Creating a WebQuest

My WebQuest: New Team--Assemble!

This WebQuest was really fun to create and I hope that I can use it in my future classroom. 

I was the editor-in-chief of my alma mater, Nazareth College's, newspaper, The Gleaner. I loved every minute of my time at Naz, and working on The Gleaner--it's a ridiculous name, I know; everyone makes fun of it--was an invaluable experience. 

Ever since I wanted to teach, I thought about how cool it would be to make a newspaper out of a class project, and that's what prompted the lesson plan from one of my previous posts. This WebQuest takes that idea to a whole new level and I'm excited to try it out!

A Digital Story

Using Animoto, I made a digital story about the history of feminism:

Grades 11-12 Lesson Plan: News Team--Assemble!

Big Idea: Students form a journalism team and create an online news blog for their school. 

Lesson Plan Title: News Team--Assemble!

GSE’s/GLE’s/Frameworks

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.WHST.11-12.2

Write informative/explanatory texts, including the narration of historical events, scientific procedures/experiments, or technical processes.

Production and Distribution of Writing:

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.WHST.11-12.4

Produce clear and coherent writing in which the development, organization, and style are appropriate to task, purpose, and audience.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.WHST.11-12.5

Develop and strengthen writing as needed by planning, revising, editing, rewriting, or trying a new approach, focusing on addressing what is most significant for a specific purpose and audience.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.WHST.11-12.6

Use technology, including the Internet, to produce, publish, and update individual or shared writing products in response to ongoing feedback, including new arguments or information.

Research to Build and Present Knowledge:

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.WHST.11-12.7

Conduct short as well as more sustained research projects to answer a question (including a self-generated question) or solve a problem; narrow or broaden the inquiry when appropriate; synthesize multiple sources on the subject, demonstrating understanding of the subject under investigation.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.WHST.11-12.8

Gather relevant information from multiple authoritative print and digital sources, using advanced searches effectively; assess the strengths and limitations of each source in terms of the specific task, purpose, and audience; integrate information into the text selectively to maintain the flow of ideas, avoiding plagiarism and overreliance on any one source and following a standard format for citation.

ISTE 1. Creativity and innovation

Students demonstrate creative thinking, construct knowledge, and develop innovative products and processes using technology.

a. Apply existing knowledge to generate new ideas, products, or processes

b. Create original works as a means of personal or group expression

c. Use models and simulations

ISTE 2. Communication and Collaboration

Students use digital media and environments to communicate and work collaboratively, including at a distance, to support individual learning and contribute to the learning of others.

a. Interact, collaborate, and publish with peers, experts, or others employing a variety of digital environments and media

b. Communicate information and ideas effectively to multiple audiences using a variety of media and formats

d. Contribute to project teams to produce original works or solve problems

ISTE 3. Research and information fluency

Students apply digital tools to gather, evaluate, and use information.

b. Locate, organize, analyze, evaluate, synthesize, and ethically use information from a variety of sources and media

c. Evaluate and select information sources and digital tools based on the appropriateness to specific tasks

ISTE 4. Critical thinking, problem solving, and decision making

Students use critical thinking skills to plan

and conduct research, manage projects, solve problems, and make informed decisions using appropriate digital tools and resources.

a. Identify and define authentic problems and significant questions for investigation

b. Plan and manage activities to develop a solution or complete a project

c. Collect and analyze data to identify solutions and/or make informed decisions

d. Use multiple processes and diverse perspectives to explore alternative solutions

Objectives

• Students will research roles of a journalism team.
• Students will choose a role to play in the team.
• Students will collaborate with team members.
• Students will design and create an online newspaper for their school.
• Students will apply their knowledge of newspaper operations to produce regular online news editions.

Materials

• Computers with Internet access for each student
• Word processing software
• Google account for Google docs

Anticipatory Set

Students will identify online news sources and review their designs and content.

Ask students:

• Which online blogs or news web sites they read and why. 
• What makes a good news site? 
• What kinds of articles do you like to read? 
• What’s important information to cover? 
• If you were the editor, would you run (example) controversial story? Why or why not? 
• How would you want your news site to look? 

