Suzie Boss’ article, "New York Children Take a Google Lit Trip" discusses an event where a teacher was able to successfully incorporate a new technology and a literature study in such a way as to make the book come alive.  As a library media specialist, Anne Brusca was able to utilize her knowledge of google maps in order to add to a 5th grade teacher's desire to create a project where students could actually visualize and relate to the journey that the characters in their books had taken.  In this project, students explored pre-set "placemarks" using google maps, to see where events in their book had unfolded.  
This article spoke to me as I used google maps on my smart board last week.  My students are studying geography and early American history at this moment.  Using google maps, I was able to take their direction and locate different historical points of interest.  In this way, my students were able to connect to the information they were learning, while using a visual stimulus, and participating in their learning.  It also promoted a strong connection to the world around them.
However, I was wondering how I would be able to include this technology in a formal project, or on more of an individual basis, as opposed to a support at the end of a lesson.  This article showed one successful way to incorporate technology into the classroom as a whole.  Using google maps in a literature project provides a structure for students to explore their learning on their own.  It was very exciting to read about this usage. 

cellphones in learning

In Liz Kolb’s podcast on the use of cellphones in learning, she and her colleague Jeff interview two student teachers about their use of cellphones for school projects. I was particularly interested in student teacher Rena Franco’s response to the question of why using cellphones was effective. She gave several reasons, but the one she repeated more than once was that she wanted to get away from teacher-centered direct instruction, which she knew wasn’t working, and have students think actively outside themselves and take a perspective. She thought that using a technology that was so important to them outside school was powerful, and so was using it for a purpose so different from what they’re used to. Rena felt that as a result her students focused more on content. (I’m not sure that was so true of the other student teacher, who was a fan of using cellphones but said she had erred by selling cellphone use as quick and cool instead of different, and had gotten many unrehearsed and blabby answers.)

Both Rena and the other student teacher Liz interviewed teach at the high school level, and at that level I would be inclined to permit recording using cellphones. At the fourth and fifth grade level, which is where I work, I would be more concerned about questions of equity. Most of my students don’t have cellphones, and there are other options for recording, including the school-issued laptops.

Because of those concerns, my main takeaway was less about the ability to use cellphones in learning—though that’s an intriguing prospect that is likely to make its way down to fourth and fifth grade during this decade—and more about the need to engage students through a variety of means, including audio. This podcast provided more anecdotal evidence of the importance of the multiple means of engagement that are one of the focal points of UDL.

Google Lit Trip and Cell Phones in the Classroom

As discussed in Suzie Boss’ article, New York Children Take a Google Lit Trip, I think that is a really interesting and different approach to catch the student’s attention. Before this article I had never heard of this before, which is why I was interesting in finding out more about exactly what it is. I went to the website, www.googlelittrips.com/GoogleLit/K-5/K-5.html. The website explains how it is a free way to “3-dimensionalize” the reading experience by placing readers “inside the story” traveling alongside the characters”. It states how since it differs from websites such as sparknotes that summarize books and information, it “stimulate(s) higher level thinking skills and to connect the story’s themes and messages to the issues of the real world in which students live”. This seems to be an amazing way to keep the children interested in a topic and, as explained, to get them to think more in depth about the content and relate to other events.

After listening to the podcast, cell phones in learning, I am still not convinced about this concept. I definitely do appreciate and understand the idea that it will keep the student’s attention and make them want to participate more than if they weren’t used, although I still feel that it is not necessarily appropriate to encourage the use of cell phones in classrooms. As I have stated in my technology memoir and many times throughout this class, the use of technology nowadays has become such an obsession and I feel that if we as educators promote this usage, there will be too small of a portion of the day where the child is not using technology. I feel that the best approach in the classroom is still the traditional approach and not promoting the continuous use of technology.

Melissa Jurist

Technology Based Field Trips: Google Lit Trips

I really enjoyed reading the article that spoke about using Google Lit Trips to allow children to take a virtual field trip during their literature study of the Orphan Train. Google Lit Trips seems like a really great tool in that it allowed the students in this article to almost literally travel along the same path as the Orphan Train. This seems to be a very powerful and useful tool, as it can simulate the experience of travelling to a place, enabling students to engage in true experiential learning and gain a deeper knowledge of the places they read about in literature.

