Student Centred Wiki

This is a SOSE unit of work but it also integrates Maths, Science, English and The Arts key learning area.

SOSE Essential Learnings by the end of Year 5

Knowledge and Understanding
Time Continuity and Change. Change and continuities are represented by events and people's contribution and are viewed differently by different people.
Ways of Working
Students are able to:
collect and organise information and evidence
plan investigations based on questions and inquiry models
draw and justify conclusions based on information and evidence
communicate descriptions, decisions and conclusions using text types selected to match audience and purpose.
apply strategies to influence decisions or behaviours and to contribute to groups.


Learning Outcome
Students are to populate a wiki with information which improves and expands the knowledge regarding Aboriginal culture before and after colonisation.

Learning Design Ideas
Topics include:
1. What do we know about Australia before the British came? What does colonisation mean and why do aboriginal people call it invasion? TWL chart/retrieval chart.
2. Who Lived in Australia? Construct time line to represent 100 000 years. 1 cm = 200 years. Provide 2 maps of Australia, as we currently know it and an Aboriginal one with the different regions, children to discuss the similarities and differences and utilise Google Earth to represent this on the Wiki.
3. Who lived in your area, what were the names of places, English or Aboriginal? Research in groups.Post to Wiki.
4. What evidence do we have to show that Aboriginal people have lived on this land for past 50 000 years and what did Australia look like. Provide evidence, students to illustrate a particular period of time. Take photo of it, upload it to flick to post to wiki. Explain Australia use to be joined wo a larger land mass. Demonstrate what happens as the earth warms up after an ice age, (global warming) Experiment- glass of water, mark level with rubber band, add ice and once it melts mark new level, discuss what happened and why. link to ice age.
5. What did British see when they arrived? Show etching representing the British arrival discuss what, who, when, where, why questions. Research post findings to wiki.
6. What plants/trees are native? Explore school gardens, sketch, make own etching.
7. Why did the British Government transport convicts to Australia? Research first fleet, a child convict and role play in a hot seat activity.
The unit can also include Captain's Cook journey, the first fleet journey, tools and weapons, penal settlement and resistance.

The students work together to conduct research, and collect images to populate a wiki page. Hands on engaging field trips to rock paintings, a museum and botanical gardens engage students actively in learning. The unit is designed for students to collaboratively work together to understand, document and justify how history can be presented from different points of view.They are not just recalling, recognising or reiterating information. They are involved in decision making, problem solving, experimental inquiry, investigations and system analysis(Marzano & Pickering, 1997, p 191). A wide range of multi literacies resources can be utilised to achieve this; TWL , retrieval chart, jigsaw activity, you tube clips, audio english readings, dream time stories, artists impressions,flickr, digital camera, video camera, guest speaker etc. This unit could span over two years, so I find it difficult to give a "draft copy" of a unit with all my intentions known. There is scope over the two years to assess the student's in the SOSE, english, science, mathematics and Art key learning areas. Oral presentations, written information report, video presentation, PowerPoint slide shows, posting refection's on a blog, commenting on other blogs,and debate to present opposing views.

Providing opportunities to utilise ICT's in the class room proves power in reaching student's who do not fit inside the "curriculum box" as stated by George Lucas. This unit integrates Blooms' Taxonomy thinking skills. According to Pohl (2000) the first three levels of creating, analysing and evaluating provide students the opportunity to generate new ideas, products or ways of viewing things. They break down information into parts to explore understandings and the students justify their decisions. This unit of work provides the students to have an outside focus, they are to populate a wiki, they are making a useful contribution while learning (Kearsley & Shneiderman, 1999). The authentic learning context of the project increases student motivation and satisfaction. According to Marzano and Pickering(1997) a resource to help student's extend and refine their knowledge a teacher must explicitly teach the skills of comparing, classifying, abstracting and analysing perspectives. In this unit of work these skill are important to not only extend and refine knowledge but to use knowledge meaningfully. This requires students to engage in complex thinking and reasoning processes as they complete long term meaningful tasks (Marzano & Pickering, 1997).

Student Centred Blog

Beyond School! Wow did an eleven year old really create this. I agree blogs can be an innovative tool to enhance children's creative writing. I have two male students in my class who have fantastic ideas but struggle immensely with their handwriting. It is sometimes unreadable and because it is hard work for them, the ideas become lost. They can however.....type! This technology opens up a learning world for those who desperately need it and others who also benefit from the engagement of using reflective blogs as both an individual and collaborative process. Imagine teaching in a school where every child has a laptop and part of their daily routine is to write on their blog. It could perhaps replace "diary writing" or at the end of each week students can reflect on their learning, what they liked most, what didn't they like, why, why not and any common issues arising for the week. I would love to know what my students think about my teaching and the highs and lows of their learning. I can only benefit from feedback and why not ask the people that matter the most. The class could have their own class blog and a different student adds to it each day to continue a fictional story. It could relate to the unit of work, healthy eating for example, the students can use a blog to post recipes, enhancing their abilities to write procedures. For older classes it could extend to exercise, diet, health etc. Blogs encourage student's to not only write but to read. An authentic task such as the step by step story, one which they have total control of, they choose the scenario for that day and each day they must read the prior postings. The students are in control of the story, they are making the decisions, generating new ideas. They are creating, they are involved in a higher order thinking skill according to Bloom's Taxonomy (Pohl, 2000). Students' are intrinsically motivated to learn due to the meaningful nature of the learning environment and activities. The Engagement Theory (1999) focuses on self directed and experimental learning, it represents a new paradigm for learning and teaching in the information age.