Tell students they’ll create their own news site for the school. They’ll research journalistic roles, choose roles to play, and collaborate to design and create a live news blog.

Procedures

*This lesson should on previous lessons surrounding journalism, ethics, and writing. 

**Optimal execution of this lesson would involve a WebQuest, but it’s not necessary.

Pre-activity

Talk about questions and details in the anticipatory set.

Have students talk about news sites they enjoy and why. Prompt questions about credibility, design, and content types.

Have students search schooljournalism.org for information about the different roles in a journalism team.

Set up Google Classroom forum for student collaboration when they start the project.

Set up a Google doc for students to choose roles. Under each student’s name, write 1, 2, 3 and ask students to rank their top three choices for team roles. (Ex: editor, features writer, podcaster, cartoonist, copyeditor, sports writer, etc.) Teacher reviews students’ choices and makes final decision of student roles.

Teams

Teacher should break students into these teams and available roles.

• Design/layout
• Editorial Board: Managing editor; Features editor; News editor; Sports editor; any additional section editors
• Cartoonists
• Staff writers: News, Features, Sports, etc.
• Copyeditors & Proofreaders
• Photographers/photo editors
• Podcasts/videos

Activity

Teacher breaks students into team groups and advises teams to choose a leader/spokesperson within that group. This person will be responsible for liaising with other groups and the editor-in-chief (the teacher).

Teacher instructs team leaders to create a shared Google doc for their team.

Teacher prompts design team to review online news sites that we talked about earlier and drafts ideas for the design. They collaborate and finally create the site for the news blog using a site like Weebly.

Teacher advises the editorial board regarding choosing stories and assigning them to the staff writers.

Teacher advises the staff writers to research and write their stories, then hand them off for copyediting, revision, and publication.

Teacher encourages the photographer/photo editors to liaise with the staff writers (through Google docs) and finds out what they need to photograph and when.

Teacher routinely checks in with students in person and on their Google docs for progress and troubleshooting.

Some questions

• How would you handle discord among groups? (Inevitably there will be arguments.)
• Ask students to debate running one story over another with the editorial board.
• Ask students to consider their audience (student body, parents, teachers) while writing and editing their articles.

When all articles, podcasts, illustrations, etc., are ready to publish, check in with the layout and design team to make sure everything has been submitted on deadline.

Be available for questions as the design/layout team publishes content to the site and makes it live.

Reconvene with students when the site is live to commence reflection.

Closure

Once the news site is live, hold roundtable discussion and ask students to reflect on their collaboration, ease/difficulty of roles, what they would have done differently, and their thoughts on the final product.

Assessment

Click here for a link to the rubric.

Modifications/Accommodations

Considerations for students with disabilities: If a student is unable to write, can they draw? Perhaps they may take the role of cartoonist. If writing is out of the questions, maybe a podcast or video? Roles must be approved by the teacher and the teacher should consider students’ abilities when reviewing their roles.

Modify available roles based on number of students in the class.

This lesson may work best as a WebQuest, although it may also stand alone.

Sample Student Artifact

Resources

ISTE: www.iste.org

Common Core Standards: http://www.corestandards.org/ELA-Literacy/WHST/11-12/

Slate: www.slate.com

The Guardian: www.theguardian.com

The Concord Monitor: www.concordmonitor.com

School of Journalism: www.schooljournalism.org

Weebly: www.weebly.com

Easel.ly

True Benefits of Classroom Technology: An Interview with Mrs. H

On December 18 and January 6, respectively, I had the good fortune of observing and interviewing the Computer Literacy teacher, Mrs. H, at Bow Memorial School, my local middle school where I also substitute teach. Before delving into the treasure trove of technology insights I learned from this meeting, first I need to paint you a picture of just how cool Mrs. H is. 

