Pondering Educational Research

Pondering Educational Research
by
Trish Carlson
CEP 822
August 17, 2010

Those of us in education are inundated with research. Everyone is looking for that elusive magic pill that will cure all that ails us. But should we consider all research to be equal? Of course not! So then what should we consider when it comes to deciding if it is “good” research or not? How do you justify a great new piece of information that you just found to others? Well, I certainly do not have all of the answers to that million dollar question, but let me share with you a few things to consider when looking at research, as well as a bit of what I have learned through my latest master level class, Approaches to Educational Research, through MSU in Michigan.
• Good research isn’t just about methodology, but rather it’s about what’s important, and this CAN and SHOULD change.
• Educational research is both historically and nationally contextual—meaning who the “clients” are is not static nor do answers hold forever.
• Good educational research is not philosophical, but empirical, or based on observations.
• Research can and often does involve money. Consider who is collecting the money and ask yourself why? Are the results being over-sold or even under-sold?
• What is the researchers track record? In what areas do they have expertise? Did they get their hands dirty with the research itself, or did they sit back and simply observe?
• How often is the word “all” or “always” or “never” written into the narrations? How often should anyone use those words?
Obviously people will always disagree about what good educational research is, which is why bad research will always be out there and readily available, and why good research will look all the better to you once you are able to make a distinction between the two. However, even with bad research, there is likely still something to be learned, even if it’s a matter of knowing and deciding which researchers it is that you need to steer clear from the next time you are looking for quality reading material. Simply put, just don’t swallow that “pill” just because it might have the word “research” tagged in it without careful consideration, you could choke.

Developer Notebook CEP 820

http://www.divshare.com/direct/12291403-dad.doc

Action Research Project-CEP 822

Click the above link to read my Action Research Project for Unit 1.

Telling Time; A DIgital Story On An Analog Clock (CEP 800)

CEP 800 Podcast (An Interview With First Graders About Coins)

Podcast Development (CEP 800)

For my podcast project, I would like to interview students from my first grade classroom about their knowledge of coins and their values as well as how coins and combinations of coins can be "traded" for other coins of equal values. I would like to interview both boys and girls but realize with school coming to an end next week, that I need to get this done ASAP! Having taught first grade for numerous years, there are some confusions that I anticipate that my students may have. These could include...

• confusion about coin values
• confusion with coin recognition
• confusion with what "trading" coins might mean

My interviews will take place on Tuesday so that if an extra day is needed, or errors occur, there is time to get them corrected. I will look into the possibility of having someone cover my class, so that I may take the students I am going to interview to a quieter location where less distractions would occur.

Learning from 812 and Future Goals

Over the course of the past eight weeks, I once again have learned about, implemented, and added some new technologies into my teaching and learning toolbelt. I learned how to use and implement Garage band to create my first ever podcast and learned through trial and error, and then ultimately through a YouTube video, how to get that podcast to affix itself onto my blog. This was mostly due to the fact that the tutorials that were provided, did not seem to relate to my system platform or software programs that I was using and a sure sign that when creating a product with technology, the ways in which the same product can be produced or made is ultimately endless in nature simply due to the amount of software, information, and opportunities that are out there!

The end result of my group's SIG project, a website entitled Teachers and Tech Games, that focused on online learning games within four subject areas (Reading, Social Studies, Math, and Science) was a very useful and worthwhile project for me as this is a site that I will be able to share with others and access often. The overall look and design of this website is something to be proud of as well as it's ease in navigation for even a younger student who may need to access this site for an online learning game. It is my hope that many of these links remain active for a long time to come, as there are some fantastic sites that were found and annotated within this SIG project that ultimately became my favorite project within the 812 course.

Having now earned a "Certificate in Educational Technology" my learning has not stopped. I am going to continue on through this program until I have earned what will be my second master's degree, but my first one in educational technology. I will continue to find ways to solve real and relevant issues within my school, my teaching, and with my fellow colleagues through the use of technology as I continue to be a "cheerleader" for technology integration in my district, my school, and for my students who want and deserve a 21st century way of teaching and learning.