One of the benefits of having a technology-based field trip, as opposed to a regular field trip is that in using technology students have the option of exploring places, like Europe or Africa, which they may not be able to physically travel to. In addition, based on my own experience it seems that children are so enthralled with technology that integrating in any type of educational media makes learning more engaging students. Since students retain more information when they enjoy what they learn, using technology tools in the classroom, like Google Lit Trips, will help to create memorable experiences for students.

I myself had the opportunity to experience the advantages of Google Earth earlier today when I was travelling to somewhere I had never been before. In using Google Earth I was able to get a detailed view of the route I would be taking, allowing me to become more knowledgeable in the geography of this area and feel more comfortable travelling to there. Reading this article makes me feel intrigued about the exciting possibilities that this technology holds for the classroom. I am looking forward to learning more about tools, like Google Lit Trips, and integrating it into my instruction.

Going Outside of the Classroom

I just realized I posted new week's blog by mistake! I guess that's what happens when you try to get ahead! Here's this week's...

I am extremely impressed with the Google Lit Trips that Brusca designed for her students. She implemented UDL in that she include multiple means of presentation and expression, from the questions students had to answer, to the newspaper that had to design and write. However, there was one essential part to the field trip that happened spontaneously that I think should be examined more closely. When her students decided to develop a school-wide project for the soup kitchen she said, "I had thought of the questions I posed as rhetorical in nature. I didn't expect they would go the extra mile." Unfortunately, I think most teachers, including myself more often than not, don’t expect their students to go the extra mile.

Especially with the opportunities being offered to students with programs like Google Lit Trip, we should not only expect our students to become socially responsible, but urge them to. If social action projects became a main tenant of a lesson and even were used as a form of assessment, students would become some much more engaged in their larger community, and this is much more feasible with technology. Our students enjoy interacting with new people, getting better a certain skills and exploring new worlds. If we knew how to motivate them and provided them with the right skills set and tools, we could create many more interdisciplinary, motivating projects that require higher levels of thinking and problem solving skills for outside of the classroom.

Google Lit Trip

I was really impressed by the small article by Edutopia's Suzie Boss, “New York Children Take a Google Lit Trip”. I have always been encouraged to work together with other teachers so that the content can be delivered to the students in a cohesive manner. Ms. Brusca demonstrated this by conferring with her fellow teacher regarding the literature they would be studying next. Upon hearing about the Google Lit Trip, a website that combines Google Earth and literature study in an interactive way for students, she could have just used any book to “test” it with. By combining forces, she was able to transform the book into an inspirational instrument that moved the children to become involved with a soup kitchen in Long Island. What I appreciate about websites like Google Lit Trip is the ability to make a place that is halfway around the world seems as if it was just next door. When I have my own class, one of my goals is to make my students aware that there is a huge world out there and that they are a part of a global community which they may not see or feel connected to. . Technology allows for many children and adults to see the suffering of others who live far away and make it real for them so that they are moved to take action. My job will be to instill responsibility for helping those that are less fortunate, helping the earth and teaching them to find out what is going on around the world via the internet, newspapers and books. I see technology as my partner in accomplishing this goal.

Digital Divide Redefined

I had always thought of the “digital divide” as being an issue of socioeconomics, until I read the whitepaper published by the MacArthur Foundation. They introduce the digital divide as being a disconnect between ways of learning and interaction outside the classroom versus inside the classroom. At this point, there is no doubt that the prevalence in technology is affecting the way our children learn, yet great strides have not been made in the classroom to bridge the gap or accommodate our new learners. Not only must we use technology to present content, we should start to consider what content we are presenting, not only how we are presenting it.

The MacArthur Foundation asks us, “Rather than assuming that education is primarily about preparing for jobs and careers, what would it mean to think of it as a process guiding youths’ participation in public life more generally?” As educators, I believe that we have a responsibility to take care of and develop the whole being of our students, not just what takes part in the classroom. If we are to keep our students engaged and the content relevant, we must be willing to take on technology and all of the developmental implications that come with it. This is a wonderful opportunity to create responsible media literate students who have more opportunities for change and success than any previous generation. If we move our goal as educators away from jobs and careers, our students may be more willing to use technology for more, out of the box, socially responsible ways.