Mrs. H

Mrs. H began as a math teacher about 17 years ago but was also drawn to tech-based workshops. In fact, Mrs. H's school had a program in which teachers could go to computer camp for a week and get paid to do it. If anyone paid me to go to school, that's pretty much what I'd do forever. Anyway, Mrs. H had such an insatiable appetite for these workshops and computer camps that by the time she enrolled for her Master's in Computer Technology at Plymouth, she was already close to graduating. 

Okay, now comes the really cool part about Mrs. H. Are you ready? Several framed photographs hang on Mrs. H's classroom wall--President Obama, Vice President Biden, former Secretary Clinton, etc. Oh, and Mrs. H is in all of these photos too. And they're autographed with personal messages from these people who happen to run the world. Through her work with the National Education Association, Mrs. H has met with and received autographed candid photos from every President of the United States since the Carter administration! 

Computer Literacy

Now, Mrs. H only has her Computer Literacy students for 22 day rotations--that's 88 days over four years--but you'd never guess that level of time crunch by the students' near-reverant engagement in their work. Have you ever seen consecutive classes of fifth through eighth graders collectively and silently enthralled in their schoolwork? I stood in the center of the classroom--computer stations hugged the perimeter of the room so all screens faced my vantage point as I pivoted in place--and watched in awe as tiny hands flew across keyboards for Type To Learn or pointed out coding errors on a friend's screen for Hour of Code. Twelve-year-olds are learning how to program, hooked onto the craft by Frozen-inspired coding activities. Students could choose from many other themes as well--zombies, those pig-like things from Angry Birds, heroes-vanquishing-monster vignettes, and many more. My husband is a software developer who creates iPhone apps and medical web sites and I gotta tell you--programming is basically a foreign language. Mrs. H's computer room is a habitat for mini geniuses. Some students wore ear buds and listened to Pandora while they worked--Mrs. H tries to be flexible with the students, which results in greater responsibility for the kids and respect for Mrs. H--while others gleefully compare and contrast the code they've written. 

Clearly, the rigor is in Mrs. H's classroom. This Common Core virtue of challenging students with higher-level thinking not only pushes students to raise their own standards of themselves, but instills pride and confidence when they discover the depth of their capabilities. This--circle the paragraph, star it, pull out your highlighter--is why I want to be a teacher. Every student should have the opportunity to explore their abilities and scale their intellectual mountain, then stand at the summit to review all that they've accomplished. 

"Dillon!" a couple boys stage-whisper to their friend. "Can you show me how to screenshot again?" 

Dillon dutifully slides his chair over and starts going through the steps. 

"Oh yeah yeah, I remember, okay cool," one boy interrupts halfway through Dillon's explanation. "Watch, I'm going to crop this photo of Dillon's face and put it over Matt's body!" The boys erupt in laughter, content in their goofing off and maybe unaware that they're also doing what they're supposed to be doing--learning how to manipulate and integrate different types of technology into useful results. They stumbled upon the secret that nerdy students like me have been trying to share forever: school is fun. No, really. 

Mrs. H gave me a long list of the types of technology that her students use--Google classroom, Moodle, Adobe Creative Suite, Office suite (Microsoft and Apple), the aforementioned coding and typing modules, etc.--but this laundry list of sites and applications matter less than the rest of our conversation. I know that sounds strange, but bear with me. "Those are just tools," Mrs. H said, waving her hand. 

Graphic adapted from easel.ly

Musings...

I follow this seemingly incongruous thought process. We're talking about using technology in the classroom, so why the dismissiveness surrounding...the technology? This idea is important, and it's what I didn't understand when I began learning about becoming a Connected Educator. I got too hung up on the actual technology. Effective classroom technology isn't about holding up an iPad in the center of the room and paying homage: "Behold! All hail the iPad!" It's not about a single app on that iPad. It's also not about using PowerPoint for a lesson just because you can. What's the difference from just writing your presentation on the board or using an overhead projector? No--technology is for making the lesson better. It's for integrating ideas and modalities in ways that aren't possible or practical through traditional teaching methods. 

