.
• Increasing motivation.
• Connecting learning at school with reality.
• Providing collaborative opportunities to construct knowledge.
• Increasing social and communication skills. Important when working with a team.
• Increasing problem-solving skills
• Enabling students to make and see connections between disciplines
• Providing opportunities to contribute to their school or community
• Increasing self-esteem.
• Allowing students to use their individual learning strengths and diverse approaches to learning
• Providing a practical, real-world way to learn to use technology

In all three exemplars students were involved in the planning of the project. Sharing ideas about topics, giving students a voice in how and what they learn. When students are given a sense of ownership and control, they buy in. More projects are turned in and there is less trouble with discipline.  Students were given the freedom to choose different strategies and approaches for completion of the task. All three examples were student-centered environments where they can see the connection between the project and the real world. Students became self-managers. Students worked in small groups, holding each other responsible for the work and the completion of the project.

Using PBL in the classroom forces students to use their minds and to “do” the work. Students produce better individual comprehension solving problems when working with other students. Why? They learn from each other by asking questions and listening – essential behaviors for learning. When students work in groups it requires them to build broader skills than it takes to listen or watch the teacher present information. Plus, it allows students to manage each other – which they do effectively when given the opportunity.

The best part of PBL is that it prepares students as lifelong learners because they’re expanding their social and academic abilities.

Blogs and Podcasts

As an elementary school librarian I believe it is my role as the “information specialist,” to know about blogs and podcasts and to use them professionally. They are an increasingly popular source of information and can be a popular communication tool for staff and students. Blogs and podcasts can also be a very powerful communication tool between the library and the school community.

I have listed two blog sites; one video podcast site and two podcast sites that I feel will strengthen my professional growth and current instructional practices in the library. The information provided at these sites is relevant, effective and easy to navigate. I commute 45 minutes one-way every day to work. This time would be better spent listening to an educational podcast rather than sports radio.

Doug Johnson The Blue Skunk Blog

http://doug-johnson.squarespace.com/why-the-blue-skunk-blog/

Writing, speaking and consulting on school technology and library issues

Doug Johnson is the Director of Media and Technology for the Mankato (MN) Public schools.

 

ALA TechSource Blog.

http://www.alatechsource.org/blog

ALA Tech Source is a unit of the publishing department of the American Library Association. ALA TechSource publishes Library Technology Reports, Smart Libraries Newsletter and the

Discovery Channel Video Podcasts

Explore your world with Discovery video podcasts! Many short videos that would be great to show at the start of a lesson to hook students.

EdTechTalk.com Podcast

Edtechtalk shows are recorded during live interactive webcasts. Guests discuss what they’ve been working on or share their thoughts about some aspect of ed tech. During the show listeners can skype in to comment and ask questions or they can hang out in the chat room and participate from there.

 

The Tech Teachers Podcast

A podcast that focuses on technology and education, and where they overlap.

www.thetechteachers.blogspot.com

 

 

 Global Collaboration and Learning

How to create a world of success without leaving your classroom author Julene Reed talks about how important it is for students to have the knowledge of other cultures around the world. Students must be global communicators, participate successfully in project-based activities and have collaborative global skills. Educators can help increase global awareness through the use of technology.

 

I am the librarian at Nunaka Valley Elementary in Anchorage, Alaska. Nunaka is a small school that houses many different cultures. The 2007-2008 Ethnicity Report gave the following numbers:

African-American/Black 21

Alaska Native/American Indian 62

Asian 19

Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander 15

White 87

Hispanic 38

Multi-Ethnic 51

Total 293

Using Flat Stanley and VoiceThread the students at Nunaka Valley will have the opportunity participate in a project-based global technology activity while learning about different cultures within their own school.

Project Summary

The Flat Stanley Project grew out of a classic children’s book by the same name, written by Jeff Brown. In the story, Stanley, a regular boy, is squashed flat by a falling bulletin board. On the bright side, he discovers that his parents can slip him into an envelope and mail him to visit friends in faraway places. In real life, students in thousands of classrooms around the world participate in the Flat Stanley Project. Each class makes its own cardboard flat friend and creates a life story for him countries. When a flat visitor arrives, host children treat him as an honored guest. They take him along on outings, snap travel photos, and keep a journal of their activities and meals, giving insight into life in their part of the world.

Project Questions:


Are we really so different from others?

How are other kids like me?


What is special about our history, the characteristics of the land around us, and our weather?


How does our friend spend his time while visiting other countries?


How far does our friend travel?


What types of fruits, vegetables, breads, and meats does our friend eat during his stay?

