Connor's "virtual poster"
Rainforest Lesson Reflection
My lesson was created as a further
supplement to existing curriculum and designed to enhance student learning
about the rainforest. This lesson is also part of larger unit on biomes that I
am currently modifying. Since students will be building on their current knowledge
I designed this lesson in a cognitive constructivist fashion. In order for this
lesson to be successful, both teachers and students must have basic computer
skills and knowledge about the rainforest; although it is hoped that the teacher
will have a better understanding of this biome than the students. Watching the
ease in which my student took to the technology and paired his knowledge of
rainforests with it confirmed for me that this activity were able to make sense
of and understood the technology. Glogster
was chosen for its ease of use, the many choices it allows for students to
display their creativity and knowledge, and best of all, it has a free site. Also,
my familiarity with this site and my technical knowledge should help address
most difficulties that students should have. This is very important because any
lack of knowledge about a site or tech may dampen a child’s enthusiasm for the
activity and any learning that may come from it. When using tech, it’s
important that teachers feel comfortable and that they should be confident
enough to help troubleshoot problems that may appear.
Implementing this lesson in a
classroom would allow me to create groups that will allow for support for
different learners in my room. I believe that this activity would definitely be
engaging and fun for the students it was designed. As I do not have a classroom
of my own to gauge student response, I asked my 10 year old son, Connor, who is
in the 5th grade to be my guinea pig. After going over the power
point, the story and reviewing what a rainforest is, I introduced him to
Glogster. I showed him my previous assignments and explained how to build his
own graphic blog. I then told him what I wanted him to do; create an
interactive, graphic blog using audio clips, video clips and pictures, using
the internet as his source. I then left the room and told him that if he needed
any help, that I was in the next room doing my homework. As he is a few years
older than most 3rd graders and had one-on-one attention when
needed, he probably didn’t need as much time as they might. I expect that the
younger students may need more time than initially provided, especially when
other time constraints and subjects are added. Assessment would come in few
different ways. First, the “virtual posters” would be grade by me based on a
rubric shared with the class, also, the students would rate their group mates
on a scale of 1-5 on various aspects of their group participation and finally,
there would be a written assessment with open-ended, short answer questions.I
think this lesson has plenty of affordances, starting with cost; Glogster is a
free site that is easy to access and easy to use. I would imagine an
introductory lesson on using Glogster to take about a half hour, which about
the time I spent showing Connor how to use it. However younger students might
need more time, including introductory lessons on layout design or how to first
imagine, then draw rough design and then to process of building a glog. All
could be treated as mini-lessons building up to introduction to Glogster, Vimeo
or any other site. User friendliness would be another affordance of this site.
The only constraints that I could think of when using this site would be
availability of computers and time allowed for their use and the second
constraint would be access to the internet. While most schools provide internet
use, many sites are blocked (for obvious reasons), which may in turn block the
number of available audio/visual clips and pictures. However, I’m sure most
students today can find what they need; the constraint may not be as serious as
I originally thought.
Glogster is a technology that can
be applied to any topic or subject matter. I could easily see using it for a
reading assignment, creating a graphic character study for characters in a
book. It could be also used as a virtual book report. For writing, students
could create virtual poems, using Glogster to “animate” poems that they or
someone else have written. Math students could create a “glog” about prime
numbers, science students could create food chains and history students could
focus on a particular war, battle or event like, Prohibition. Its practicality
through subject matters and ease of use makes Glogster an excellent tech tool
to incorporate into classrooms through about eighth grade. It’s also an
excellent introduction to incorporating technology for those with little
confidence in their technological efficacy. I found that the difficult part of
integrating lessons with technology is actually finding something that is user
friendly, is straightforward in its approach, especially with regard to ease of
instruction and allows the subject matter to be presented in a clear-cut and
easy to understand fashion. In the end, however, I believe my professional
development and teaching practice will benefit from be able to look at any
lesson and think, “How can I use tech to improve this lesson and what tech fits
it best?”
