I like the idea of having students work as a team on a project. I know the book wasn't talking about third graders doing this, but I think to have the students do a wiki would be great. I think this would be a good step for younger students to get an idea of how to work together and how to build something through technology. I think this would especially be helpful if it was then presented to the class and everyone learned from the presentations. I've never had students do a project together on the computer. I have only had them do independent work on the computer so showing them how to collaborate through using technology would be a good step for me to take with my students.
The book talks about making a prototype. I feel like I do this all the time with my students. They often need an example of what I want. It would be great to have a format of what I want for students to do on the computer and teach them how to edit this and make it their own. For example, typing our essays is a big deal. When we start this I have to teach them a few basics of typing, but if I had a prototype made they would be able to edit this so that everything looked right. For example, I would have a place for a title and then they would edit this. Next, they would have a place formatted for the essay and they just have to change the words and font. Some students want to leave ten spaces between sentences while others leave nothing. A prototype would help with all the little aspects. I think this would be very helpful because I usually have to go back through each one with them to do this, which takes a lot of time. The prototype would save me a lot of time, and the students.
I like how you have incorporated this into your own lesson and working with your students. Great idea to set up portotype for them to work with on papers. I also like the idea of having them work in groups so they are more likely to feel confortable doing this in the the future.
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I posted my question in D/B9 about how you planned to use wikis before reading this post. That's great if you can teach your students cooperation skills through working on a wiki together. Would you let them edit each others' pages or would you only have them editing their own pages? I also like your application of prototypes to teaching; I had not thought of it in that context.
ReplyDeleteI think using technology (even wikis) with younger students is a wonderful idea. I think (as is often) you/we will be surprised at how well the young students do with technology. The wiki would be a great tool to use to teach these young students good technology skills and even technology/social networking skills. I believe that young students need to be exposed to technology tools as well and a wiki is a great starting point because it can remain simple.
ReplyDeleteMy oldest nephew is 9 and it is just amazing what he knows and can do with a computer. I am so impressed with him. So I would be all for your third graders doing something like that. I think if we raise the bar for students they will find a way to jump over it if we do our jobs correctly. I really like the idea and I also think that its a really helpful skill for them to have early on since so much of their world is web based and its only getting larger. I also think your template idea is a really good one. Have you ever looked at a program called Inspiration? I cannot remember who makes it, but basically it turns a students concept make into a paper outline. Its a little pricy but a neat idea.
ReplyDeleteI like that you would be showing the students at an early age how to work together on the computer. The older students work together a lot on the computer via facebook and other social networks but most don't think of it as anything but a social network. We need to work on that attitude and starting them young will help.
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