Wicked Problem Project: Part A

PART A: The Wicked Problem - A Need or an Opportunity 

What is the important educational need that you are seeking to address? This element is fundamental in this project. Since we have limited time, energy, and resources, cool technology without a clear sense of why it matters or what we gain by it is of little value in the educational setting.

How you plan to address this educational issue with technology?  You need to make a clear and convincing case that your proposed solution will make a real impact on the issue you identify, and that your proposed approach is a reasonable approach given its costs and possible alternatives.

This school year, I am being moved from first grade to fourth grade. My principal’s impetus for this was that she loved the technology that I was using with the first graders but thought it would be more beneficial for the fourth graders to be exposed to this technology because they are more likely to retain it (since the second and third grade teachers in my school don’t use much technology). This switch to an upper grade seems like a great opportunity to try out new technologies. One technology that I am particularly interested in are Learning Managing Systems (LMSs). I think integrated an LMS into my F2F (face to face) teaching will help achieve several goals including better parent-teacher communication and student motivation, specifically for writing.  First, LMSs can help keep parents connected with students’ school work. Working with parents is an integral part of teaching. Parents play an important role in their child’s education because students’ attitudes about education are often influenced by their parents. Furthermore, if parents are informed about their student’s progress they are more likely to be involved in their child’s education but also more supportive of the teacher’s efforts (Jones & Jones, 2010, p.136-137).  I keep parents informed about class happenings through weekly newsletters and our classroom website (which includes a calendar, the newsletters, photos, and student work). However, I find it’s difficult to communicate with individual parents on a regular basis about their child’s academic progress because of the large number of students I have and the many assignments they do every week. I send home student assignments, however, many parents don’t know how to look at these assignments to see their students’ progress towards being secure in objectives. An LMS would allow parents to track their students’ progress as it relates to the different learning objectives. Second, students at my school tend to have weak writing scores on the Michigan Educational Assessment Program (MEAP) test compared to other subject areas. On the Fall 2011 test, 79% of fourth graders met or exceeded standards in writing compared to 82% in math and 84% in reading. One potential cause for this is that students are not motivated to write. They often view writing as a difficult task with limited outcomes. However, if students have the opportunity for their writing to be read by parents and their peers, they may be more enthusiastic about it because they have a purpose (the audience). One way to get their exposed to a larger audience is publishing it through an LMS via a blog, discussion forum, or “post” (like a timeline/wall note on Facebook).  There are many LMSs available including Edmodo, Moodle, SchoolRack, and Edu2.0. The technology that I am choosing to use is Edmodo. There are several reasons for that. First, the interface of Edmodo is designed to resemble Facebook. Students are able to collect badges, make “posts”, and personalize their profile. This makes students more invested in the system and, hence, more responsible for their learning. Due to this fact, students are likely to be more motivated to interact with the system.  Another reason I chose Edmodo is its simplicity of use. This is important because students are new to using an LMS (no other teacher uses one in our school), and choosing a more complicated system (like Moodle) would require an extensive amount of time to train students to use. Edmodo does not require an email address for student accounts, which is a useful component since many elementary students do not have personal email accounts.

3. Logistics of solution: For example...What is the scope? (e.g., when and where will tool be used and for how long? Who all will use it?)

This is a tool I would like to use throughout the 2012-2013 school year. I want to see students using it to interact with one another and completing assignments. I would like to use it to communicate with my students and keep track of their academic progress. Furthermore, I would like parents to be using the site as well so that they are informed about upcoming assignment due dates and their student’s progress in school.  In school, I would ideally like to have students using Edmodo at least two or three times a week. However, this will be constrained by when laptop carts or the computer lab is available. I would like to have students use it at home as well, however, this will depend on student’s access to computers and internet. I will determine this access at Curriculum Night with a parent survey. The assignments I would like to have students complete are book discussions, publishing writing, interacting with peers from around the country/world, polls, reading responses, quizzes, and more.

4. Relevant research and resources (from the Internet and elsewhere) including reports on the closest effort you can find to what you are planning to do as well as ideas and materials you may be able to build upon in your own effort.  Your description should include:

1. The results of your search (What resources may help guide your project? What resources may help in the implementation of your project?)
2. What you learned from performing this search. For example, which search engines did you use? What strategies did you use? What helped or hindered your search? How would you search again next time?

