Hold On Tight Here I Go!
Marisabel's Blog
Last semester I began using TumbleBooks during my SSR time because regular book reading was proving to be unproductive. TumbleBook Library is a database of children’s e-books that includes animated, talking picture books, read-along chapter books, national geographic videos, non-fiction books, playlists, as well as books in Spanish and French. Having books in Spanish is essential for our program because we are a Spanish dual immersion school. Because our students are learning two languages the read-along component an essential option. My students enjoy having the option to read with TumbleBooks because it offers popular books that are usually unavailable at our school library. All you need to get started is your school ID and headphones.
The students can quickly log in through the City Library website or you can have your tech person add it to your Symbaloo. Symbaloo is a cloud-based application that allows users to organize and categorize web links in the form of buttons. Once the kids log on they have unlimited access to all the educational books, videos and games that are available. After they log in for the first time there is no downtime, they can get to reading or listening right away.
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According to a report done by UNICEF, adolescents and young people are the most connected generation and children under 18 represent 1 in 3 Internet users worldwide. Unfortunately this doesn't mean they have the ability to effectively find, identify, evaluate, and use information on the Internet. Most importantly understanding the digital footprint they leave behind. What kind of citizen do they want to be? It is our job as educator to instruct them on how to become good digital citizens.
Because our curriculum is already bursting at the seams, I plan to use the Digital Passport lessons available on Common Sense Media and the games from Google's Be Internet Awesome to incorporate digital literacy into my full day. I plan to use them with Google Classroom so I can have my students work on them individually while I work with small groups. I will make sure to have a way they can track their progress in the program, visible in the classroom. Tracking their progress will help keep them motivated and encourage friendly competition. Classroom Work Through the Lens of Action ResearchAlthough my journey is in innovative learning with technology, sometimes our students just need a new creative method to help them cross the bridge. Dervin and Baggio both provide insight on the importance of a sense-making moment and helping our students cross the bridge with a strategy that works for them. Baggio emphasizing the use of visuals to impact learning. Baggio quotes Conner(2008), "Visuals improve the learning process and quicken your ability to make connections".
My student was having difficulty visualizing how to separate the egg carton in different sections to make equivalent fractions and though I had used the carton during my instruction he needed to physically lay out the yarn himself on the carton in order to visualize the different sections and how he could compare different fractions. Both my student and I felt excited by the experience. He was surprised that I offered him the tool to use while he took his quiz. I don't think that I would have offered him the tool had I not recently read both Dervin and Baggio. Thanks to the journey I have been on I am beginning to notice those moments when my students need something extra to get them one step closer to making sense of their experiences in the classroom. Teaching 4th graders Digital Citizenship as it relates to digital communication.My fourth graders love music, video games and always enjoy using their Chromebooks in class to learn. Following the important steps it takes to be a good Digital Citizen has not been easy. My students have one 35minute period each week dedicated to learning digital citizenship and it is not enough. All my students signed an internet agreement at the beginning of the school year that covered all the do's and don't's. Before I even realized most of my students had broken their contract. Just as my students sometimes don't realize what they are doing has consequences, I hadn't realized the dangers of them altering the settings for their individual Chromebooks could also cause issues with the effectiveness of their device. Common Sense Media, Google's Be Internet Awesome, Edutopia, KQED and many other reputable internet websites have made it easy and fun to teach students about the importance of internet safety.
At this point in the school year we are getting ready to start doing research on the internet for Social Studies. It is essential that we use our time productively because as we all know time is a precious commodity. I plan on using Common Sense Media's Search Shark game along with Choosito to teach my students how to know which keywords will give them the best search result. Because my students don't get enough time to effectively cover all the important content areas of Digital Citizenship, I plan on allowing my students play time on all the different games available in the interactive section of the Common Sense curriculum called Digital Passport. By doing this I will be able to review and reflect with my students about the issues they are dealing with on a daily basis. I know some of my students have phones and computers at home but I like the idea of the "stand up-sit down" survey to get a true idea of how your students use the internet on their phones and on their computers at home. E-volve could serve as an extension of the Second Step curriculum we use to teach students about Bullying. Cyberbullying and bullying is a common occurrence in the fourth grade. My students become aware during community circle and discussions that we are all affected and that it is important to talk about the issues we face and find solutions. My students also use Writer's Universe an online extension of our Benchmark Advance curriculum where they can chat with their peers and give feedback on each others work. Share Jumper and Mix-n-Match also part of the Digital Passport curriculum will remind them that what you post on the internet will be read by others and that you must be careful about what you say because others will judge your person by the words you put out into cyberspace. Learning to be a good Digital Citizen is essential for our digital natives and all educators should make an effort to include internet safety in their curriculum.
The biggest nugget that I took away from the reading is as Dervin writes, "Sense-making is individualistic in its focus because it acknowledges that individual humans are the carriers of communicative action, the acts by which meaning is made and systems are energized". What we as humans need to make sense of our lives is what systems will try to provide in order to make themselves desirable and relevant. Unfortunately what humans may need is always changing and is dependent on many changing variables.
If I was to teach this reading to a high schooler I would try doing it backwards. i would have them take a survey and have them stop and think about the different reasons they chose the response they did and why. Once they have had time to reflect I will have them take this reading in sections. I would make sure to have images like the ones I have posted here that helped me understand the reading. I would also have them watch the video Sensemaking by ADOT&PF, published on Jun 7, 2015 linked below. www.youtube.com/watch?v=slx_YF1lP1gg Providing different forms of media helps students process the material in different ways. Watching the video and looking at images that broke it down as a process helped me visually understand in order to make sense of it. |
Marisabel OlguinNVLA 4th Grade Dual Immersion Teacher at Napa Valley Language Academy Archives
June 2018
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