After the Snow Days

Wednesday the students submitted the first three surveys: Digital Literacy, Composition, and Research Skills.  This will give a baseline for their comfort levels regarding technology, writing and typing skills, and prior research knowledge.

After taking the surveys, I realized two of the three did not have names for pre- and post semester data comparisons. Since the students would have to take two of the surveys again, Composition and Research Skills, the snow days provided an excellent opportunity to revisit and correct the details I missed from the start. The Research Skills questions were changed to get short, one or two word answers, and the Composition survey answer scale was reversed to make sense [least to greater, instead of greater to least - a course of student negative comments the first time]. 

We are still using the old technology of plug-in laptops that lock up frequently, repeatedly causing frustrations with the students. Links cannot be seen in their class Site and the connection drops without warning. I am still unsure when the new equipment will arrive, and whether I should to go back to the paper format. The grant was given to me for 10 Chrome Books at a December 20th faculty meeting. MMmmmm.

Looking Toward The First Day

The First Day will be spent with introductions, gathering permission letters, laying out a brief outline of the three purposes of research we will cover over the semester, getting the students logged into the Google system, and finding the class Google website to take the three initial surveys.

The goals initially:

get their passwords settled
learn how to log off when done and how to NOT have Chrome 'Remember Me'
locate the class's Google Site
take the preliminary surveys

Preparing for The Study

What began as a casual comment and connection made as an graduate class assignment has become a full-blown study examining the use of digital technology in the classroom. Initially, I was considering how my research classes would react to the use of the free web-based research tools. However, the concept grew to include a remote teaching tool for a student taking her Spanish class through my research class, and for differentiation tool for two US History students (to take my research class, they have to be rescheduled into a class of 6 learning disabled students -- a move not usually considered for gifted thinkers).

The goal is to see how learning and differentiation is affected with the use of digital tools.

To date:

Surveys have been built to assess pre-course digital literacy, composition/typing skills, and research skills. A fourth survey will be completed when the students have built their blogs (which become their learning process journals and collaborative tools). The first three assessments will be given again at the end of the semester for comparison, along with a opinion poll about the overall experience.

The group of students spread between two middle schools. All students will have access to each other's blogs, and will be able to collaborative with each other between schools. There are 18 students: 5 eight graders, 13 seventh graders; 12 boys, 6 girls; 8 have taken this research elective previously, 10 are new students (4 have taken this research elective twice before); this will involve working with two teachers who have not worked with free web-based products before.

The course's Google site was built (see below) to include updated versions of the handouts usually provided, plus the first day surveys. YouTube tutorial videos have been included throughout the pages to illustrate the concepts, along with links to direct students attention as needed for special information about the researching process. Quizzes will be available as the students move through the packet/pages of information.

This is the home page of the class Google Site -- it shows the navigation plan to access information.