Why a One-to-One Environment

A question posted on the discussion board of the 1:1 classroom wiki asked the students what information was important to share with their parents at a parent meeting we will be having on Wednesday, September 29th.  Some of the comments from the students suggested we tell the parents about the classroom Wiki, or that we tell them how the net-books are used in the classroom.  However the comment that caught my attention the most was how students wanted us to tell their parents that they are still using paper and pencil because their parents are afraid that student writing skills will be lost.  This is a fathomable concern so I believe it is important for us to find research to help us answer "why a one-to-one computer environment".

 In an article titled, Going One-to-One (Warschauer, 2006), five reasons are provided for starting a one-to-one laptop program.

1.  21st century learning skills.  It is explained that this is one of the most important reasons for a 1:1 environment and that it facilitates the kinds of learning, thinking and analysis required for the 21st century.
2. Greater engagement through mulitmedia.  Multi-media is everywhere and a huge part of our students' everyday lives.  Multi-media authentically incorporated into a classroom environment allows for higher levels of student engagement.  Students envolved in 1:1 computing environments are identified as producing and interpreting multimodal content.
3. More and better writing.  Students in 1:1 computing environments write much more than traditional environments.  Revisions to their writing is easier and therefore done more often.  Documents are more accessible to teachers to provide feedback to students.  
4. Deeper Learning.  Students are provided multiple ways to access material and complete activities leading to further and deeper learning.  Many 1:1 schools report increased emphasis on in-depth student research.
5. Easier integration of technology into instruction.  Teachers are excited for the way 1:1 environments helped them authentically integrate technology into instruction.  Students in 1:1 environments gain a higher degree of technology skills allowing teachers to focus on content and less on technical aspects.

 Another 1:1 computing research study looked at is titled, Laptops and Fourth-Grade Literacy: Assisting the Jump over the Fourth-Grade Slump by Suhr, Hernandez, Grimes, & Warschauer (2010).  It identified that the "purpose of this research study is to investigate the effects of a technology-intensive intervention- based upon individual student use of laptop computers - on students' academic achievement in language arts over a two year period" (Suhr, Hernandez, Grimes, & Warschauer, 2010).  As a result of a slump in reading at the fourth grade a concurrent slump in writing occurs.  This slump is a result of the transition from 'learning to read to reading to learn' (Chall et al., 1990).  It is described that in this transition children enter the "world of knowledge" in printed form and can only gain access to "knowledge" if they are able to read texts which contain the knowledge (Chall et al., 1990). 

The research paper identifies, it is believed that technology can be used to:

• expose students to a wide range of academic language
• provide scaffolding so that students can comprehend challenging and interesting texts
• engage students in text-based simulations that spark their interests and motivate their learning
• provide a wide range of tools for analyzing texts
• brain-storming their ideas
• orgainzing their thoughts
• writing
• peer editing
• publishing their work

The study concludes that a broad consensus in published research identifies one-to-one computer environments as being highly favorable for students' literacy development.

One-to-one computing programs only as effective as their teachers

Found this article on eSchool News.  You will have to create an account to read the entire article but it is free to sign up.

One-to-one computing programs only as effective as their teachers

From the desk of the Principal :)

I have had the chance to pop in and out of this classroom and I am very excited about what I am seeing and hearing...not only from the members involved, but the students as well.

I am in a very unique position in that not only am I the administrator at the school, but also a parent of a student in this classroom. As a result, I get the perspective from that of a parent, and an educator. This is very exciting and insightful in many ways.

As an administrator, I am excited to share some of my observations.....first off, it is clearly evident and re-affirming that the key to any classroom is in the instruction. Bev is so thoroughly planned, prepared, has set the ground rules of a safe, caring and respectful classroom, and is now merely using a tool - the technology - to meet the needs of the curriculum and the students. The old saying of building it and they will come is not the case in the classroom.....the students will be there, but whether or not their learning is authentic or not is another story. Bev has ensured that her students are getting a top notch education through her dedicated work ethic and has not just taken the role that we have netbooks so the kids will learn technology!

During one of my visits, many things popped out at me...first off, I had to count again to make sure that my numbers were correct. Yes, all 27 of the students where there....but there was no fooling around, no off task behavior, no going to sites that were not allowed, etc. Rather, there were 27 engaged students, and two in particular stood out to me as this was not common for them. I soon caught on that the teacher had incorporated DI strategies such as anchoring activities right off of her wiki . What a great way to ensure maximum use of instructional time!

Bev has organized her daily planner, has students blogging on real life questions that have them thinking at a deeper level and much, much more. It is funny when my blackberry starts buzzing at 8pm and I see there are new posts from students blogging about items such as grammar, how to prepare for sub teachers and so on! These kids are hooked!

