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Learning: Bits & Bytes At My Hero (www.myhero.com), students can read about heroes from all walks of life--and even create their own Web page honoring a personal hero. As an offshoot of a social studies unit on Ancient Greece, our teaching team works on an interdisciplinary unit on heroes. Through social studies and reading classes, students learn about ancient heroes, both historical and mythological. From there, students develop a fictional superhero in language arts class, and they write a reflective piece on their personal heroes. The unit culminates with students developing a Web page devoted to their personal hero, through the Web site www.myhero.com. The user-friendly format of this site allows students to easily create a Web presence. Some students do make more elaborate pages than others, with links and scaned images, but all the sixth graders are able to create a Web page. Imagine the look on the face of a grandfather when he sees a hero Web page devoted to him--designed by his grandchild! Check out some examples of our students' work by going to www.myhero. com and clicking on "CREATE." Then try user name "mia" and password "hamm," or user name "wolves99" and password "ilw99." Carol Mickley, Candi Shoemaker, Art History Goes Hi-Tech Art History Goes Hi-Tech is a survey course combining art appreciation and art history. The course integrates world history, the development of civilization, cultural understanding, and computer technology and graphics in an exciting, hands-on format. I incorporated the sound of thunder into the site to give me an auditory signal when students are on my site--and not, for instance, checking their astrology charts. The kids boom on and off while they are on the Internet. They love this signal, and it helps me supervise without watching. I'd like to invite art educators to use the site as a complement to their classes or as inspiration to create their own Web-based courses. Ann Eyster 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. You'll find that these techniques increase parents' interest and decrease students' excuses. Josh Anderson Reviewing Through Games All applications are teacher-created and student-tested. Once a lesson is over, these applications allow students to "play" with new information in a challenging format. We call it blended learning. Bill Burton From Maine to California
Who: E-mail: Inspiration: The cable company made the introduction between the two classrooms--which, Kondrick says, eased her fears about safety on the Net--and also provided a free, high-speed Road Runner cable-modem connection. "Time Warner made it easy for us, in that the company did the connections on the Internet with Road Runner," Kondrick says. "Without that, it would have been like a dinosaur getting our E-mail to work. It was instantaneous gratification, and the kids enjoyed it!" Once connected, the two teachers developed specific learning around the technology. They took advantage of their schools' locations to develop units comparing and contrasting coastal southern California with coastal Maine. "Both our cities are very dependent on the sea as part of our economy and our tourism," Thurlow explains. "We were able to address all those concepts through our units." Thurlow and Kondrick developed units that integrate content areas such as geography and economics with technology, language arts, and communication skills. Lesson: The two classes exchanged video "tours" of their classrooms. By digitizing the images, Thurlow uploaded a portion of his video onto the project's Web site. Both classes collaborated on a storybook writing activity. Story sections were transmitted back and forth by E-mail, with each class adding another piece. When the narrative was completed, each teacher printed a copy and split it into picture-book format so students could illustrate it. The E-mail exchange, says Kondrick, at one point started petering off. That's when she and Thurlow started the story project. "The students got interested again," notes Kon-drick. "You do need to spice it up." For Kondrick, who was not a "techie," the plunge into Key Pals was worth getting wet. The project has helped her get past her high-tech anxiety. "And," she points out, "we went much further than John and I believed we ever could have." Thurlow, who is no newcomer to long-distance learning projects, agrees. "This project added a whole new dimension to the traditional pen pal!" he says. Click: "The challenge for the teacher," she continues, "is to be literate enough and daring enough to do it. But teachers also need to make sure they get the technological and administrative support they need to make it successful." For more on the South Portland/San Diego Road Runner Key Pals project,
go to http://home.maine.rr.com/johnthurlow/ My Favorite... Web site Mike Buleza Software Jack O'Brien |
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