Chapter Three discusses effective instructional models for integrating the Internet into your curriculum. Which of these models have you used or would you be willing to try? What challenges might stand in your way of implementing them successfully?
I have not really tried any of these models. I have, however, integrated a WebQuest that I found on the Internet. I used this as a culminating activity for a unit on statistics. The students used the Internet to research athlete's stats, created graphs using Excel, and wrote newspaper articles making predicitions. Most of the project was completed outside of the classroom.
That is one of the challenges that I face with trying to integrate these instructional models into my teaching. Because I teach high school math I only see each class for about 57 minutes per day. Our schedule rotates so I do not always see them everyday. As a math department we use the curriculum to guide our instruction. I need to cover certain material that each student will be tested on. Each student in the same course no matter who the teacher is, will take the same midterm and final. Therefore, it is imperative that the students have the same content covered. In addition, the math courses build on prior knowledge from the previous year, so it is important to make sure that each student has the necessary tools to be successful in the next course.
Another challenge is that the classrooms that I teach in do not have any computers other than the teacher's. There is a wireless lab, but availability could cause a problem. I teach in three different classrooms so that presents a problem as well.
I do see the value in integrating the Internet into the curriculum and believe that the students do need experience using this in all content areas. The one model that I think would be the easiest for me to incorporate would be Internet Inquiry. Since the students are creating the questions then they are making the learning relevant to themselves. They can ask questions they are interested in and make the task more meaningful. Since most of this model requires independent research it would be easier for me to include this as a part of my curriculum.
I have not tried any of the instructional models listed in Chapter 4. What I thought was very interesting was the Monster Exchange Internet Project that they mentioned. I thought that would be a great way to get some of my low readers to learn how to visualize and read/write with a purpose. Do you think that I would be able to hook my 7th graders into this or do you think that they would think that it was too babyish for them? I got another reading teacher in the building to agree to try it with his classroom and mine so I guess we'll see how it goes. I would like to try it using an actual classroom off the internet but I first want to see how it goes in my classroom. I thought that Chapter 5 was interesting with all the reading/writing literacy ideas you can use with the internet. They mentioned several sites that I am anxious to explore when I have the time to do so. I think that it would be a cool idea to read a book along with a classroom for another country and them correspond with them. It might get some of my students actually interested in reading and writing. Let's see what happens.
When I was looking around on the Monster Exchange website I noticed that there were some sixth grade classrooms that did participate in this project. I actually emailed the site to a friend who teaches sixth grade. I believe that it would be fine to do with seventh graders, especially if you have another teacher willing to try it with you. You can always modify this activity to fit into your curriculum instead of just drawing a monster the students could draw and describe something else. I do agree with you that it would be good to try in the classroom first before jumping straight to the Internet, especially if you are not comfortable using it.
I think that your seventh graders would enjoy doing this activity. It is a good exercise in elaboration and using descriptive vocabulary.
My cluster has used Internet Inquiry in the form of a guaranteed research project. We started with an essential question and worked through the phases of the inquiry model incorporating all the content areas. I recently asked my students to research nonfiction articles on a topic they were interested in pursuing. They created five interesting and informative questions generated from an article. Using a powerpoint presentation, they would individually present the information to the class on the topic. They chose topics such as: election/politics - statistics and history, various kinds of animals, natural disasters, fashion, famous people, Einstein, etc. We adapted the model to align it with certain curriculum requirements.
Heather, I can't imagine how hard it is for someone to travel to different rooms and try to work on an internet project. The labs are often busy. We have three labs and a mobile lab and it is really hard to reserve them. I have one computer that works in my classroom and one that works sometimes.
All the students love to work on multimedia projects. I didn’t realize how simple some of the Internet Projects were. I envisioned them to be long and complicated. I feel that I actually may have the class time to try one!
I also tend to feel that I have to create my own projects and do not take advantage of the great resources online. This course has opened up my eyes to the opportunities.
4 comments:
I have not really tried any of these models. I have, however, integrated a WebQuest that I found on the Internet. I used this as a culminating activity for a unit on statistics. The students used the Internet to research athlete's stats, created graphs using Excel, and wrote newspaper articles making predicitions. Most of the project was completed outside of the classroom.
That is one of the challenges that I face with trying to integrate these instructional models into my teaching. Because I teach high school math I only see each class for about 57 minutes per day. Our schedule rotates so I do not always see them everyday. As a math department we use the curriculum to guide our instruction. I need to cover certain material that each student will be tested on. Each student in the same course no matter who the teacher is, will take the same midterm and final. Therefore, it is imperative that the students have the same content covered. In addition, the math courses build on prior knowledge from the previous year, so it is important to make sure that each student has the necessary tools to be successful in the next course.
Another challenge is that the classrooms that I teach in do not have any computers other than the teacher's. There is a wireless lab, but availability could cause a problem. I teach in three different classrooms so that presents a problem as well.
I do see the value in integrating the Internet into the curriculum and believe that the students do need experience using this in all content areas. The one model that I think would be the easiest for me to incorporate would be Internet Inquiry. Since the students are creating the questions then they are making the learning relevant to themselves. They can ask questions they are interested in and make the task more meaningful. Since most of this model requires independent research it would be easier for me to include this as a part of my curriculum.
I have not tried any of the instructional models listed in Chapter 4. What I thought was very interesting was the Monster Exchange Internet Project that they mentioned. I thought that would be a great way to get some of my low readers to learn how to visualize and read/write with a purpose. Do you think that I would be able to hook my 7th graders into this or do you think that they would think that it was too babyish for them? I got another reading teacher in the building to agree to try it with his classroom and mine so I guess we'll see how it goes. I would like to try it using an actual classroom off the internet but I first want to see how it goes in my classroom.
I thought that Chapter 5 was interesting with all the reading/writing literacy ideas you can use with the internet. They mentioned several sites that I am anxious to explore when I have the time to do so. I think that it would be a cool idea to read a book along with a classroom for another country and them correspond with them. It might get some of my students actually interested in reading and writing. Let's see what happens.
When I was looking around on the Monster Exchange website I noticed that there were some sixth grade classrooms that did participate in this project. I actually emailed the site to a friend who teaches sixth grade. I believe that it would be fine to do with seventh graders, especially if you have another teacher willing to try it with you. You can always modify this activity to fit into your curriculum instead of just drawing a monster the students could draw and describe something else. I do agree with you that it would be good to try in the classroom first before jumping straight to the Internet, especially if you are not comfortable using it.
I think that your seventh graders would enjoy doing this activity. It is a good exercise in elaboration and using descriptive vocabulary.
My cluster has used Internet Inquiry in the form of a guaranteed research project. We started with an essential question and worked through the phases of the inquiry model incorporating all the content areas. I recently asked my students to research nonfiction articles on a topic they were interested in pursuing. They created five interesting and informative questions generated from an article. Using a powerpoint presentation, they would individually present the information to the class on the topic. They chose topics such as: election/politics - statistics and history, various kinds of animals, natural disasters, fashion, famous people, Einstein, etc. We adapted the model to align it with certain curriculum requirements.
Heather, I can't imagine how hard it is for someone to travel to different rooms and try to work on an internet project. The labs are often busy. We have three labs and a mobile lab and it is really hard to reserve them. I have one computer that works in my classroom and one that works sometimes.
All the students love to work on multimedia projects. I didn’t realize how simple some of the Internet Projects were. I envisioned them to be long and complicated. I feel that I actually may have the class time to try one!
I also tend to feel that I have to create my own projects and do not take advantage of the great resources online. This course has opened up my eyes to the opportunities.
Post a Comment