 

 

 

I teach at an elementary school where many students do not have cell phones, digital cameras or even a computer to use at home. Most of their creativity with technology happens at school. With the use of Ed.VoiceThread, (www.ed.voicethread.com) we have been able to expand the walls. 

Ed.VoiceThread membership is restricted to K-12 educators, students and administrators. All content is created by registered members of the community. Students can participate without valid emails. There is no software to install, manage or upgrade. VoiceThread also takes care of the data back up.

A single class subscription to Ed.VoiceThread  is $60.00 which includes the classroom teacher and all the students in class plus 30 archival exports. A school subscription is $1.00 per user per year.

One of the biggest concerns teachers and parents have with online resources is security. Student content and commentary on Ed.VoiceThread are by default, anonymous to others. There are no “free” or anonymous users in the Ed.VoiceThread enviroment. Student work is transparent to educators and administrators. Ed.VoiceThread includes security controls that are simple to understand and easy to configure. Domain blocking schemes can be used by teachers to specify how broadly your students can collaborate.

Alaskan Animals and Ed.VoiceThread

 I collaborated with two first grade teachers on an Alaskan animal project last spring. Permission slips were sent home to parents letting them know about the project and asking for permission to use student pictures. All the parents signed the permission slips and only parent did not want a student picture used. The students were assigned basic research and had to write sentences about their animal. Each student then drew and colored a picture of their animal, which I scanned and uploaded into Ed.VoiceThread. Students then came to me one by one to record their research facts into the computer on their animal slide. When we were finished I exported the program as an archival quick time movie. Parents were invited to a brunch in the library to view the shows. This is one way I have used Ed.VoiceThread in the elementary. This project gave the first grade students a platform to share their work and their voice. This is also a great way to share student creativity outside the classroom with parents who are in the military.

Comic Creator: Learning Beyond The Classroom

ReadWriteThink, (www.readwritethink.org) is a partnership between the International Reading Association and the National Council of Teachers of English to provide educators and students with reading and language arts instruction through free, Internet based content.

This website features lessons and web resources that are standards based and can be selected by grade (K-2, 3-5, 6-8, 9-12).  The web resources include instructional resources, professional development, reference library and student resources.

The Student Materials Index includes a collection of interactive tools that provide students in grades K-12 the opportunity to use technology while developing their literacy skills.

The Comic Creator (http://www.readwritethink.org/materials/comic/)

Comic Creator is an interactive tool that students can use to compose their own comic strips on a variety of topics. Students can choose backgrounds, characters, props, and compose dialogue. This tool can be used by students in grades K-12, from learning to write dialogue to an in-depth study. Comic Creator in includes a printable PDF Comic Strip Planning Sheet to help students create a draft before creating their work on Comic Creator. Comics can be printed but not saved.

I have used Comic Creator with students to develop Dewey Decimal comics to hang up in the library and hallway of the school. Students are divided into eight groups and given a Dewey Decimal number like 500 and asked to come up with a comic strip that fits that category. Students use the planning sheet to organize their thoughts and then go to the computer to create their comic. I divide this project into three library sessions. Session one, I introduce the project and show examples of how Comic Creator works. Students are also give time to explore the program. Session two, students are given the Comic Strip planning sheet to organize their thoughts. Session three, groups are assigned a computer to create and print their comics. I have students print in black and white and add color later.

Comic Creator allows students to use their creative minds to organize and produce a product that will be unique to the group they are working with. Each group does use the same format but the students have the freedom of choice to develop their final comic strip. Many times after this lesson I have students bring in comics they make at home. They really like the fact the Comic Creator is a free program they can use on any type of computer. Students are not stuck using a program that is only found on library computers.

The Seven Wonders: an interdisciplinary approach

 

This unit is collaborative project put together with a team of three intermediate classroom teachers and myself, the librarian, while taking the Intel Teach to the Future Workshop on Teaching with Technology. The focus of the workshop is enhancing higher-order thinking skills using three online tools available at the Intel Education Web site (www.intel.com/education).

 

The Seven Wonders

Using the world wide competition for naming 7 new wonders of the world, students will be able to learn not only about several of the nominees, but 
also the geographic location of each, materials used to build it, why it was 
built, the role it plays in the local and world culture, and the factors 
that influenced its design.  Students will use the visual ranking tool to collectively agree on the most important considerations for choosing the new
 wonders.  They will also be asked to think critically about how the
 available work force, geography, materials available, etc. effects the
 decision of the designer, builder, and so on.

