Welcome

During summer 2007 at Elon University, ten K-8 teachers who were part of Elon's M.Ed. summer cohort program, were enrolled in a 3-week elective course, MED 523: Instructional Technologies in the Classroom.

In this blog, each teacher has contributed a post about the unit he/she created in partial fulfillment of course requirements and has included links to supplementary documents and/or websites created during the course. Each teacher has also provided a brief audio introduction to his/her unit.

How the course was taught
At the start of the course, each teacher developed his or her own plan of study for the course, beginning with a self assessment of knowledge and skills and then prioritizing goals to be met during the three weeks. Creation of some sort of unit of study for the teacher's own students was a requirement, but how this was accomplished and what tools would be learned in order to develop the unit were individually determined by each teacher.

Unit requirements
It was required that the unit appropriately and effectively integrate both teacher use and grade-appropriate student use of technology and that it meet grade-appropriate content area objectives in at least one other subject. The unit was to demonstrate the teacher’s effective use of technology to

• enhance productivity and communication
• plan and design learning experiences that addressed the diverse needs of learners and incorporated student use of technology to learn content
• assist with assessing student learning.

Further, the unit was to demonstrate an understanding of issues related to technology use with and by students including student safety and ethical and legal issues such as copyright and equitable access.

Website requirements
Most students also undertook as one of their goals, the creation of a website - either a website specific to the unit (a webquest in a couple of cases) or a classroom website to use with students and their parents. The website was to demonstrate extensive growth and learning of new skills and was to be relevant, appropriate, and usable in the context of the teacher’s classroom. It was to demonstrate attention to content, design, function, technical aspects, and accessibility. The content was to be audience appropriate, presented professionally, free of spelling/grammatical errors, accurate, copyright compliant, and provide access to additional audience-appropriate resources. All aspects of the project were to function correctly with no technical glitches, and attention to issues of accessibility for all was to be evident. Design was to be audience appropriate and utilize navigation, colors, fonts, layout, and images to enhance readability without distracting from the message being communicated.

We hope you enjoy exploring what we've learned. For more information, email the course instructor, Barbara Taylor, at taylorb@elon.edu.

Thanks to Wayne Conley for providing the flash audio player used in each teacher's post.

2nd Grade Animal Research

This unit is introduced and explained in the power point presentation. The lotus diagram helps the students organize their research and the rubric is the assessment tool that will be used. This power point will be accessible from class website after the assignment has been given to the class. This research meets language arts goals as well as helping students with computer skills while incorporating science.

This will be a fun interactive way for the students to meet several goals of the Standard Course of Study at one time.



View audio transcript.

Rosemary's North Carolina Cities Project

The topic of the unit I created for my students is North Carolina Cities and it addresses fourth grade social studies objectives, as well as fourth grade computer and technology skills. To begin the unit, I will give students the project description and discuss it with them. In the unit, I expect students to research various cities in the Piedmont Region of North Carolina. The NC City graphic organizer (created in Inspiration), will be a guide for students to know what information they are looking for when researching. In order to locate information, they will use links from my classroom website.

During the unit, students will also learn to use spreadsheets to analyze data and create graphs. I will use the practice spreadsheet and the practice spreadsheet directions to teach students about spreadsheets. As part or their PowerPoint presentation they will include a graph they have created from a spreadsheet showing the population of their city compared to other cities. This graph will allow me to assess their understanding of spreadsheets.

Once students have finished gathering information, they will create a multimedia presentation using PowerPoint to share their information with the class. In order to provide a model PowerPoint presentation for my students, I have created a plain PowerPoint that contains the content students should use in their presentations. I also turned this plain PowerPoint into a colorful and animated presentation in order to show them how to add graphics once they have added the content to their presentation.

In order to assess students learning, I created a rubric using RubiStar to assess their PowerPoint presentations. In order to assess their understanding of other students’ presentations, I will create a Jeopardy game such as the one I created on North Carolina facts which contains questions from other students’ PowerPoint presentations.

At the end of the unit, students will know more information about many Piedmont cities, as well as gained new technology skills. If you would like more information about my unit or to hear about the things I have learned from creating my unit, please check out my Technology Unit overview, my audio description of my unit, or my transcript of my audio.

Melanie Reece: My Family and Me

For this unit, students will learn about their individual characteristics (e.g., eye and hair color, age, gender) as well as the characteristics of their family (e.g., number of brothers/sisters, number of individuals living in their home, how many homes they have, etc.). I have prepared a PowerPoint template presentation to use for the majority of this unit with my class. Each day, we (as a class) will complete one of the graphs in the PowerPoint presentation using the Smart Board. Every student will have the opportunity to interact during each lesson because every student is needed to input data on the day’s graph. Once we have inputted our data (by coloring in a square or writing a number), I will lead the class in a discussion about the results of our graph.

