End of Year Survey

Number of students served by this grant:
Approximately 180 in my classes alone.


Summarize how the grant impacted the students it served:
The Power to Learn grant impacted a number of students by providing a different form of media that is not always easily accessible in every classroom. By receiving the grant, our team was able to purchase 42 laptops that have been used daily since their arrival. Also, we received 2 Nintendo Wii systems that have been used to supplement different learning stations throughout the year. Students have responded positively after using both of these tools.


Briefly share a couple of specific experiences that went well:
In general, every lesson that we used the technology on went well.
Jazz Age:
My first true experience with the netbooks, we were working on the Jazz Age. I was a little nervous about using the netbooks but decided there was no time like the present. The students were able to log onto Ning to:
1. take their notes on the Jazz Age (no lecturing, students could work at their own pace)
2. watch a video clip about the Jazz Age, then respond to the blog regarding the Jazz Age.
3. create a Jazz Age character based on their research.

World War II:
Students were given numerous options in a menu format to study World War II. The first part of the lesson consisted of centers, that used the netbooks for the simple process of watching a video and answering questions. The next part, which were the menus, consisted of students doing several things. Some students read Night by Elie Wiesel and then participated in a book study online. Others played 2 games on the Wii, Battles of the Pacific and Medal of Honor, then had to create journal entries about their experiences online. Lastly, one of the "easier" choices were BrainPop videos and online quizzes that were sent to me via email. Students had to do at least 3 of the choices. Students seemed to enjoy the experience and test scores were improved.

Movie Guides:
This one was relatively easy. I got tired of doing the same old movie guides that did not give me any real time information. Now, while a movie or clip is on, the students are logged onto Ning and have to answer questions while the clip is on. I choose when to post a question and the students have to answer before the next question is posted. The immediate feedback has been amazing.

Your plan for next year- how you plan to take the project forward next year:

My goal for next year is to implement this program much more from the beginning. The students have developed a higher motivation for learning and are learning more 21st century skills. Now, my goal is to create more effective lessons that use the technology fully.

Wrapping up the PTL Grant!

Number of students served:
~150 students just in my Pre-AP and Academic World Geography classes

Summary:
This year has been a wonderful learning experience for my students and me. I have used several new techniques including technology like the mini-laptops, rubrics, and differentiation strategies to help students learn the concepts laid out by the World Geography TEKS on a higher Bloom's Taxonomy level. Although this has been a pilot year and extremely challenging, my classroom has been transformed! I have been able to engage my students by combining classical teaching techniques with technology. Overall, it has been an incredibly exciting and productive experience. I challenged my students to become plugged-in-21st-century-learners by teaching them to use technology to problem solve. Through this process of learning technological skills, my students have become more confident, comfortable, resourceful, and excited about using technology to be life-long learners. By keeping this blog with three other coworkers (Shelby Acevedo, Sara Russo, Kirk Eckstein) of lessons using the technology and meeting on a regular basis, we were able to collaborate to create even better differentiated lessons.

Successful Lessons:
1.Project Menu for Discovering Europe
Objective: The student will create a Europe Challenge Computer game using facebook (IQ Traveler Challenge), a Europe Trip Brochure using Open Office (Impress), or a Europe Tour Video using Google Earth in order to highlight significant physical, political, and cultural aspects of Europe.

This project was a huge hit because it involved student choice and higher level thinking skills. My students loved being able to choose how they demonstrated what they knew about Europe. I grouped students based on the project they picked so they could collaborate and help each other navigate the new computer programs.

2. Africa Online Glogster or Poster Project
Objective: The student will analyze a region of Africa by researching then creating an online glogster or poster of the most important culturual and physical features of that region.

Introducing the option for students to be able to create an online poster versus a paper poster was exciting to most students. Of course some students like to cut and paste by hand, but many students loved being able to be creative quickly by the click of a button. They were able to invest more thinking time into the information on the poster instead of all their time putting it together.