 

Learning Objectives

Students will be able to…

Compare and contrast the differences between wonders

Assess the impact of wonders

Understand the importance of wonders

Share knowledge gained through collaborative research based projects

Students will campaign to persuade others to vote for their wonder based on knowledge gained through research

 

Essential Question: What makes a wonder a wonder?

 

Unit Questions:

What are the qualities of an object considered to be a wonder?

What is special or unique about the wonders of the world?

What impact does culture have on the structure?

 

 

Content Questions:

Why was your structure built
?

What materials were used to build your structure and why were those 
materials chosen? 


What role, if any, did geography play in the building of your structure?

Who built the structure?


How was the structure built
?

When was your structure built?

Why do you feel your structure deserves to be one of the new Seven Wonders of the World?

 

The Intel Visual Ranking Tool

This tool helps students:

1. Establish criteria to evaluate and prioritize information.

2. View issues from multiple perspectives and makes decisions by seeking consensus and negotiating new options.

3. Collaborate with peers and community members.

 

Visual Ranking Tool Project Description:

What are the important factors to consider when nominating a new world wonder?  List the following qualities from the most important to the least important.

The sorting list included:

Accessibility

Age of structure

Cultural purpose for community

How long did it take to build?

Level of mystery?

Longevity of the object

Popularity

Size of the structure

Structural impressiveness, WOW

 

The Intel Seeing Reason Tool:

This tool helps students:

1. Understand complex problems or systems that involve cause-and-effect relationships.
2. Discuss, represent, and defend interpretations of problems or systems that involve cause and effect.
3. Use mathematical reasoning and understanding across the curriculum through the use of logic, critical thinking, and the visual representation of direct and inverse relationships.

 

Seeing Reason Tool Project Description:

Building a Wonder.

There are several factors that influenced the materials used in building the wonders of the world. Students will be asked to explore their thoughts concerning the choices of these materials

Research question: What factors impacted the choice of these materials? Please establish a relationship between these factors.

 

The Intel Showing Evidence Tool

This tool helps students by:

1. Develop effective argumentation skills.
2. Develop strategies for encouraging discussion as students make claims; support their claims with evidence, debate differences, and research conclusions.
3. Analyze and evaluate criteria for their decisions.

 

Showing Evidence Project Description:

Which would you choose?

There are 21 nominees but only 7 will be chosen.  Imagine yourself in front 
of the voting committee making a case for the one you believe should be 
included.  Because many others have ideas too, you will need to persuade the 
committee that your claim is the best choice.  You must support your claim 
by evidence found in your research.  Assure the committee that your evidence 
is of high quality and can be trusted.   Make a connection between your claim
 and the evidence. Justify your research by showing how the evidence supports your claim.  Lastly, to show you are a fair person, make at least
 one counterargument to your claim.  

Prompt:

There are 21 nominations and only 7 will be selected. Your team has been chosen to convince the committee to select your site.

All three classes came together at the end of the school year and put on a school-wide Seven Wonders Museum Tour in the gym. The students were able to share and talk about their projects with other students, teachers, parents and even a school board member. 

Sometimes as a teacher you wonder if all the extra time and effort is worth it. Just watching the students the day of museum tour reassured myself and the three classroom teachers that it was well worth it, and we would do it again!

 

           

 

 

 

 

I am starting a new club at my school this week, the Rock Hounds. This is a club that is open to students in grades 4-6 and will meet on Wednesdays at lunch in the library. My goal is to provide students with a variety of digital media experiences mixed together with nonfiction books, charts and displays to get the students excited about geology.

I have developed a whole group PowerPoint presentation that includes video segments from Discovery Education streaming, Junior Geologist: Rocks and Minerals. The first segment, Identifying Rocks, will be used as an introduction to this unit.   This PowerPoint will also be used on individual computers as student investigation stations.  Students will be learning new science processing skills each week to answer investigation questions.

Science Processing Skills that students will be learning are:

Classifying

Collecting and Recording Data

Communicating Information

Comparing and Contrasting

Drawing Conclusions

Inferring

Interpreting Data

Observing

Predicting

The PowerPoint presentation can be used in many ways. Below are five ways I plan to use this PowerPoint presentation.

1. As a whole group presentation 

2. On individual computers as “investigation stations”

3. As a model to show students and staff how to embed video into a PowerPoint

4. As a resource tool for the other 4th grade teachers to use with their classes

5. Resource for the alternative evaluation that I am on this school year. Our district just purchased Discovery Education streaming for all of our schools. I am working with four classroom teachers on learning how to use this product in our classrooms.

Howard Gardner suggests to educators to approach a topic in a number of ways and through diverse entry points. By using digital media with the Rock Hound club I will be able to reach a variety of students by offering them many different ways to access the information.