Wicked Problem Project

Problem

This school year I am switching from first grade to fourth grade because my principal wants to give me the opportunity to have students utilizing technology more to enhance their learning. I want to use technology to address several needs:

First, I want to increase student motivation for writing. Students often view writing as a difficult task with limited outcomes. Because of this, students at my school tend to have weak writing scores on the MEAP compared to the 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. To help motivate students, I want to give them authentic assignments to allow students to practice their writing skills and giving them an audience to read their writing that goes beyond me.

Second, it’s very important to keep parents involved and up-to-date with their child’s progress. 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. However, it can be very challenging to continually send updates to all parents because of the large number of students in my class and the many assignments they complete.

Lastly, I want to expand the variety of assessments that I utilize in order to address different learning styles. Some students really excel at discussions, however, it can be difficult to document these for assessment purposes.

Solution

My solution to these needs is utilizing a learning management system, or LMS. There are many LMSs available including Moodle, EdModo, SchoolRack, and Edu2.0. After reviewing the different systems available, I decided to try EdModo. One reason I chose Edmodo is the interface 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 as no other teacher uses one in our school. Choosing a more complicated system, like Moodle, would require an extensive amount of time to train students to use. Furthermore, 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.

LMSs give students the opportunity to engage in writing in a more authentic manner as well as providing them with a greater audience. Students can not only complete traditional essays and stories, but also use writing to interact with their peers in discussions about topics in other content areas. These discussions, along with publishing other types of writing, gives peers and parents the opportunity to read the writing.

Edmodo allows not only teachers and students to interact, but also allows parents to see what assignments are due and how their child is progressing by viewing the gradebook. Teachers can also directly send messages to parents.

What is the TP knowledge for the solution?  (i.e., how does the technology you have chosen support the teaching strategies and methods you have chosen?)

Discussions are an important component of my pedagogy. Students engage in discussions about a variety of content including books, social studies topics, science experiments, and even each other’s writing. Edmodo, as my technology, will allow discussions that typically take place in class to occur online (which means students could also be involved in them at home). A benefit of this over face to face discussions is that it will give every student the opportunity to share their ideas. Whereas in class, there may be difficulty getting to everyone’s ideas due to time constraints and some students may not feel comfortable sharing their ideas.  Using Edmodo will allow everyone to share their ideas and give students the opportunity to read what others think and have the opportunity to respond.  Furthermore, by having discussions online it provides a way to document student’s progress as a means of assessment.

Another important component of my instructional pedagogy is having students engaged in higher order thinking. I accomplish this through a variety of methods including having students apply their knowledge to new situations, compare and contrast ideas, create solutions to problems, debating responses to open-questions, and summarizing information from multiple sources. As a technology, Edmodo can support these activities by giving students a “safe place” to do these things. Students who are shy or feel overwhelmed by the whole-class presence, are more likely to feel at ease debating their ideas online because it is less confrontational. Edmodo will also allow students to complete these types of activities in more creative ways. For example, rather than writing down a summary or solution, they could create a video, Glogster, podcast, or use another tool to share their ideas. Students could then share their products with the class or just the teacher using Edmodo.

What is the TC knowledge for the solution? (i.e., how specifically does this technology make the content in your problem more intellectually accessible?  Be sure to think about representation.)

EdModo can be used to enhance content. The fourth grade social studies curriculum is focused on regions of the United States. Edmodo has networks of teachers that allow classes from around the country to connect with one another. Using Edmodo will give students the opportunity to learn about other regions from first-hand accounts rather than just reading about it in a textbook. Students can share information about their region, and learn from others about the regions they live in. This may be done through pictures, videos, or written accounts. Students will not only be exposed to the physical geographical differences but also how it affects life in that region.

The Global Classroom Project on Edmodo will also allow students to engage in online discussions with others who may have different experiences and perspectives on topics such as books or current events. These differences will help students understand different points of views. This may be particularly important since students at a given school may have similar experiences. This opportunity helps address several key standards from the Common Core State Standards:

• SL.4.1. Engage effectively in a range of collaborative discussions (one-on-one, in groups, and teacher-led) with diverse partners on
• SL.4.2. Paraphrase portions of a text read aloud or information presented in diverse media and formats, including visually, quantitatively, and orally.

All of these activities require students to be engaged in writing to express their ideas. Edmodo makes content more accessible by giving students more options for displaying what they have learned. Edmodo will allow not only traditional quizzes, but it is a platform that students can use to submit videos, PowerPoint presentations, or just engage in discussions. The discussions that students engage in through Edmodo allow teachers to better understand their thinking and have evidence of it, which is important for accountability.

What is the PC knowledge for the solution? (i.e., how specifically do your pedagogical choices make the content in your problem more intellectually accessible? Be sure to think about how the student will experience the content given these instructional strategies.

