Monday, November 15, 2010

Carrying Out My GAME Plan: Week 3

Resources:

In order to carry out my GAME plan, I will need to develop surveys for students to complete after they have completed a week’s worth of journal entries. This will allow me to get a feel for the students overall attitude with completing electronic journals versus handwritten journals. The surveys will be completed by the use of clickers where students will be able to respond anonymously. I would also like to find blog entries that are similar to the project my class will be working on. This will give the students a better feel for the assignment and ways to express their creative side.

Additional Info:

A criterion sheet should be created that the students will follow while posting to their blogs on a daily basis. The sheet will be turned in at the end of the week and will act as a check sheet for each student. There must be a total of five blog postings that follow the grammatical expectations for 2nd grade. There will also be a requirement of at least two pictures/images that they imported to a posting(s).

Steps Taken:

Thus far, I have been able to introduce the idea of blogging to my students. We have looked at the blog site they will use to create and post to. The students are becoming familiar with how to use the site through the use of an example blog and its posts. My upcoming steps are to have each student create their own blog and have it ready to post to when we come back from Thanksgiving.

8 comments:

  1. I like how you are going to gather your students' feedback after a week of completing journal entries. It will be neat to see what their reactions are to this technology-based assignment. Do you have clickers and a hub (I think its called that) in your individual classrooms? I like how you are requiring students to import images into their blogs. I am excited to hear how this goes! I am curious and a bit confused, is each individual student going to have their own blog site? Did this take a lot of your teaching time to help them set it up? I am asking because I am continuously worried about not having enough time to fit everything into the day!

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  2. I think student surveys are so valuable, especially when they are done anonymously. Students already have some familiarity with technology, and the use of surveys can really help us determine if our steps are too easy, just right, or too difficult. I think your students will enjoy blogging, and it is a great way to have them writing, but in a different venue that may not seem as tedious.

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  3. Wendi, I do not have a classroom set of clickers. The school has one set to utilize throughout grades K-6 and one for grades 7-12. It will take some planning on my part to set up a time that is open for students to use them. Each student will be required to set up their own blog site. It takes a great deal of time - especially with those who do not have the necessary skills of navigating the computer. It will take some time to complete this project, but in my opinion well worth it!

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  4. Lauren,

    If it is difficult to get ahold of those clickers, perhaps think about creating a survey on zoomerang or survey monkey. Those are very easy to do, and will calculate results for you. I am not sure what the capabilities are for the clicker surveys, but I know that the two I mentioned would do the job for you. Also, I figure it is easier to get computer access than clicker access. The online survey could be done from home as well, and wouldn't take up class time. Just a thought!

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  5. You can also create a survey using google docs form. It goes directly to a google spreadsheet, and can be transferred easy to other software you have at work.

    The blog will become comfortable with them after they have used it for a while. At this point, they will be pro's in no time.

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  6. Hi Lauren,

    This seems like an exciting project for the 2nd graders. I would be surprised if any student is resistant to working on a blog. I like the criterion list for your second graders. Curious how you are going to handle the uploading of pictures, will this happen in the computer lab or from home? Do your students understand how to do this at this point?

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  7. Hey Lauren, I would love to visit your student blogs when they get going. I had a second grade teacher visit my blog because she was interested in what blogging was about. Because my students are so young I have to do a lot of the posts for them and we all share one blog. It would be great for her to see someone else's so she could follow through on her interest.

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