Project Evaluation

Given what I have learned through the process of my TechQuest, there are a couple of things that I would do differently. First of all, the timing of this project, although for the most part out of my control, was perhaps a large contributor to the fact that I had to go with a Plan B for my project implementation. This is because the overall project dealt with training teachers how to use a SMARTBoard, and because the end of the year is such a busy and hectic one for teachers who are beginning to wrap up a school year and are bogged down with meetings, testing, grades, and an overall feeling of needing to move from a sprint into an all-out run to the end of the year finish line, this is in general what caused me to run into a problem with getting teachers scheduled for the lesson that I had planned to do with them. And although I was concerned about what this would do to my ability to follow through with my TechQuest, ultimately my Plan B helped to make this TechQuest more powerful and stronger in it's delivery and overall success. This validated what I have always known and believed in as a teacher, which is "remain flexible" and I am thankful for the fact that I am able to keep a positive outlook on things even though they may not look how I had planned them to. And even though this project ended up working out to be very successful, I would still try to keep a close eye on the timing of a project such as this one especially with one that deals with gathering together a group of very busy teachers.

In the future, and as the Technology Facilitator in my building, opportunities such as this one will likely present themselves again. Knowing that, I will take a lot of learning from this TechQuest with me and will use what I have learned to choose, implement, and create topics that are engaging and relevant to the needs of my teachers in my building as well as to the students to whom those teachers are responsible for. This leads me to the second thing that I would change or consider for future projects like this. This time, this TechQuest topic was chosen because I felt there was a genuine need to get teachers some training on the use of SMARTBoards within my building, however, in the future, allowing teachers an opportunity to voice an opinion towards what they feel they are needing or lacking training or support in, would allow for an authentic interest in helping themselves and their students to learn 21st century ways of teaching and learning.

Podcast of TechQuest Implementation

Internet Research for TechQuest

Results and New Learning
With just a few short key strokes and a click of a mouse, there usually is no shortage with the amount of results on an Internet search, and this was without a doubt what happened to me with looking for research and information on using SMARTBoards in the classroom as a way to improve student performance, engagement, and interaction through increased teacher training with using a SMARTBoard in a regular classroom setting. As usual, Google seems to always be a good starting point with me, but after reading the Valenza article, I know I need to work on looking at and honing in on other search engines that could result in information that would be more useful and relevant to what I am looking for. For this project, I used Google as well as http://www.findarticles.com, which gave me a great deal of information that was both useful and relevant, but like always, it takes time to sort through the zillions of hits that searches can give you. From Google alone, I have learned that while sometimes "less is more" when it comes to typing in your words or phrases into your search box, many times the opposite, or the "more is less" notion is also true. By this I mean, while there are times when being very specific about what you are looking results in a more narrowed down and focused list of hits that limits your need to spend a needless amount of time clearing out what you don't need, there are other times, when typing in a narrowed and specific search phrase limits the number of quality hits you get to the point of making the search itself useless and unproductive. Both of these issues are something that I faced with my search for good information on SMARTBoards, but I do find that the more searching I do, the better I have become at finding what I am looking for in a relatively short amount of time. From one of my most favorite sites, Teachers Love SMARTBoards, there is a way to search within the site itself for lessons, ideas, and even research, so being able to do a "search within a search" is also a great way to narrow-down a focus or "search-need" and this was also something that I did with this project as I primarily used the inquiry approach to locate information on what other teachers have to say about using SMARTBoards in their classrooms, what administrators/principals have to say about using SMARTBoards in their schools, as well as what researchers have to say about using SMARTBoards in education. Being an avid user of Google, I was unaware of it's capabilities with http://scholar.google.com and in general, the next time I search for research type of information, I would like to try some other search options such as that or even http://www.doaj.org/ as a way to initially wade through the number of hits that a basic online search can yield.

Annotated Bibliography

Beeland, William. "Student Engagement, Visual Learning and Technology: Can Interactive Whiteboards Help?." N.p., n.d. Web. 04 Apr 2010. <http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.135.3542&rep=rep1&type=pdf>.

This is an action research study that was designed to determine if when interactive whiteboards are used as an instructional tool, do they have any role with regards to student engagement. This study used data gathered from teachers and students after lessons where interactive whiteboards were used and lessons where they were not used. In the end, the data showed an overwhelming preference by teachers as well as students with using the interactive whiteboard as a tool in instruction, as student engagement and student interaction dramatically increased in the lessons where an interactive whiteboard was the tool of focus.

"Improving student learning outcomes and streamlining lesson planning." Interactive Whiteboards and Learning. (2006): 2-13. Print.

This paper brings together interactive whiteboards and research as well as case study observations from the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia on how interactive whiteboards, and specifically the SMARTBoard affect learning in several ways. One of the most interesting of those is the research that indicates that notes taken on the interactive whiteboard (Notebook feature) plays a key role in the student review process which leads to higher levels of student attendance. This piece of research also indicates that interactive whiteboards helps educators to streamline their preparation and be more efficient in their information delivery and technology integration which also increased their overall productivity.