3. South Asia Stations
Objective: The student will learn about South Asia by completing 5 Stations: (1) The student will Compare/Contrast MLK Jr. to Gandhi using Brainpop, (2)The student will Label an online interactive South Asia map game with 90% accuracy, (3)The student will work in a small group to evaluate a series of South Asia maps including economic activity, population density, vegetation, climate, physical, and political in order to answer Geography Alive! questions in complete sentences. (4)The student will watch an India Globe Trekker (10 minute clip) and write complete sentences about information that was interesting to them. (5)The student will diagram different aspects of Mt. Everest by using a graphic organizer and brainpop.

The students seem to really enjoy having 20 minutes to focus on each activity then switching to something new. Stations allow students to literally get up and move every 20 minutes and they maximize classtime. Once you have trained your students to transition quickly, they learn about three times as much in one block period than they would normally because you teach them to focus on and learn five different concepts in one day!

Plan for Next Year:

I plan on continuing to work with my team to collaborate and create even more lessons using mini-laptops in addition to the wiis. I also plan on being more organized in teaching my students to problem-solve using this technology as this past year was a trial period for all of us! I feel confident that integrating technological skills into my World Geography curriculum creates students who come away with tangible computer skills in addition to worldly knowledge. I have seen my students put their creativity into practice, and I definitely plan on encouraging this further.

Power to Learn- End of Year summary

Number of students served by this grant:
Approximately 140 in my classes alone.


Summarize how the grant impacted the students it served:
The Power to Learn grant impacted a number of students by providing a different form of media that is not always easily accessible in every classroom. By receiving the grant, our team was able to purchase 42 laptops that have been used daily since their arrival. Also, we received 2 Nintendo Wii systems that have been used to supplement different learning stations throughout the year. Students have responded positively after using both of these tools.


Briefly share a couple of specific experiences that went well:
Eco Tycoon:
During this lesson, students used the laptops and "Eco Tycoon" PC game to study the effects of negative urban planning. The premise of the game is to make each student a world leader. Throughout the game, students are advised to make annual decisions on city expansion, pollution control, scientific research, legislation, etc. The outcome and flow of the game differs based on the decisions that are made. Many different scenarios are brought up as the game continues.
As an assessment, students keep a log of all the events they encounter during the game. Also, they are given several critical thinking questions about how their decisions effect the world.

Latin America brochure: During this lesson, students used the laptops to collect information about a specific South American country. Information to be gathered included flag, map, standard of living statistics, travel info, imports/exports, significant dates, attractions, and famous people. After all of this was collected, students were given the option to produce either a hard or digital copy of the brochure. Students were excited to learn that they could research during class and then send this information to their email for further improvements at a later time. As a class, we were not confined to a specific amount of work time.

Your plan for next year- how you plan to take the project forward next year:

My plan for next year is to implement more lessons that involve the laptops. They have become useful for gathering research information and for presenting many other digital/software based activities. As new ideas and computer applications arise, the content of my world geography sections will also adapt for the benefit of the 21st century learner.

Quia Quizzes

http://www.quia.com/ is a website Shelby actually found, but we have all loved using it!

My first time using this site was during our study of Africa. I gave each student a slip of paper with a link and their username/password (program automatically assigns each student) that they typed in. Instantly, each student had a randomized test just for them. You can also create multiple versions of the test if modifications are necessaray with just a few clicks of your mouse!

Cost:
-30 day free trial but then it's $49 for the year if you choose to continue
-Takes time to set up rosters, gradebook, and tests

Benefit:
-Helps you easily design and grade quizzes, tests, and activites.
-This system also allows your students to see instant feedback and retest if you permit them to. -Teacher has tons of options like differentiating assignments and tests based on student's pre-assessed ability.
-Tests and quizzes randomized everytime the student takes the test online (if a whole class is taking a test, each student's test looks different)
-GRADING is SO MUCH EASIER! I have the computer automatically grade multiple choice or fill-in-the-blank. It only takes me a few minutes to go back and grade short/full essays.
-Cheatproof (randomized)

South Asia Stations

I have been experimenting with stations this past year, but the South Asia Stations we have done for the past few days have been the most successful and the most engaging. We spent two days on them (25 minutes per station).