As a parent, my child came home at the start of the year and was very excited about this opportunity. She was also very excited about her new teacher and told her grandma in early July that she was ready to go back to school because Mrs. Kezema was her teacher. So to say the least, the child enjoys school, but this opportunity increased her desire even more. She has her own netbook at home and has shown that she is fairly literate for her age, but I have seen her level grow, but interestingly in a more creative way. I see her moving from games in the evening to communicating via the blogs, adding to a homework assignment, using the apps such as collage makers that they are using in class so that she is more prepared on how to use it, etc. This is really neat and in my mind a great way to occupy her mind as the thinking part is much deeper than it is on facebook, petroptica and so on!

I can see that my daughter and the other students have moved from the excitement of hey we have laptops yahoo!!! to a level in which they do not even realize that they are in a different learning environment than other classrooms. They now see the netbooks as a way of learning, a mere tool to help them in their work. The netbook is no longer a toy/fad/etc, but rather a tool that allows them to do their job as a student. A tool that has engaged students that previously were not engaged. A tool that is available to us, but has not been utilized authentically as it was intended to be!

It has also been amazing to see the collegial work that has been taking place between Bev and Sharon, in addition to Bev, Kirk, Sharon and Rob. The network is strong as is the planning and roll out of all pieces. I can see that we are building capacity in Bev with DI and technology. With Sharon in regards to technology. Both of these areas will greatly benefit our teachers as they will ehance their strong instructional leadership skills within the school! I can see that Kirk and Rob are also building capacity in what they see and believe in terms of digital learning and they have the ability to network this as leaders throughout the division. I truly believe that this project will provide us with a future of capacity to grow our division's teachers with the true benefit going to our students!

In closing, I must also admit how amazed I am with our infrastructure. I cannot believe that things are running so well from an IT perspective! We are basically glitch free!

Until next time.
Randy

Observations

I have been lucky enough to spend more time in Bev's classroom this week and have noticed a change in student comfortableness with what is going on. The netbooks now appear to be nothing more than a learning tool similar to that of the pencil, notebook or textbook. Sure there are still a few students who like to spend time changing their screen saver and sharing that with their neighbour, but are there not similar distractions in every classroom? The students are asking fewer questions regarding how to use an application than they were even a week ago. Many have found new ways of applying the applications when completing assignments. For example, there is one student who really needs to listen to a lesson's instructions a few times versus reading them. (Good example of DI btw) He also needs to verbalize his answers before writing them down. He had previously used Sound Recorder for an assignment and chose to use it on his own to record his ideas before trying to write them down.

I thought that was interesting.

Arranging For Our First Substitute Teacher

I wanted to capture this observation relating to student's reaction to a substitute teacher in the classroom.  As the classroom teacher prepares to go to a two day conference, it is mentioned to the students that maybe they should put the net-books away for a couple of days while the substitute teacher is in the room.  Students quickly expressed their displeasure with putting the net-books away for a couple of days.  One student commented, "We will help the teacher" in respect to assisting the substitute teacher with understanding the net-books.  One other interesting observation I have in regards to the substitute teacher is a question in which the classroom teacher posted in the daily discussion,

I am going to a conference Thursday and Friday and I am writing up a plan for Mr. DelScheider, your substitute teacher. I am wondering if you have some ideas of things I should tell him about our class that will help everyone have a good two days. What does a substitute teacher need to know to come into our digital classroom? I can't wait to hear your ideas!!

 Through my quick analysis...the number one response by students was to let him know that they use net-books and the second was that they could teach him about the net-books.  To view the entire discussion click here.

Occupational Therapist

Today, Evelyn So, Occupational Therapist for NESD, visited Bev's classroom and gave presentation to the class. Her presentation involved proper posture while sitting and working at their tables and exercises we all should do to prevent work related injuries. She noted that the design of netbooks and laptops are condusive to our bodies, so it is important the we pay attention to our posture while using them.

It will be interesting to see if the students heed her advice and improve their posture while sitting at a desk and working with the netbooks. More to follow.

Application for Creating Collages

I have been provided the task of finding an application that can be used on the classroom net-books for creating collages.  I am looking for both an app that can be downloaded and loaded onto the net-books and a web-based app.  The app loaded onto the net-books will ease bandwidth usage, however the web-based app will allow the students to access and work on their collage from other locations than the school.

The first collage application we are testing is called Shape Collage 2.5.2.  Reviews of Shape Collage identify it as easy use and provides professional results (CNET, 2010).  Downloading this app should (and was) be quick as it is only 533.42 K.  This app is free to try however a watermark is placed on the collage.  To remove the watermark it costs $25.00 to purchase.  The watermark placed on the collage is very small (as shown in the example below). 