Killon, Joellen. "Critical Issue: Providing Professional Development for Effective Technology Use." North Central Regional Educational Laboratory 1999: n. pag. Web. 11 Apr 2010. <http://www.ncrel.org/sdrs/areas/issues/methods/technlgy/te1000.htm>.

Because the key factor in getting more teachers in my building to use SMARTBoards in their classrooms, is successful teacher training, this article which does a fantastic job at narrowing down the do's and the dont's with regards to what effective teacher training looks like, this article is going to be a very helpful tool in allowing me to provide a "best practice" approach to training the teachers in my building with the use of SMARTBoards as a learning tool. Through it's many links and resources, this source will also continue to become an increasingly more important reference as I learn how to move my staff along into a more 21st century way of thinking with regards to using a SMARTBoard in classrooms.

Marzano, Robert. "Teaching With Interactive Whiteboards." Educational Leadership. 67.3 (2009): 80-82. Print.

Within a study that is named in this journal article, using an interactive whiteboard in a classroom resulted in a 16 point gain in student achievement. This article continues on to say that although interactive whiteboards have great potential to enhance pedagogical strategies as well as student learning, these tools can not do this on their own and still must be used with what we know as "best practices in teaching and student learning" in order for students to reach for their potential using a positive technological implementation tool.

"My board is smarter than your board!." Lake Havasu Unified School District #1, n.d. Web. 01 Apr 2010. <http://www.havasu.k12.az.us/archive/smartboard.html>.

Along with 2 embedded video tutorials on the use of SMARTBoards in the classroom, this site also offers information on features and pricing of interactive whiteboards as well as how this district decides how its teachers are chosen to be the "chosen one" with getting an interactive whiteboard in their classroom. They state how teachers must have a designated number of hours of training on a SMARTBoard as well as post lessons they create on a server for other district employees to access and utilize along with the submission of a report at the beginning of the year that names their annual goal for using the board in their class as well as a report at the end of the year that states whether or not they met their intended goal or not.

"Raising student achievement with technology: Jennings School District, St. Louis." American Association of School Administrators, 2005. Web. 03 Mar 2010. <http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0JSD/is_7_62/ai_n15622447/>.

According to this article, students of the current generation are very visual, and therefore the use of an interactive whiteboard is a very powerful learning tool that meets the needs of these types of learners as well as those that are kinesthetic as well as auditory because of the whiteboards unique ability to offer so many styles to its teaching and learning practices. It also claims that students become more verbally polished with their delivery of information to others as they explain their thoughts and ideas which is an idea that will move them forward in college and business and throughout life.

"SMARTBoard Demo." YouTube. Web. 08 Apr 2010. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=319sEUWZ6zk>.

This video offers a five-minute introduction to the SMARTBoard and serves as a visual representation as to what SMARTBoards have to offer educators and students with teaching and learning.

"SMARTBoards, Why are they so easy to use." YouTube. Web. 08 Apr 2010. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0U05WeXPGlk>.

This is a great three-minute video clip that gives a brief explanation as well as a brief introduction to the SMARTBoard and it's ease of use by students and teachers in an elementary classroom. Because so many people are visual learners, I wanted to make sure I offered an opportunity for my teachers to "see" what it was that they would eventually "do."

"TechBoston Academy student achievement skyrockets with the use of SMARTBoard interactive whiteboards.." SMART Media Releases October, 2005: n. pag. Web. 31 Mar 2010. <http://www2.smarttech.com/st/en-US/About+Us/News+Room/Media+Releases/2005+Media+Releases.htm?guid={F3359CD0-9D0A-4133-8A7C-0B8D7336CE1C}>.

Aligned with ISTE, TechBoston Academy integrates technology in all academic courses using SMARTBoard interactive whiteboards for lesson planning and delivery and that was considered to be the key factor in raising the level of student achievement on the MCAS standardized test which is the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System that is administered to students in grades 3-8 to measure student achievement with Massachusetts' State Standards.

Starkman, Neal. "The Wonders of Interactive Whiteboards." T.H.E. Journal 33.10 (2006): 36-38. Web. 03 Apr 2010.

This article describes in detail what the interactive whiteboard has done for student engagement and student interaction in a school in Canada where its number of suspensions used to outnumber its number of students prior to the implementation of the whiteboard as a teaching tool. The overall atmosphere in this building changed with the introduction and implementation of the interactive whiteboard, and student scores went up considerably while student referrals plummeted to near single digits after the interactive whiteboards were put in place.