Station 1: Brainpop on Mt. Everest (Vocabulary practice, Graphic Organizer, Quiz)
www.brainpop.com
Benefit: Short, engaging video clips that students can start/stop to self-pace their learning while learning new vocabulary.

Station 2: Discovery Education Video Clip on India (Writing practice, Student Choice)
www.discoveryeducation.com
Benefit: Students get to pick a video about India that looks interesting while practicing their writing skills.

Station 3: Geography Alive! on Monsoon Asia (Critical Thinking Mapping Skills Practice)
(all high schools have this set of Geography Alive!)
Benefit: Students engaged in critical thinking and working collaboratively to analyze/interpret maps.

Station 4: Brainpop on Gandhi/Martin Luther King Jr. (Compare/Contrast Venn Diagram, Quiz)
www.brainpop.com
Benefit: Comparing/Contrasting skill builder while learning a key figure in India's history.

Station 5: Sheppard Software Mapping Game (Asia Map Memorization)
www.sheppardsoftware.com
Benefit: Program keeps all attempts and previous scores of student's effort.

Study Stack Fun!

Study stack is a great way to teach students how to study. Students can create their own stack or the instructor can share theirs to help students study. This program transforms one list of information into 8 different ways to study (flashcards, list, matching, hangman, bug game, etc.). Check mine out at www.studystack.com username:sbisdstudent, pw:sbisdstudent.

Taking Control by Letting Go

This post should have been posted in January! No excuses...it is just late:(

At the end of last semester, I made some reflections and set some goals for achieving the classroom learning experiences of by vision with the AID of netbooks. The most challenging goals were to eliminate lecture and teacher talk, implement menus to provide student choice, and incorporate consistent differentiation. Well, mission on its way to being accomplished thanks to the acquisition of the PTL devices (netbooks)!

As far as the elimination of teacher talk goes:

Hi, my name is Shelby Acevedo and I am addicted to teacher talk/lecturing. It has been 101 days since my last lecture.

I phrased it the way I did above because it was truly a struggle and major conscious effort to keep myself from trying to control the classroom environment by talk, talk, talking. There have been 3 different instances in which I almost relapsed because I feared "they can't be learning if I am not telling them what they need to know". However, each time, the student's work and progress screamed, "Shut up and let us learn for ourselves Miss!"

Implementing menus for student choice and differentiation with netbooks:

Let's keep this real and start with the CONS of using menus:

1. It is ALOT of work, especially planning and preparing.
2. It is ALOT of work, especially planning and preparing.
3. It is ALOT of work, especially planning and preparing.

Now, for the PROS:

1. Students are able to self-pace which seems to increase student engagement and retention of information/skills.
2. Students choice seems to increase student interest in learning the content.
3. There seems to be a sense of ownership/responsibility to complete learning tasks and/or products because the student has chosen based on their own interest.
4. Classroom management issues have transitioned from keeping students awake, preventing them from cheating/copying, and boredom induced misbehavior to making sure each student has all the resources and instructions they need to complete their chosen product/activities, keep students from getting lost in the WWW, and preventing apathetic feelings about learning/computers in students who get frustrated by minor technological difficulties.
5. The teacher role changes from giver of content and the person in the classroom doing the most work (during class time) to diagnostician, learning guide/partner, and person in the classroom doing less than or equal to everyone else.
6. Student learning, at all levels of ability, has a real possibility of increasing simultaneously which seems to prevent students from feeling like they are wasting their time or like their needs are not being addressed.

On to the second unit of the semester using PTL devices to implement student choice and consistent differentiation!

Williams' World of Geography

www.facebook.com is a great alternative to writing on a piece of paper. This means of blogging allows students to post significant information, educational opinions, etc., see other students' responses, and respond to other students. Facebook is a neat way for students to connect to each other and students in other classrooms. There are several geography games for students to play as well like GeoChallenge. They love it and seem to play during their free time at home!