Quizzes

I recently gave a lesson on note taking. The students were in groups and had to write key points from a particular text about satellites. They shared their points with others during a doughnut activity (previously explained). The groups could now create quizzes through class marker for other groups and in turn they would all become familiar with each others text.

Additionally students could create a quiz on math algorithms and extend their knowledge to write more advanced mathematical problem solving questions. English is another key learning area where students can create a quiz for their class peers. Extending functional grammar skills to make choices and identify circumstances, process, pronouns, adverbs etc. A grade 5 class could create a quiz for a lower grade, providing them with an outside focus providing them with a sense of achievement and satisfaction. The Engagement Theory (1999) is based upon the idea of creating successful collaborate teams that work on ambitious projects that are meaningful to someone outside the classroom (Kearsley & Shneiderman).
Creativity is one of the higher order thinking skills in Blooms Taxonomy in which we generate new ideas, products or ways of viewing things(Pohl, 2000). We should be seizing every opportunity and utilising technology to provide and instigate higher order thinking skills in our students.

Digital Story Telling

Why digital story telling?.....Because we teach digital student's.
Creating a digital story enhances writing, speaking,visual, technical and personal development skills(Dyck, 2005). The list is endless as to what you could use digital sorties for and for all ages. A true story such as "Amy's Choice" presents a powerful message to teenagers about the dangers of chat rooms. "Story of Friend's" is aimed at the lower grades and teaches the value of accepting others and treating friends nicely through a puppet show.
Other ideas include poetry, narratives, history, fiction, environmental issues etc. In a grade 5 class I would like to utilise this technology to build on their creative writing skills. The task would to collaboratively work in groups to re-create a famous nursery rhyme. The characters would be the same but they would have to produce an original ending. The students would use, video, images, text, music and narration to re-tell their nursery rhymes. The presentations could then be shared with the class. This style of learning is providing them the structure to work with peers, this increases the motivation of students to learn and provide them with the skills a modern workplace demands such as planning, management and social skills (Kearsley & ,Shneiderman, 1999). I provided the topic but they have the creativity to take control of their own learning and engage in a meaningful way to produce a project. In addition to sharing the digital photo stories with the class they can also be made available in the library to show younger grades. This outside focus stresses the value of making a useful contribution for others, the sharing of an authentic project increases student motivation and satisfaction(Kearsley & ,Shneiderman, 1999).

Power Point Buttons.

http://www.mediafire.com/?ozddmmzidmh

Just when you think you know all there is to know on PowerPoint..... along comes buttons. I created a quiz and saved it to my media fire and walla here it is embedded in my blog. It's a fantastic way to create a quiz through PowerPoint. I did however find it quiet time consuming but once you got going and knew your exact questions I can see it being a valuable resource, more so if teachers shared their quizzes, collaboratively we could end up with a valuable bank of resources.

Slide Share

| Get your Presentation Pack

I successfully embedded my slideshow and to my total amazement I even uploaded a mp3 file to synchronise with particular slides to create a slide cast. I am impressed (with myself) and the program. I can share my presentations, I can find and download my favourites. It opens up a network in which the teaching profession can utilise to expand their resources.

Voice Thread

I uploaded several photos of the internationally famous people who have had an effect on social change in the past. Hitler, Nelson Mandela, Bin Laden, Martin Luther King and Barack Obama. The task is for students of a high school age to make collaboratively comment on each image. Did they have a positive or negative impact on society and explain your comment, why do you think the way you do. This form of learning instigates higher order and creative thinking according to Bloom's taxonomy. Student's are involved in the processes of creating, analysing and evaluating(Pohl, 2000). It is a way of having conversations around media, in this case it is images but you could also use it for videos, documents, and presentations. The collaboration of this can far extend the classroom. Student's from around the world Can make comments via telephone, web cam or text. Younger children could also comment on images relevant to their age. For example if a teacher wanted to teach acceptance, behaviour and the way children should treat one another an image could portray a socially or culturally diverse scenario and students can comment using the microphone if they are too young to type and spell or it could be a mixture of both. Children could collaboratively choose a range of their own images and together they could comment on images as a group process. The images could then be shared through the cyber world to other classes or even schools.

When students work in teams they often have the opportunity to work with others from dirretent social and cultural backgrounds and according to Kearsley and Schneiderman (1999) Engagement Theory this facilitates an understanding of diversity and multiple perspectives. A lesson regarding social change places an emphasis on providing an authentic setting for learning. Social change is something we can all be aware of, the digital natives (Pensky, 2001)can benefit in being exposed to world history which has significantly changed our world as we know it today.