"What I hear I forget.
What I see I remember.
What I do I understand."
Confucius

TechQuest Project Description

The Educational Opportunity: The educational need is such that K-6 students in my building are not being exposed to interactive learning through technology because there is an overwhelming lack of teacher support and training on how to implement and use the SMARTBoards that already exist within our school and a handful of our classrooms. The general purpose of this TechQuest is to increase teacher training with regards to the use of SMARTBoards because of their overall power to increase student learning and achievement.

The Setting:

• Teacher: The teacher will be a current first-grade teacher who will be moving into the position of "Technology Facilitator" in the fall of the 2010-2011 school year who currently uses a SMARTBoard on a daily basis in her classroom.
• Learner: The learners will be a mixture of K-6 regular education classroom teachers who have a wide range with years of teaching experience, technology experience as well as overall comfort level with the use of technology in general.
  
• Subject Matter: The subject matter will include hands-on experience with a SMARTBoard with guided support (guide-on the-side) as well as access to online tutorials that teach how to use a SMARTBoard as well as how to integrate them into learning through the available lesson plans and support services that I will show teachers how to access. Hard copies of tutorials and teachings will also be available to those teachers who wish to have access to one.
  
• Setting: The setting will be in our current school library that will accommodate a larger group of adults as well as the portable SMARTBoard that we currently have for use within our building.
  

Technology-Integrated Solution: As a way to create a "hook" into what they are going to learn about, the initial session will begin with learners being allowed to participate in an interactive game (two teams will be formed) using the SMARTBoard as the tool. Through this initial game, the teacher will serve as the "guide-on-the side" offering help and support where needed. After the game is complete, learners will be asked to reflect with their team members the positive versus negative aspects as to the interactive learning that they participated in. We will then discuss these thoughts and comments as a larger group and those comments will be placed on the SMARTBoard and saved for future reference using the Notebook feature. This too will hopefully create a "hook" into learning more about the SMARTBoard and it's potential with saving work to be looked at or referred back to at a later time. Learners will then watch a couple of videos on the use of SMARTBoards in the classroom with another discussion taking place at the end of them.

In time, and as these sessions progress, I will take on roles of a "sage on the stage" as well as a "guide on the side" as I lead teachers through online tutorials that will teach various components of how to use a SMARTBoard. Tutorials will be followed by immediate practice and hands-on learning with what was just taught, with time for a question/answer period at the end of every session. Overall success with this TechQuest will be measured based on how many and how often SMARTBoards are used within classrooms through observations (as compared to before), online questionnaires as well as general staff comments and feedback.

• Rationale: According to research, the use of interactive whiteboards for learning, raised student achievement by 16 percentage points meaning that a student who performs in the 50th percentile in a classroom that is not using interactive whiteboards would increase his/her score to the 66th percentile in a classroom that did use interactive whiteboards on a regular basis. Other research also indicates that the current generation of students is very visual and the use of SMARTBoards or interactive whiteboards enhances this learning style (as well as auditory and tactile learning) as it creates highly motivated and enthusiastic students who want to demonstrate what they know (which is an idea that teachers are always looking to cultivate). Use of SMARTBoards will also increase once learners (classroom teachers) are shown that lesson plans are readily available for use with a SMARTBoard and can be easily altered at any time as well as saved for future use to be used in the days, the weeks, the months, or even the years ahead. The combination of increased teacher use of SMARTBoards, and increased student engagement and student growth, will increase the overall use of SMARTBoards in classrooms and will allow for a step forward into 21st century learning which will ultimately result in "change with a difference" with regards to technology integration into everyday classroom learning.
  
• Logistics: Every Friday, 45 minutes is set aside before school starts for ongoing staff development trainings and it is this time that will serve as my opportunity to offer staff development training on SMARTBoards to those staff members who currently have a SMARTBoard in their room now as well as to any other teachers who are interested in participating. Teachers will be allowed to count this time in these trainings towards contact hours to be used for PTSB credit if they choose to.
  

Plan of Action: Throughout the final weeks of this school year, I will provide weekly trainings using a step-by-step scaffolded approach to teaching the use of SMARTBoards as outlined above through four 45 minute sessions every Friday beginning mid April and continuing through mid May. After this school year, I will continue to build and work on tutorials as well as hard-copy handouts that will be used in the coming 2010-2011 school year when ALL teachers in my building will have SMARTBoards in their classrooms and will require training and support with how to use them. These trainings will continue to take place and be offered on a weekly basis throughout the school year as long as the need is there.