Mrs H is all over these effective uses of technology. Her students use all of these tools to complete projects--everything is project-based learning and therefore meaningful to students--and create digital portfolios that follow the students throughout middle and high school and maybe even show up in college applications. For instance, students combined their tech knowledge with Spanish or French class to create a brochure about a country. They used photoshop to alter images, scanning technology, Publisher and Illustrator to design and lay out the brochure, all while learning about another culture, language, and region of the world. Those tech tools made the students' results better and more meaningful while checking all of the relevant ISTE standards.

I talked with Mrs. H for nearly an hour after witnessing her classroom magic. By that time, I was charged up, itching for my teaching certification, and frantically filing Mrs. H's lessons and projects in my mind-vault for future reference. I finally asked Mrs. H what she saw as the future of technology and her response surprised and intrigued me.

Mrs. H thinks we'll transition in a big way to all online learning. Tools like Google classroom make it easy for teachers to manage a course and forums allow students immediate and constant interaction. Students will move toward choosing what to learn--along the lines of myriad games and themes within Hour of Code--and therefore follow a more personalized and interest-driven educational path within the parameters of traditional curricula. Keyboarding will no longer be a "Special"--the district's term for an elective--and a Computer Lit teacher like Mrs. H will be more of a floater, visiting certain classrooms for an allotted time while students work on an integrated technology/core subject project. 

...And Revelations

I must admit, Mrs. H's vision of the future is a far cry from the Fahrenheit 451 of my nightmares. I hope that, when I'm teaching, I can channel Mrs. H's ingenuity to engender the same type of rich, tech-friendly environment for rigorous projects and meaningful outcomes. I understand now--and I'm a little relieved--that I don't need to know about every tech gadget and popular site. Using technology just because it exists ignores the greater benefits of integration, collaboration, and personal challenges. I may never understand what Twitter is for in the same kind of way that I'll never understand what New Englanders mean by a frappe--seriously, it's not a milkshake? But it's ice-cream related?--but it's not about the singular piece of technology. We're looking at the big picture. And it keeps getting bigger.

Digital Footprint

What do you do online?

Graphic adapted from easel.ly

Multitasking...and Mediocrity?

PBS offers two interesting videos about how technology is changing our lives: Growing Up Online and its sequel, Digital Nation. Both films prompt important and complex conversations surrounding technology, but I want to focus on multitasking for this post. 

When I interviewed for my first publishing job out of college in Boston, one interviewer asked whether I was an accomplished multitasker. "Yes!" I exclaimed, mostly because I was 21 and thought that was the right answer.

But accomplished multitasking is really an achievement in mediocrity: divided attention produces fair-to-middling results. "Digital Nation" frames this conversation about multitasking around the wired world--texting, email, Facebook, and videos, all while sitting in class and listening to your professor--but I don't limit my skepticism of its efficacy to technology. 

Sometimes I need to watch my toddler and make dinner at the same time. My focus is divided, though, and occasionally my dinner craftsmanship results in ordering pizza on those nights. Do you ever drive and text? Stop it. Stop it now; we won't even have that conversation. "Digital Nation" cites a statistic that texting while driving is more dangerous than drunk driving. 

In the film, MIT students were confident in their abilities to multitask and remarked that their professors just didn't get it. A Stanford study found, however, that multitasking significantly impeded students' performances.

Successful multitasking has nothing to do with how smart a person is, and my harrumphing isn't meant to be a value judgment about anyone's intelligence. To complete high-level tasks, you need to focus. Sure, you may be able to categorize widgets while texting your friend. But you can't synthesize multiple sources while supporting a thesis AND watch YouTube videos of adorable pugs....You clicked on that link, didn't you? See, this is what I'm talking about. Focus! ;)

Teens in particular are at a disadvantage when it comes to multitasking. The pre-frontal cortex, the part of the brain necessary for executive function, doesn't fully develop until around age 24. Executive function involves decision-making, analyzing and applying information, planning, and budgeting time, to name some uses. This is why teens tend to be impulsive and take risks--their brains haven't developed the "stop-and-consider" warning yet. So kids are already playing without a full deck and then they try to multitask, which requires quick decision-making and constantly shifting focus. Really, multitasking is a disservice to students. They don't learn how to think deeply about a topic, connect details to the big picture, and invest energy into a project.