I have also created a classroom website to maintain open communication with my families. My website has a variety of links that are safe for students on the “Kid Links” page as well as many informative links for Parents on the “Parent Links” page. From the “Class News” page, parents can connect to two blogs that I created. One blog is for a listing of the books that we have read in class, and the second blog is for general announcements (that I can easily update at anytime). On the “Class News” page, I also have a link to a photo album (that only has a test album up for now of personal pictures) from Kodak. As a culminating project to this unit, I plan to have each student record a brief segment in which they speak about themselves and their families. I will make our individual class files into a Pod cast and then share that on my website too. (See Class News on website for inactive link to Pod cast.) Additionally, I created a letter to parents requesting their permission for the use of their child's information (nothing too personal) on our classroom website.



Transcript

Emily's Nutrition Unit - Let's Get Healthy!

Welcome to my third grade nutrition unit! In this unit, my third grade students will participate in a series of four lessons to learn about nutrition. Each lesson will cover several NC Standard Course of Study objectives and involve technology (See the Nutrition Overview and Write Up Document). Throughout the unit, the students will participate in activities in response to the following prompt :

Congratulations! You have just been hired as the head chef of the prestigious New Hope Café. The motto of this café is, “We serve food that is delicious AND nutritious!” The menus of the New Hope Café are known worldwide, because when people eat the healthy foods at the café, they feel great! In order to continue this healthy menu tradition, as head chef, you will be expected to prepare menus that are both healthy and taste great.

Before you begin your job, you will need to learn about what foods and beverages are nutritious and how many servings people need each day.

Day One

• Introduction
• Brainstorm and chart places we can find information.
• Use the student page of our Third Grade Website to access the kid-friendly search engines website. Use that site to find information about the Food Guide Pyramid.
• Sort food cards on the Food Guide Pyramid.
• Analyze food labels for nutrition information.

Day Two

• Discuss calories and participate in a, “What is a calorie?” activity.
• Edit and add information to the Calorie Spreadsheet.
• Observe and interpret the graph as we change the data.
• Discuss serving size/portion size.

Day Three

• Analyze ingredient labels for various beverages.
• Sort beverages into “healthy” and “unhealthy” categories.
• Discuss the health affects of consuming unhealthy beverages.
• Create a Healthy Beverage Brochure to distribute to our buddy class to inform them of the difference between healthy and unhealthy beverages and the negative affects of consuming unhealthy beverages.

Day Four

• Use what we learned in the previous three lessons to create healthy menus for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
• Edit and add information to a Multimedia Presentation to present to the other third grade classes about nutrition. Include the menus.
• Present the information to each other.

Assessing Student Learning

I learned two great strategies this summer to evaluate student learning. They are using games for informal assessments and using rubrics for formal assessments. In my unit I will use the following:

• Play “Who Wants to be a Millionaire” game.
• The Rubistar Rubrics to assess the multimedia presentation.

My Use of Technology as an Educator

Technology enhances my productivity and communication as an educator. To demonstrate this I have created:

• A Classroom Website – to effectively communicate with parents, colleagues, and students.
• Rubrics – to quickly and accurately assess student learning.
• Inspiration Documents– to organize ideas and thoughts for my website, units, and lesson plans.
• Classroom Blogs – to post announcements to parents and students
• A Picassa Account – to display pictures of students. (This will be linked to our website in the photo gallery).

View the Audio Transcript.

I hope you enjoy my unit!

Deanna Beckham- Real Estate

In my WebQuest, I have challenged my students to take on the task of creating a multimedia real estate advertisement for a city in Alamance County.

The students will research houses for sale in a city and include infomation such as price, square footage, # of bedrooms, # of bathrooms, and lot size for at least 10 homes. The information will be organized in a spreadsheet, which students will then use to create a scatter plot comparing the prices and square footage of the homes for sale. From the scatter plot, the students should be able to find the line of best fit in slope-intercept form.

The final multimedia presentation should include pictures of the houses for sale in the city, a short history of the city, benefits of the city, the spreadsheet and graph. To demonstrate what the students have learned, they will also have to answer several questions concerning their line of best fit. In the end the students will be assessed using their daily post to my teacher blog and a rubric.



Transcipt of Audio

Angela's Technology Tool Box

As a result of this course I am entering the classroom with a variety of teaching tools to incorporate technology in my classroom instruction, parent communication, and assessment tasks.

The Word Study World website will be used with study words study and developmental spelling programs to have them use technology in reading, writing and spelling to actively use the words they are studying. The task sites will incorporate web evaluation skills, word processing skills and basic application of technology vocabulary along with academic skills.

To help me keep my parents informed about the curriculum, coming events, and communication tools that will be used for this school year I have created a presentation using Powerpoint to use while speaking to my parents at Open House. I plan to post the presentation on BlackBoard for those who can not attend, and send pare copies for individuals who may not have access.

The final tool in my tool box is the Literacy scores Excel spreadsheet that has a list of my student names formatted with the formulas for calculating running record scores.



Audio Transcript

Traci Bellas-Regions of North Carolina

My unit involved the creation of a class website and interactive links to engage students in a study of the regions of North Carolina.