"What I hear I forget.
What I see I remember.
What I do I understand."
Confucius

TechQuest Draft 1

When considering a problem of practice, there is one idea that repeatedly comes to mind; the lack of training and consequently use of the SMARTBoards in my building by teachers and students...

Last December, six teachers in my building volunteered to take on SMARTBoards in their classrooms in an attempt to begin to learn a new technology that would be following us to our new, and much more technically advanced building in the fall of 2010. I was one of those six teachers and I took on that new piece of technology with zest and vigor and basically sought out ways to teach myself how to use and integrate it into my teaching. I now use my SMARTBoard on what is close to an everyday basis for interactive teaching and cooperative learning and I have found it to be nothing but a powerful and engaging piece of technology. This unfortunately is not the case with regards to the five other SMARTBoards within my building, which have had very little if any use in the months since they were installed. This has happened, in my opinion, because of a couple of different factors. The first factor is that the teachers do not see the potential in what a SMARTBoard has to offer with teaching and learning and the second one (which is related to the first) is these teachers have not had much of any kind of support or training with these tools and they probably feel very intimidated by them to initiate any sort of self-training on them such as I did. Wow! The technology is there, and is being wasted because the training and the "know-how" is very much lacking or is almost non-existent. What a shame!!

With every classroom teacher getting a SMARTBoard attached to a wall in their classroom next fall in our new building, this problem is also likely to get much bigger and more widespread. To help alleviate this, teachers will need a lot of support and training with the use of SMARTBoards and as the new Technology Facilitator in my building next year, I would like to begin now to create some professional development resources that would help the teachers that have SMARTBoards now, gain a bit of teaching and training with them so that they may begin to do what they were expected to do without training when the SMARTBoards were hung in their classrooms. I will move forward with offering staff development opportunities to all classroom teachers next fall in an effort to help them get the training they need so that they can utilize this 21st century technology with their students who are ready to get out of the 20th century way of being taught.

Rationale...

According to Brophy (2006, p.27), "Cooperative learning creates the potential for cognitive and metacognitive benefits by engaging students in discourse that requires them to make their task-related information-processing and problem-solving strategies explicit (and thus available for discussion and reflection). Students are likely to show improved achievement outcomes when they engage in certain forms of co-operative learning as an alternative to completing assignments on their own." SMARTBoards serve as a perfect opportunity to merge technology and cooperative learning into one, and therefore is the purpose of this TechQuest. Ultimately this teaching will be done using a presentation tool (likely PowerPoint) as well as tutorials because they can be played and used on a SMARTBoard, which would allow for teacher training and interaction with the SMARTBoard together in accordance with each other. Success will be measured based on how many and how often SMARTBoards are used within classrooms through observations, online questionnaires, and general staff comments and feedback.

Final Thoughts...

Just as I was in 810, I am once again amazed at the growth and learning that I feel I have done in just 8 INTENSE, but short weeks! From creating wiki's and talking on blogs to navigating websites and then building or own, this class has packed in a lot of information and learning into a short amount of time! Through building a WebQuest and climbing StAIRs, I am now in much better shape to share and implement technology and online learning with my students and my peers on our race into the 21st Century of learning. I am thrilled with the prospect of integrating (and creating) more WebQuests with my students and will approach the idea of blogging with an open mind that it can work in an elementary setting!

Over the past 8 weeks, I have been both reminded and enlightened about the use of effective teaching strategies when integrating technology. Deductive, Inductive, Mathetics, oh my! It's simply amazing, how even little bits of all of these can help students flourish and grow academically. It can't be a matter of which ONE to use, but rather which ONES to use when considering effective teaching through technology, and I am grateful for that enhanced knowledge.

As I move forward into Session 812 and beyond, the learning that I have done will allow me the opportunity to continue to grow and build upon my passion for educational technology as I continue to reach for "the moon and the stars" with bringing a quality education to my students through technology integration. Simply put, and honestly speaking; it is what they all deserve and I am most determined (and excited) to give it to them!

Online Learning

Wow, there really are a lot of opportunities for a wide variety of activities when it comes to the term "online learning." These opportunities range from blogging, WebQuests, and podcasts, to RSS feeds, online simulations, and educational gaming. And while, some of these activities are too difficult for first graders to use, others, such as WebQuests, or educational gaming, are more relevant and require less direct support and are therefore better suited towards students of this age level.