Discussions are important for a wide range of content. They require students to examine different perspectives on issues. When having a discussion, they may be required to support their beliefs with evidence. This discourse not only expands students' minds and point of views of issues but it also allows teachers to see this change and use it for assessment. Teachers can also take part in the discussions and push students thinking by asking questions.

The higher-level thinking activities are an important component for teaching any content because it requires students to have a deep understanding of the content knowledge. For example, if students were to create a project comparing and contrasting two regions, they must first understand characteristics of those regions in isolation before they are able to define their similarities and differences.  

Professional Learning Plan

I started my Professional Technology Plan by reflecting on the one I wrote for CEP810 in April 2012. My vision statement remains the same: 

Vision Statement

Technology is ever-changing.  Therefore, how it is used in the classroom is constantly evolving.  When technology was first used it was limited to presenting static content to the learners through the use overhead projectors.  It evolved to respond to the user and make content more dynamic (Nice overview of the Evolution of Classroom Technology is available here).  Technology can be used as a tool to engage students, increase learning, differentiate instruction, provide experiences that would otherwise be foreign to students, and more.  Technology is an integral part of our students’ lives.  They have grown up on it. Therefore, it is important to utilize it to reach our students (DuFour, et al., 2010).  One of the major pitfalls of using technology in the classroom is all-too-often time.  Learning a new technology takes time.  Some technologies are quicker to learn than others and once learned can be a task more efficient.  However, others may take a long time to learn and even when mastered it requires considerable time to use (especially if you’re a perfectionist).  If you are having students use the technology, not only do you as a teacher have to learn how to use it, you then need to set time aside to teach students how to use it.  With the packed curriculum, this time may be something that is difficult to justify. Another pitfall that can occur is teacher’s using technology without tying it to the curriculum.  Some teachers will decide to do an activity involving technology because they want to excite their students.  However, the activity may have little to do with the curriculum.  Therefore, it’s important to consider pedagogy and curriculum goals when deciding whether to utilize a technology (SRI International).  Another pitfall that can occur is teachers using technology without tying it to the curriculum.  Some teachers will decide to do an activity involving technology because they want to excite their students.  However, the activity may have little to do with the curriculum.  Therefore, it’s important to consider pedagogy and curriculum goals when deciding whether to utilize a technology (SRI International).

Below you’ll see a timeline that incorporates my goals from the April plan along with new goals that I have developed. For past deadlines, I noted the outcome with some being successful (having students complete digital stories) and some not so successful (getting funding for Donor’s Choose). However, even though I wasn’t successful in getting my Donor’s Choose project for an interactive whiteboard funded, through CEP812, I found a new technology that can be used in much of the same way—Twiddla. Thus, using Twiddla in the classroom has become a new goal.

The timeline below shows my current plan. You can click on the various goals to read more about them including the purpose for that goal and what help may be needed (i.e. PTO funding, parent support, etc.) 

Created using TimeToast.

Resources

DuFour, R., DuFour, R., Barell, J., Darling-Hammond, L., Dede, C., Fisher, D., . . . Seif, E. (2010). 21st Century skills: Rethinking how students learn (J. Bellanca & R. Brandt, Eds.). Retrieved from http://www.solution-tree.com/products/21st-century-skills.html

Dunn, J. (2011, April 18). The evolution of classroom technology. Edudemic. Retrieved from http://edudemic.com/2011/04/classroom-technology/

SRI International. (n.d.). Overview of Technology and Education Reform. Retrieved April 20, 2011, from U.S. Department of Education website: http://www2.ed.gov/pubs/EdReformStudies/EdTech/overview.html

Group Leadership Project

We used a variety of tools to deliver the PD tutorial. The slides were made using Google Presentation. The embedded screenshots and the voice over was completed using Camtasia. Each slide was recorded separately on Camtasia and then put together using iMovie.  The original plan was to try to record the video straight through as a group. However, we found that it was easier to do each of our slides separately. That way if a mistake were made, it could easily be rerecorded.We chose Camtasia specifically because it was easy to record a portion of our screen as well as our voice and then export it into a format that iMovie could use.

One thing I learned during the development of the final product was the Google Hangouts is a great way to do web conferencing. It was much smoother (less lag) than Vyew and it was super easy to do screenshare and work on the documents together. Furthermore, it (along with Google Docs) can be used to easily share video and audio files. This is much easier than trying to use one of the drop box sites.  One of the drawbacks, however, of Google Presentation is that you cannot record audio on individual slides like you can in PowerPoint. If this option would have been available, it would have cut out some of the middle steps involved in recording individual slides with Camtasia.

If we had to develop a similar product again, one thing that I would have done differently is using more of the audio balancing tools on iMovie since some voices are louder than others. However, I did not end up producing the video (Wouter did).  Furthermore, I wish we had known up front that Google Presentation did not allow audio recordings. If we had known that, we may have used a different tool for creating the slides (perhaps Prezi), so we could have saved some time.