EdModo: A Guide To Explain it All by Patrick Cauley (itbabble.com) - this document is a resource to help teachers begin to use EdModo. It discusses how-to set up a class, make assignments/quizzes, student profiles, and more. This website was recommended by a user on a blog discussing the pros and cons of Edmodo versus Moodle. Dobler, E. (2012). Flattening classroom walls: Edmodo takes teaching and learning across the globe. Reading Today, 29(4), 12-13. This article is a fourth grade teacher who uses Edmodo to help her students connect with others around the world. It describes some of the more advanced ways Edmodo can be used such as joining the project the Global Read Aloud. In this project, classes around the world read the same book and then post their responses to it using a blog on Edmodo. This, along with other ideas presented in the article, are great ways to enhance the Edmodo experience beyond quizzes and assignments. This article I found using the MSU library’s Proquest article search.  20 Ways to Use Edmodo: This SlideShare has some of the ideas suggested on other sites for using Edmodo such as book clubs and for writing. However, it also has some unique ideas such as role-playing, keeping in touch with students who may be out sick, and project-based learning.  Edmodo - Create a Parent Account and Edmodo - Parent Features: These videos are short tutorials for parents on how to sign up for Edmodo and what features will be available to them. These videos are short and provides a simple background for the website. I searched on YouTube for videos that could be given to parents to help them with this process. Many of the videos were specific to certain classrooms, which I was worried would confuse some of my parents, specifically parents who are English Language Learners.  Edmodo on Eventbrite: This website is sponsored by Edmodo. It is a schedule for upcoming webinars of how to use Edmodo and allows users to sign up for them for free. They have hosted a variety of sessions from introductory ones to more advanced features as well as spotlights on how specific places use Edmodo.  Digital Citizenship and Edmodo: This has a digital citizenship poster that is meant to be used in the classroom to help students understand proper web etiquette. This will be an important component to include when introducing Edmodo to students. The poster is available in 6 different languages (links to those are found farther down in the comments section).  Global Classroom Project - This is a Wiki for information about the Global Classroom Project for 2012 - 2013. This is the project described in the Dobler article about connecting students around the world in discussions about various topics. This is something I would like to join to expand the audience that gets to read my students’ writing and to expand their thinking on various topics by hearing from a variety of students from different backgrounds.

5. A plan for the portion you will implement during this course, in the fall, and the portion you will implement after this course completes.

July-August 2011 - Explore EdModo and become familiar with it’s features. Practice making sample assignments and quizzes, then experiment taking these through a “student” account. Explore the “parent account” so that I can provide guidance to parents who are having trouble navigating the system. September 2011 Join the Global Classroom Project (expected to open in September) First week of school: Take students to the computer lab or get a laptop cart so students can sign up for an account and begin to personalize their profile. Discuss web etiquette using Digital Citizenship resources from Edmodo. Students can get to know one another and practice using some of the features of Edmodo by viewing each other’s profiles and making posts. Second week of school: introduce parents to EdModo at Curriculum Night. Do a brief introduction of how it will be used and how parents can use it at home. Give parents information about making an account and accessing their students’ information. Also, give parents a brief home technology survey to complete to determine student’s access to computers and internet at home. This will help guide whether EdModo content will be used at home in addition to at school. On the classroom website, I will also post the Edmodo video tutorials for parents. Have students use iMovie to record a short video introducing themselves to the class. Have them upload it to the class page on Edmodo. Have students reply to a certain number of classmates. Ongoing throughout the school year: Make book talk groups so students can share their reactions to stories.  Students can be grouped by reading level or interest. Make a discussion thread and have students share book reviews. Create assignments and quizzes on Edmodo. Use Edmodo to track student assignments and quizzes so that parents are in tune with how their child is progressing. Have students share their writing on Edmodo and respond to one another. This could also be used to share digital stories. Use the community forums to enhance my PLN and gather teaching ideas/resources. Have students routinely participate in the Global Classroom project.

6. How would you know you were successful?

One way that I know Edmodo has been successful is based on student and parent reactions. For parents, I will do a mid-year and final year survey to get their perceptions on it including how often they use it, whether they feel more informed about their child’s progress (compared to previous years), and how they perceive it has enhanced or detracted from their child’s education. For students, I can easily make polls using Edmodo and have students vote on them to get their reactions. For determining whether it has increased student motivation for writing, I will monitor student engagement during writing using Edmodo versus traditional pencil and paper writing. The data to support this would be to track frequency of off-task student behavior for a set amount of time during each activity over several days and comparing the means.

Reference: 

Jones, V., & Jones, L. (2010). Comprehensive classroom management: Creating communities of support and solving problems (9th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Merill.