Creating+Innovative+Uses+of+Technology.+An+Individual+Project

** Creating Innovative Uses of Technology: ** ** An Individual Project ** ** Lit Circles Using KidBlog ** ** By ** Nicholas Provenzano Lesson 1 

- Reading Romeo and is part of the required curriculum in my school district. I wanted to come up with a different way to present this unit to my students. I decided to have my students write, direct, produce and act in a new version of the classic play.

- The students will be using blogs, wikis, Glogster, iMovie, Twitter, Facebook and other tools they choose to use for their part of the project.

- Students in my school with re-write Acts 1,3&5 of Romeo and Juliet and students from Van Meter, Iowa will be responsible for Acts 2&4. By using various web tools and social media, students will document their project and work together to create a cohesive movie to share with school on April 30th.

- All students created a blog to document their different jobs. Jobs included, writers, directors, actors, advertising, soundtrack, props, and costumes. Students linked their blogs to the project wiki which we shared with the other high school. Here is the link - http://epicromeoandjuliet.wikispaces.com/

- The project wiki, http://epicromeoandjuliet.wikispaces.com/, contains all of the information needed for the project. The project packet, student created script, filming times, etc. are on the wiki for students to access.

- Students use blogs to document their progress on the project. Example 1 Example 2 Example 3 <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">Example 4

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">- Students use Glogster to create digital posters advertising the production. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">Example 1 <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">Example 2 <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">Example 3 <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">Example 4

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">- Students created Facebook accounts and Twitter accounts to advertise the production.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">- The movie will be filmed using a digital video camera and a Flip Cam.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">- The movie will be edited using iMovie.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">- Students will be using Skype to communicate with the Van Meter students on a regular basis.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">- Teachers need an extensive understanding of Romeo and Juliet, blogs, wikis, Glogster, Twitter, Facebook, iMovie, Filming Editing and Skype.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">- Basic computer skills (word processing, Internet browsing, email) are needed. The other tools are taught to the students as the project progresses.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">- The students are doing a complete remake of Romeo and Juliet. They are writing, directing, filming, acting, producing, designing costumes, making props, creating the soundtrack and advertising a joint production of the film.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">- The students all create their individual blogs and are shown how to create posts in one class period. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">- Another class period is spent having students join the class wiki and learning how to edit it. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">- In class time is spent discussing the play and its different parts. Students are given 2 days a week (3 days as it moves closer to the end) to work in the computer lab on their parts of the project. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">- All filming takes place outside of school hours and is completed by April 15th. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">- Editing the final movie takes place during Spring Break and the Premiere is Saturday April 30th at both high schools.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">- The students have the freedom to work on the project in areas that interest them. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">- Students have a much larger audience to consider while working. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">- The students dive much deeper into this unit than they would a traditional "read then write an essay" model. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">- Students are connecting with other students outside the traditional classroom. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">- Students take pride in their work.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">- This is a very time consuming project. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">- Teachers need to be available to deal with questions and troubleshoot the various tech problems that will arise. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">- Technical difficulties will arise and they need to be dealt with in a timel manner.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">- Modeling is huge. I am blogging about the project so my students can see what good posts should look like. I also model Skyping and wiki use in class.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">- By having students create the movie from scratch, all of Bloom's Taxonomy is covered.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">- By allowing students to choose the role they want for the project, all of the different learning styles are addressed.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">- The openness of the project allows for differentiation for students with various special needs.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">** 10. What are the possibilities that the innovation can be transferred to other teachers, subject content, and different school settings **
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">- This project would work well for any piece of literature. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">- The tools used can work in any content area. That is what makes using blogs so exciting.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">On another note, here is a link to my personal blog that I have been using to track the project. The final movie will be available after April 30th.

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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">** Creating Innovative Uses of Technology: ** <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">** An Individual Project ** <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">** Lit Circles Using KidBlog ** <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">** By ** <span style="color: black; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Nicholas Provenzano Lesson 2 <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">** Rationale **

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">** Literature Circles have been used for many years in the English Language Arts classroom. I wanted to expand the view of my students by connecting them with students from a different background. Using Kidblog.org, I was able to set up mixed group Lit Circles with students from my Freshmen English Class and students from Van Meter High School in Van Meter, Iowa. **

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">1. A brief description of #1 lesson plan
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Over the courser of the school year, Grosse Pointe South and Van Meter High School Freshmen would follow the same curriculum and share their thoughts with each other on a designated blogging site. For the this lesson, Kidblog.org was chosen for the blogging format.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">2. The technology and resources involved (e.g. facility, network, equipment, software, online program, and websites’ URLs)
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Computers with Internet access were needed in the classroom on a regular basis. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Kidblog.org accounts were required for each student.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Example 1 <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Example 2 <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Example 3 <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Example 4

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">3. What skills, knowledge, and pedagogy are required of teachers
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Basic word processing skills were needed for this lesson. If a teacher is comfortable using a Word Document, they would be comfortable using KidBlog.org. Setting up all of the accounts does take time and planning, but once the students are placed in the Lit Circles, they run themselves.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">4. What prior skills and knowledge are required of students
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Basic Word Processing skills were needed by the students. KidBlog is designed for lower elementary school children, so my High School Freshmen had little trouble picking up the website.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">5. What are students asked to do exactly (product or process)
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Each student was placed in a group with students from their class and students from another school. Both schools would be reading and discussing the same materials. After discussing the stories in class, students were asked to go to their Lit Circle and answer the question posted by the teacher and pose another question to be answered by others in the Lit Circle. Students would then continue the online conversations during the course of the week, earning points for their multiple responses and questions posed.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">The Lit Circles were also a place for students to place their projects and share ideas. Here are a couple examples of this.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Example 1 <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Example 2

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">6. What are the procedures of the project (steps to teach the technology skills)
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Students are not required to sign up for KidBlog.org. The teacher creates all of the Login information and provides the students with the password.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">I took the students to the computer lab and had them all log in to Kidblog.com together for the first time. They all were able to view Kidblog and work on their first post together as a class. I helped them troubleshoot any problems they might have had, but things went very smoothly for the students. Kidblog is a very user friendly site.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">7. What are the advantages of the project
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Students are writing much more by using the blogging Lit Circles. Some students struggle with the writing, but I saw improvement over the course of the semester as the students worked long on the Lit Circles.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Another advantage was the students were able to work with students from another background. In my small suburban community, the students have many of the same experiences as they grow up. Connecting my students with students from a rural town in Iowa really opened their eyes to some of the differences, but it also showed them how similar they are as well.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> 8. What are the disadvantages of the project
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">One of the big problems I found with the this overall project was trying to get the timing down with the other school. When you co-teach units and have students trying to comment on the same story, it is very important to be on the same page as teachers. There were gaps in the teaching at times, but they were corrected and the students were together much of the time.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Computer access is another disadvantage. Van Meter is a 1:1 Apple Macbook school. We can only get lab time once or twice a week. This forced me to plan my time differently to make sure that my students would have access to computers so they could finish the blogging they needed to do for homework. It tool extra planning, but it worked out in the long run.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">9. What types of effective instructional strategies are included
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Modeling was a big part of the blogging process. I needed to show the students what proper blogging looked like and show them how to create the same type of blog posts that were expected for this semester long project.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> 10. What are the possibilities that the innovation can be transferred to other teachers, subject content, and different school settings
<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Lit Circles can work in any district that has computer access for their teachers and students. We chose to blog about books and short stories. It would work well for poetry and other projects. The group blogs could also work for other content areas that are discussion and project based. Sharing ideas is the key to this idea. Any content area that is engaged in sharing ideas can take the Lit Circle idea and adapt it for their classes.