Menus in the Classroom (and not the ones you order food from)

This week has been an interesting experiment. Shelby Acevedo did these "menus" in her classroom and it worked so well, that I decided to try it as well. I was looking for a fun project for World War II that could incorporate much of the new technology. In years past, I have done the typical poster project, an ABC's of World War 2, even had students create PhotoStories. While I got some interesting projects, each student only became knowledgeable on their own topic. So this year....menus. What are menus? Menus are a series of assignments that the students can choose to do. There is a list of several 2 point options, 5 point options, and 8 point options. Students could choose which activities they wanted to do as long as their options added up to 10 points.
The students have been working on these for a week doing everything from presentations on proganda during World War II on Google Apps, creating study flashcards on StudyStack, reading Night by Elie Wiesel to complete a book study on Ning, using BrainPop to study major events, or using the Wii to simulate the landing on the beaches of Normandy for D-Day.
By being able to give students all these options, we are able to reach so many more students. Not only the auditory or visual learners but also the tactile-kinesthetic. Students are able to have a sense of empowerment in their learning and choose what most interested them, while still reviewing the necessary material to pass the exam. Differentiation of the material becomes easy as students are able to choose what best supports their needs. Students today are bombarded with changing technology everyday and we must as educators find a way to tap into that knowledge, draw them into the classroom and have every student engaged, teaching them both the content (in this case, US History) but also the 21st century skills to succeed in the future. While technology may not always be the answer, it should be a tool in our toolbox that is readily available if needed.

The War of Centers and World War 2

Sorry there haven't been posts in a little while. The joy of starting a new semester has slowed down and at least for me, I have finally slowed down to take a breath. We begin the semester with a small review of the New Deal and then begin World War 2, which is what I was looking for because I was finally going to get to incorporate all of the components of the PTL grant. Here is a quick run down of my centers. (I only used 3 netbooks for this exercise)

Center 1: Europe at War.
Our kids like many others don't remember what they learned in the past, so I felt it was important to give them a quick recap of the world events that led to the outbreak of World War II. They were able to watch a video on the netbooks, read a primary source, and then answer questions.

Center 2: The Holocaust
Students were able to read an excerpt from The Book Thief and view pictures of the Holocaust and interpret what the pictures were. They also had to discuss why they thought no one stopped the Nazis before it was too late.

Center 3: Pearl Harbor
Students again watched a video from Discovery Education and then read primary sources to analyze reasons for the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and then explain the consequences.

Center 4: American Propaganda:
Students received copies of 10 different propaganda posters and had to analyze them for message, feeling, and impact.

Center 5: Japanese Internment
Students viewed a video on Japanese internment and then had to discuss whether or not civil rights can be taken away during times of war.

Center 6: Wii: Battles for the Pacific
Students were able to play the History Channel's Battles of the Pacific to attempt to get a message to General MacArthur in the Phillipines. They had to fight Japanese soldiers to get through.

Positives:
All the students were very engaged in the lesson and asked lots of great questions.
Students were able to use a variety of mediums to learn material and were able to use multiple levels of Bloom's to gain the understanding needed.

Negatives:
Volume on the netbooks had to be adjusted so that all three videos could play at the same time without disrupting the others.
Centers took longer than expected. They were given 15 minutes for each, 20 would have been better.

All in all, it was a great experience. With the resources provided online (Library Resources) the research was easy and setting up the centers was relatively painless. Teachers are often scared of centers because they are concerned with the amount of planning and need from the students. I actually found these days to be a breeze because all the students were engaged in their centers and with the quick turnaround there was not a lot of "down time" so the students were always looking forward. Great experience in all.

Aside from that, this experience has been awesome as working with three other outstanding teachers, I have gotten so many ideas and we are all able to adapt each others ideas to suit our classroom.

Next up for me- menus where students get to choose what they will get to study (Thanks Shelby!!) more details to come...................