You know what's more valuable than multitasking? Prioritizing and time management. Yes, sometimes you may need to do two things at once. But understanding the hierarchy of what's important and the most effective ways to execute tasks will serve students well in the future. It's better to do a few things well rather than everything poorly. 



http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/digitalnation/view/

Sir Ken Robinson and Death Valley: A Review

TED Talks are essentially nerd candy and Sir Ken Robinson, brilliant and innovative educationalist, is our Willy Wonka. 




Sir Robinson delivers an engaging, irreverent, and rather British presentation on "How to Escape Education's Death Valley." Death Valley, of course, is the driest place in America--nothing grows there and everything dies. You don't want to go there, even though that linked site has a pretty heavy pitch for tourism. Sir Robinson's reference to Death Valley is an analogy to the dormancy of our current education system; we need to transform the system and create a culture of possibility rather than muddle through our educational desert.

Sir Robinson begins by skewering No Child Left Behind (NCLB) and explaining that there are three necessities for learning to take place: diversity, curiosity, and creativity. Sir Robinson takes umbrage with NCLB for its assembly line rubber stamp approach toward education. He advocates for a "broad curriculum that celebrates various talents" (Robinson 2013). Students are diverse in their experiences, learning styles, and interests, and how we teach should reflect those differences. We must also stoke students' curiosity and cultivate their desire to learn. Robinson questions why anyone is surprised that kids get fidgety when we "sit them at desks hour after hour with low-grade clerical work" (Robinson 2013). Creativity is the third essential category, for both teachers and students. Teaching, Robinson argues, is a "creative profession" because effective teachers "mentor, stimulate, provoke, and engage"; teaching is about facilitating learning (Robinson 2013). 

Although Sir Robinson doesn't reference technology explicitly in the presentation above, I kept thinking about those types of tools while watching him speak. In this clip, he's more specific about the transformative properties of technology in education, declaring that the tools themselves are changing cultures. It's not much of a leap, then, to think about how Robinson's key traits--diversity, curiosity, and creativity--will come from discerning technology integration.

One of my favorite pastimes involves sitting in a circle with a bunch of smart people and delving into philosophical discussions about how we'll transform education and save the world--but let's not get too carried away in our revolutionary daydreams. I don't write or legislate policy--I've been waiting for them to call me; they've probably just been busy--so at the end of the day we need to work within the framework of our realities. And the reality is that, absolutely, teaching is a creative profession and my job is to facilitate learning and help students uncover their potentials. I also need to meet state standards and testing regulations and all the other things that keep schools funded. 

I get inspired and psyched when I see presentations like Sir Robinson's, but ever practical, I also want to know how to achieve this educational utopia:

Diversity

I loved sitting in college lecture courses. Writing research papers makes me happy. My college friends thought I was nuts. Lots of students don't learn this way, and we need to offer resources for these kids to meet the same Common Core standards. Podcasts, videos, lessons masquerading as games. We have lots of options for varying teaching techniques and embracing the diversity of our students.

Curiosity

It should be obvious, but when students are interested in what they're learning, then that's all the motivation they need. Project-based learning gives students purpose; they're not just doing fill-in-the-blank packets night after night. They work toward a goal, often collaborating, and end up with something real to show for all of their hard work. 

Creativity

Students can make films, write songs, or self-publish books, among myriad other possibilities. When they see their final creations, they not only learn the necessary material, but feel pride in their accomplishments and and could even showcase their talents when applying to colleges.

As curmudgeonly as I may often be when it comes to new technology, I'm really excited about these ideas. A lesson plan for a year-long online newspaper project for an English is fomenting in my head....We'd cover lots of standards regarding writing, style, grammar, editing, etc., and the students could distribute their news site to faculty and parents. These real-life projects also show kids what working in these environments are like, and maybe pique an interest in further study of journalism or other subject areas. 


Robinson, Sir Ken. "How to Escape Education's Death Valley." TED Talk. April 2013.