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Draw Your Own Opinion | Walk
on Water | Learning: Bits & Bytes
The site, called Only a Matter of Opinion?, features extensive links to writing resources, a teacher's guide with lesson plans and assessment tools, and The Teacher Exchange, an interactive discussion area just for educators. You'll find several other excellent teaching units at the ThinkQuest site--most made by students, but several made by educators. Diane Weber Teacher Resource Site Over the years I have become very proficient at using Microsoft Publisher and Print Shop to create dynamic worksheets and handouts to go along with my lessons. I recently learned how to create PDF files--a format that takes a "snapshot" of a document to preserve fonts, graphics, and formatting across different computer platforms--from my favorite activities, and I began adding them to my site. Now others can download the activity sheets and print them out. The activities include hands-on math and science lessons, literature circle activities, cooperative learning lessons, and more. I've also added blackline masters of graphic organizers, homework passes, weekly progress reports, daily contracts, and classroom management tools. Teachers are welcome to print out these activities and use them for free with their own classes. I add new activities to the site a few times every month. You can join an E-mail list, and I'll notify you when there's new content. Laura Candler Practice Printer CPR To prolong the life of our printers and to conserve resources, we teach students to practice CPR. This means that they highlight and COPY the information that they need, PASTE it into a word processing document, and REDUCE the size of the type. The new document contains only the information that is really needed. CPR is a memorable term, and the process encourages students to evaluate information rather than simply pressing the print button. Daniel Russo Wise Owl Sites For an owl pellet investigation activity, I found several Web sites that greatly enhanced our work. We were able to hear three different barn owl calls at www.naturesongs.com (a wonderful site for many types of animal, bird, and insect sounds). An investigation data sheet and study questions can be found at www.ceismc.gatech.edu/zooary/zoo/tidbit/owl.html. A set of comprehension questions concerned with predator-prey interactions is located at http://users.nac.net/jmele/Tyto.pretest.html. Finally, we were able to view the results of owl pellet investigations from other students and get ideas on how to display our own results at http://bend.k12.or.us/cascadems2/Johnson/owlpeltlab.htm (click on"photos"). There are numerous other sites with great information on protecting these important raptors, including directions for building nesting boxes! Jewel Barbour Connect with Parents If you have a Web page and regularly update it, let parents know where they can find syllabi, handouts, study guides, texts, and other course materials. This technique increases parents' interest and decreases students' excuses. Josh Anderson Reviewing Through Games Bill Burton
Who: Wanda Harris, sixth grade lead teacher, Lanikai Elementary School, Kailua, Hawaii E-mail: Wanda_Harris/LANIKAI/HIDOE@notes.k12.hi.us Inspiration: Wanda Harris's students were already creating a Web site examining water in their community when they got wind of the 1999 International CyberFair Contest, a major Internet competition for K-12 students around the world. Now they had a deadline to work toward--and their project also entered another dimension. Once students realized they were going to publish their work globally and be judged, the bar of expectations was raised. "I have a project-based classroom with authentic assessments as a concept, which gives the kids an opportunity to do group work and to use multiple intelligences," explains Harris. "One of the benefits of this unorthodox classroom is the opportunity for authentic learning." The "constructivist climate" allows students to "make sense of information for themselves," says Harris. And developing a Web site on water made sense because the ocean is only a block away from the school. To pull off such a project in a classroom of 37 students, a quarter of whom have special needs, Harris needed another pair of hands. Longtime collaborator Lauren Apiki, executive director of the LET Academy, a nonprofit organization that promotes technology in education, teamed up with Harris a few days a week to mentor students through the process. Using Macs, a digital camera, and software programs including HyperStudio and GifBuilder, students created multimedia Web pages that looked at different aspects of water's role in their windward community, from fish life and eco-balance to water safety and recreation. Students illustrated and animated their pages and recorded sound. They created their own music, with slack key guitar and ukulele, after they discovered that copyright laws forbid them from uploading their favorite CDs. Says Harris: "This actually became a moment when strengths that are not normally recognized in the classroom created an opportunity for celebrating each others' abilities." The result? The Lanikai students swam away with first place for their Water Web site in the CyberFair's environmental awareness category--topping schools from Singapore, the Netherlands, and Great Britain. Lesson: Working in groups, students learned about collaboration, cooperation, and time management, and, Harris says, some of her students with special needs became "aware of their potential success in a new and equalizing medium." These students, adds Harris, became much more tenacious about finishing. "They recognized their strengths and blossomed," she says. Struggles, such as having too many chiefs, were also part of the learning curve. But grouping, says Harris, "should not be over-controlled because life experiences need the forum of the classroom and a safe environment where failure is okay." Following a 10-step process for multimedia project development (outlined on the Water Web site) allowed Harris and Apiki to monitor student learning--and to keep a big project that integrated technology and content on track. Harris estimates it took 126 hours to complete the Web site, but, she admits, time is difficult to compute because so much of the work was integrated into each day's assignments. Click: "This project reinforces that learning is not linear," Harris says. "Students need to use their multiple intelligences to get to the end results by employing various methods and interacting with each other--not by just having the teacher be on stage." For more information: go to www.lanikai.k12.hi.us to jump into the Water Web site. Log on to www.globalschoolhouse.org to find out more about the International CyberFair Contest. Tech Tools
Bytes for BeginnersLately I've been inundated with E-mail from Web sites I've visited. How did they get my address? Can I stop unwanted mail? When you spend time at some Web sites, a small file--a cookie--is sent to your computer's hard drive to keep track of what you do on the site. If you give your E-mail address, a site may retain it from your visit. How do you turn down these cookie treats? Configure your browser to warn you when a Web site offers it a cookie. Then you'll have the option of accepting the cookie or not.
Have comments or questions about technology? Go to www.nea.org/cet, or E-mail your questions to webeditor@dear.nea.org. My Favorite Web site...is my own, www.pe.net/~ladyp, which I created as part of my district's mentor teacher project. Developing the site has been a learning experience for me--and a self-evaluation of my own teaching methods. Constance Polhemus Looking for human bio-ethics materials? Minnesota public radio, at http://news.mpr.org/features/199711/20_smiths_fertility, has Great Real Audio programs on a wide range of human reproductive issues. Jerry Jensen |
I
recently worked with two other teachers--and a computer-savvy
student--on a comprehensive Web site that explores persuasive
writing and editorial writing. You can check it out at 
Wanda Harris's students work in
a "virtual office" setting, using communal tables and computer
stations or visiting the beach for research. "Work takes place
where it needs to," she says. 
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