To learn more about Shape Collage...view the following video.





The second collage application we are testing is Photovisi.  This is a web-based tool, allowing the creation of online collages.  A wonderful review of this application was done by the Zath UK Tech Blog...click here to read the review.  The following collage is a collage I created and downloaded using Photovisi.

Project Data Collection

We had a visit to the 1:1 computing classroom at Maude Burke by Mrs. Pipke-Painchaud.  Her group of grade 12's from TMSS are going to be working on a collaborative project with the grade 5 group from Maude Burke.  I am sure there will be blogs regarding this collaboration in the near future.

We had the opportunity to chat and it lead us to discussing data collection.  We discussed the importance of baseline data for the project relating to some of the following items:

• how baseline data can be captured for project research questions.
• possibility of using Wufoo for online surveys
• collect data on 1:1 computing classroom evolution through video, pictures and text.  This can be done at the beginning, middle and end of year.
• possibly setting up Google Analytics to data on classroom Wikis, blogs and LMS (Moodle)
• provide survey to parents at beginning parent meeting.  Then possibly survey parents at the middle and end of year.
• provide survey to students at beginning, middle and end of year.

 As I dig a little deeper into the data collection for this project two items have emerged.  First our target population will include a). Maude Burke grade 5 students b). Maude Burke grade 5 classroom teacher c). Maude Burke grade 5 parents and possibly d). Maude Burke DI Facilitator. 

Second, I believe we will use both quantitative and qualitative research methods (mixed methods approach) to collect data for the project.  Quantitative data, consisting of mostly numerical data (Neill, 2007), will be collected through the analysis of surveys and questionnaires completed by the target population.  Qualitative data, consisting of non numerical information (Trochim, 2006), will be captured through in-depth interviews, direct observation and written documents (blogs, wikis).

I invite any additional thoughts relating to data collection.  A post I will be creating in the near future will deal with direct survey questions and other data collection related to the project goals and questions.

Resources for this post:

•  Neill, J. (2007).  Qualitative versus Quantitative Research: Key Points in a Classic Debate.  Retrieved September 10, 2010 from: http://wilderdom.com/research/QualitativeVersusQuantitativeResearch.html
• Trochim, W. (2006).  Qualitative Data.  Research Methods Knowledge Base.  Retrieved September 10, 2010, from: http://www.socialresearchmethods.net/kb/qualdata.php

Is there a place for informal "text" language in the classroom?

In this post I would like to expand on how writing activities in the 1:1 classroom, digital learning environment (DLE) are helping us consider the value of informal language in the form of "text language".

Texting refers to the use of abbreviations and other techniques to craft SMS and instant messages. Texting does not always follow the standard rules of English grammar, nor usual word spellings. It is so pervasive that some regard it as an emergent language register in it's own right. This is largely due to the proliferation of mobile phones as well as internet-based instant
messaging (IM) (Vosloo, 2009).

To date, texting has provoked a negative response from teachers, parents and language experts.  Teachers and parents have blamed texting for the corruption of language and the degradation in spelling in youth writing (Vosloo, 2009).  Despite the view that texting is responsible for linguistic deterioration, there is research recognizing the positive side of texting to provide, phonetic abbreviation, phonological and orthographic awareness (Plester, Wood & Joshi, 2009), abbreviation usage (Leake, 2008), economic, inventive and playful writing (Crystal, 2008) and experimental letter-sound correspondence (Wood, Plester & Bowyer, 2008).

The event which led us to want to better understand informal language in the classroom involves an online discussion area where students provide responses to a teacher initiated question.  The online discussion area appeared to spark one particular student to write.  I was told by the DI facilitator and classroom teacher that, in the past, using traditional writing methods, this student would not write more than one sentence.  In one experience I walked into the classroom where the student was calling me over to their table, wanting me to see what was on his/her netbook.  The student expressed to me that he/she wrote seven sentences in response to the teacher's question posted on the discussion area of the classroom wiki.  The student then enthusiastically expressed to me that they have never written this much in the past.  As I stood looking at what the student wrote, the student asked how to spell a specific word.  After I told the student the correct spelling of the word, the student fixed the misspelled word in his/her post.  After sharing my experience with both the classroom teacher and DI facilitator, they told me that they have both experienced this student asking them how to spell specific words when writing a discussion post in the classroom wiki.

This experience has raised some questions for the project team including:

1. What has sparked this student to write more than previous times?  Could it be related to netbooks vs. paper or typing vs. handwriting? 
2. What is the online environment providing which encourages the student to write?  Could it be related to comfort level, expectations, ability for students to write in a more informal (texting) language vs. more traditional formal writing?

At this point we do not have the answers to our questions but are excited to continue with the project to see if answers can be found.