As we are learning each of the Things assigned to us in this course I have been looking for ways to introduce the resources to my second grade son. While our children are enrolled in public education once they are in Kindergarten, I like to think of myself as an unofficial home school parent. We squeeze in extension activities where we can and spend considerable time each week implementing lessons to enhance what the kids are learning in school.
One of the Things I thought would be especially useful for working with Gavin and developing his personal reflections of experiences and new learning was to create a Face of His Classroom site (Thing 2). This site would encourage him to share what he is learning in school and in extracurricular activities. Throughout the rest of the school year I would like to see him continue to experiment with the tools we are using in this class and to share his examples on the site we have worked together to create.
In this case, rather than using one of the resources to meet a lesson objective, the objective of the lesson was to learn a couple of the new resources. Using Blogger as a platform we began creating his site. The instruction was set up much like a writing lesson. I explained to him that his title needed to be like the main idea of series of books. He is a huge Magic Tree House fan and appreciates the theme of using points in history to create both fictional stories full of facts, as well as resource guides. This connection was helpful for him in deciding on a theme and title. We then discussed that each post would be like a chapter in one of his books. The About Me page was a chance for us to talk about giving the readers a bit of a guide as to what types of information they are likely to read in the posts Gavin shares on the site. Before opening Blogger to begin creating his site, we used a blank template to lay out his rough draft ideas.
We referred to the steps in the writing process when talking about the best way to approach his writing for new posts. We also briefly talked about labeling posts to give readers a snap shot of the topic of the individual posts. This is something that we will have to continue to work on as he becomes more comfortable with the other steps in posting his daily reflections.
You will notice that Gavin has already created a Creative Commons license for his site. After designing his page and using some digital editing tools to create his header image we talked about the importance of protecting his work with a copyright. He was really intrigued by the possibility of having his own copyright. In fact, he was a bit surprised that a kid who isn’t a real author yet could protect his individual expression. It was a great opportunity for us to talk about the importance of recognizing unique thoughts and expressions, to validate his writing, and to reinforce why it is important to carefully cite information used from other creators.
I was especially encouraged by the excitement I saw in Gavin as he created something he is truly proud of. In the days since he opened the site it is delightful to hear him brainstorm ideas for new posts and to become more proficient at navigating the tabs for creating new posts. I enjoyed working through this lesson and feel that it was beneficial for him. However, I recognize that doing the same thing with a whole classroom of students would require a lot of patience and much more time.
Using this lesson in a traditional classroom would require some extra helping hands and eyes. Gavin caught on quickly to the many options for designed his template using the advanced tools. However, for students who are not reading proficiently at this point in second grade it would be a challenge to navigate through some of the template choices and choosing the setting options. I would also want to be sure that each of the children participating in the lesson had consent from their parents, since as we learned in the Copyright lesson putting information on the web is like implying consent to be found, read, and linked to.
When recapping the lesson with Gavin this evening he shared that he really enjoyed the opportunity to create something that reflects him and his individual interests. He specifically said that he liked being able to choose topics that were interested to him and self chosen rather than teacher assigned. He referred to the post he made using bubbl.us when he said, “in writing and making diagrams I have to use words, but with the diagram I could quickly put together many thoughts without worrying about complete sentences.” He mentioned that he has done brainstorming on paper many times and usually adds pictures. He would like time to explore bubbl.us to see if there is a way he could add a picture to label or diagram. He also recognized that in his traditional classroom it would not work very well to keep up his site to reflect all of their lessons because, “when we do work on the computer it is usually with our whole group and the teacher uses the computer to navigate. The only time we really get to work with the websites on our own is during technology class on Fridays when we are in the lab.” He decided that keeping brief notes on his site of the things he is doing outside of school would be helpful to look at when he is looking for ideas for writer’s workshop.
If each child in my classroom had their own site, I think it would be an authentic assessment opportunity to have students write a brief post explaining, or visually representing, something they learned during that days lessons as a homework assignment. Parents would likely also appreciate the collection of reflections rather than pulling teeth each evening for discussion about what is happening in the classroom during the day.
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