We are attending a fabulous course, called Surviving and Thriving, taught by Leah Treesh at the American School in London’s Learning Institute. The course is designed to guide us in incorporating technology into our curriculum with the premise of: Technology is the Tool and Learning is the Goal.
Leah gave us a wonderful resource called the SAMR Model. There are 4 levels to the model (with the top one being the ultimate goal for integrating technology). This gives a good description of each level and why we want to move toward redefinition.
- Redefinition
- Modification
- Augmentation
- Substitution
Here are a couple of links to blogs that discuss the SAMR model:
I was so proud of my 2nd graders today in the computer lab!! The students have started working on a Heritage Project that they create for Grandparents’ Day. The families collect photos of grandparents, great grandparents, etc. and these are uploaded into PhotoStory 3. Students record their narration then it’s made into a windows media video. Today, the kids created their title and closing slides in PowerPoint. Normally I save the slides as JPEGs so they can be uploaded to PhotoStory but I decided to let the students do this today. Every single child was able to do the saving as JPEGs!! I told them that many adults haven’t ever done that. They were thrilled with themselves! This lets me know that, even though something might be hard, it’s worth letting the kids give it a try.
One of the best sites I’ve found for helping students learn their way around the web is the Welcome to the Web webquest. Mark Warner, a primary teacher in Kent, U.K. created the webquest to help students explore the following areas:
- Getting Started Online
- Staying Safe
- Using Your Browser
- Searching Online
- Trying Top Tricks
As students work through each section, they answer questions that help them understand various aspects of the world wide web. Secret codes are gathered to be used in the Challenge, where students problem-solve to determine who is trying to unleash a computer virus.
This is the third year that I’ve used this with 4th graders and they love it! Students have asked to stay in from recess so that they can work on the webquest!
Mark Warner also maintains a site called Teaching Ideas. It contains a wealth of information!