The unit will cover 4th grade SCOS learning objectives:

• Social Studies: 1.01, 1.02, 1.03, 5.02, 5.03
• Language Arts: 1.04, 2.02, 2.03, 2.04, 2.05, 2.06, 3.01, 3.06, 4.01, 4.03, 4.10, 5.07, 5.08
• Technology Skills: 1.03, 1.04, 1.08, 1.09, 1.11, 1.13, 1.15, 2.03, 2.05, 2.08, 2.09, 2.10, 2.11, 2.12, 3.04, 3.07
• Information Skills: Competency goal 4

Included in this unit were kid friendly research tools, links to copyright and Fair Use guidelines, web evaluation tools, and online safety rules for students.

Since students will simultaneously be reading a novel related to our study of North Carolina, they can respond to a question regarding what we have read in their blog, at least once a week, during a prescribed time in class. My webpage also serves as a consistent form of communication between my students and families, as I have a homework blog and student literature blog for class novel studies. I can easily update homework information on a daily basis since it is in blog form.

Students will access a Webquest link from my website to investigate geographic regions of North Carolina and its cultures. Students may also use the Internet to research additional information. Links on my class website offer students website evaluation tools, copyright and Fair Use guidelines, and information about online safety. Since my students will need to cite their sources, I have also provided a link to a citation creator.

After this research has been completed as a class, cooperative groups will select or be assigned a specific region and will create a Power Point presentation highlighting specific features of their region. A sample multimedia presentation has been created for students to view. Students will include a graph in their Power Point presentation, which represents numerical data they have gathered from their research, such as population of large cities, tourist revenue that has been exported from a spreadsheet program.

Student projects will be assessed by a rubric I created, which can be accessed by a link on the parent web page. Student knowledge will also be assessed at the end of the unit through the Jeopardy-style quiz game about the North Carolina regions.

This unit will predominantly be presented through in-class computer cart usage or computer lab. I will also publicize community resources that provide computer and Internet access and offer an allotted computer time after school if a student need exists. I plan on taking a survey of my families to find out about their accessibility to computers and the Internet. This will help me gauge the amount of access students have and their ability to complete independent technology work.

The diverse learners in my class will have their needs addressed through the variety of modalities that are offered within the unit. Students will participate in cooperative learning. The creation of a graph through a spreadsheet will help my visual-spatial learners, along with the ability search for information and interact with the learning environment through the Webquest. Auditory learners will be supported through the oral presentation students present about the North Carolina regions.



View a transcript of this audio file.

Adrienne L. Groeller-Holliday: Math - Perimeter and Area

7/6/07

Mrs. Groeller-Holliday's Classroom is a result of MED 523. Throughout the past few weeks I developed my unit centered around perimeter and area. My products are aligned with the NC Standard Course of Study. This unit is centered around math and computer/technology skills for the sixth grade. One of the first links available at this site, is a newsletter to parents. Here, one can review how this topic is aligned and it also introduces some activities that the students will take part in during this unit of study. In this website, one will find different activities dealing with perimeter and area, as well as helpful links that might assist with a variety of issues such as copyright, fair use, and web safety. A student will have two different Webquests at their finger tips. These activities deal specifically with perimeter and area. An Excel spreadsheet is another product that students can use to demonstrate their knowledge of perimeter and area. This spreadsheet can be found at the bottom of the "Helpful Links" page. Lastly, a Jeopardy game that will be used as a review tool, is available for all to review.

Adrienne L. Groeller-Holliday




View Transcript of Audio

Patrick Vernon - Podcasting a Country Report

In sixth grade social studies, we study South America and Europe. In this project, students will design a newscast for our Western 6 News show. The topic of the newscast is designed to be an overview of a selected South American country. The newscast can be accessed by a web site that has a feed to which individuals can subscribe. The web site contains the North Carolina Standard Course of Study objectives for the unit along with task lists for teachers and students.

Files that you can view from this unit:
The graphic organizer for planning the newscast
The podcast episode example on the Western 6 News blog page
The detailed lesson plan with student directions
The peer evaluation rubric for student use
The presentation templates are in a folder
The Jeopardy-styled game template (with Brazil added as an example)
The reflection for the MED 523 class



If you require the transcript to this audio, it is available here.

Pod on!

Susan Park: U.S. Travel and Tourism WebQuest

As a result of this class, I designed a WebQuest about U.S. Travel and Tourism. This WebQuest addressed NCSCOS Grade 5 objectives in Language Arts and Social Studies, as well as 5th grade computer/technology skills. Students are asked to create a graphic organizer (Inspiration), modify a spreadsheet (Excel) to answer critical questions, and design a multimedia presentation (PowerPoint) as a solution to the problems posed in the WebQuest. In addition to the presentation rubric I created using RubiStar, I plan to use a classroom blog as a means of formative assessment.

This class has also enabled me to modify my ABSS school website and make it more user-friendly and efficient. New additions include a classroom photo album using Picasa, links that are kid friendly and safe, a classroom blog to serve as a form of online journaling about classroom experiences, and files such as "Parent Folders" which contain letters and classroom newsletters to open communication among my students and their families.



View transcript of audio.