It appears as though WebQuests are a great way to address needs in Math or Science, while educational gaming can address an even wider range of skills and activities within perhaps any subject area a student is working in. Because of that, and because of the fact that educational gaming can be more easily directed into a slightly more independent and differentiated scope, it becomes the online learning tool that I would use the most within my first grade classroom.

Online gaming serves a great purpose in creating opportunities for skill integration, re-enforcement and guided practice as it provides life-long 21st Century skills through collaboration and strategy formulation all while being engaging and motivational which certainly become equally very important in student learning and achievement.

Google Picasa

For this assignment, I looked at Google Picasa which is a free photo and web-album sharing and editing application that gives it's users 1024 MB (4,000 wallpaper-sized photos) of storage space and offers the following:

• Web albums that will even show your pictures arranged on a global map.
• Organization by people or faces with it's built-in face matching technology, name-tagging ability, as well as ability to geotag your photos using Google maps.
• The ability to edit, crop, order or print photos at home as well as create slideshows, or add your favorite photos to YouTube or to a desktop background or screensaver.
• Upload photos to "collaborative albums" by adding contributors to your page, do advanced searches, or follow friends' photos when marked as a "favorite."
• Automatic comment translations for those comments that you may receive from others around the world that may speak a different language.
• Mobile phone compatibility allowing you to add photos or comment on friends' photos anytime and from anywhere all from your mobile phone.
  

After creating an account and experimenting with Picasa's features, I believe students who have some background knowledge with photo editing would have a pretty easy time using this application. The navigation bars and pull-down menus are easy to access and understand and with the ability to share and even collaborate on photos or projects with others, the possibilities are endless with regards to what one could create.

Because this is a web-based application, great care needs to be taken with monitoring students' activity while on Picasa. Leaving a web-based application and venturing off into inappropriate or unsafe sites or material is always a possibility and must be considered heavily when using such an application. However, the positive aspects of such an opportunity to share photos and comments on class projects and activities, or even geolocate student pictures from family vacations in order to learn more about their world and their communities are all vastly important concepts, and these benefits simply should not be overlooked. Ultimately, Google Picasa is a worthwhile application with some worthy benefits to 21st century teaching and learning.

Wiki's

I was able to locate my school district on Wikipedia as well as my school. I added new information about our school becoming "Prairie Wind Elementary" when we open our new building in the fall of 2010. (See the screenshot at the bottom of this page.)

I also created a Wikispace account at http://tlcarlson.wikispaces.com

Blogs In The Classroom

When using blogs in the classroom, the constructivist approach to teaching or the idea-based approach to teaching would facilitate the best results with blogging while a teacher-centered approach would likely not have a positive or useful effect from blogging in the classroom. Blogs are meant to be collaborative in nature, customized, as well as social, and these ideas are supported by both the constructivist approach as well as the idea-based approach to teaching and learning. Teaching that is directed and controlled by the teacher such as in a teacher-centered approach, does not elicit enough freedom to students in order for them to be creative or functional enough to be as successful with blogging.

When considering a way to adapt a Web 2.0 tool to meet a need that it doesn't necessarily address (e.g. using a blog to help students learn their math facts) I thought about perhaps allowing students to blog about their successes and difficulties with the subject matter that they are struggling with in an effort to connect and learn from others who may share similar trials and tribulations. After all, blogging is collaborative and social, so if learning a new way to try something is all it takes to master or even gain some needed confidence with a concept, then ultimately the Web 2.0 was successful even when at first it didn't appear to have any relevance.

Computer-Based Instructional Objects

WebQuests can be an engaging, meaningful resource which enable students to understand real-world concepts through Web-based learning. However, with so much information available through the Internet, educators must make careful and informed decisions about what they want their students to learn and how they want them to learn it. When considering a WebQuest as a learning tool, some ideas you might consider are:
◆Is the information clear, understandable, and organized?
◆Is there differentiated learning within the presented information, or is all the learning presented in the same fashion?
◆Is the learning motivational, challenging, and authentic?
◆Is the teaching technique producing open-ended questions through a learner-centered approach?
If you were able to answer "yes" to the majority of the above listed questions, then you have likely found a great WebQuest for your students! The following link offers some great choices of WebQuests for primary students, especially in the content areas of science. In my classroom, we do a month long unit on penguins in February, and the WebQuests on this site offer a couple of choices with learning about these adorable and fun-loving creatures! Check it out!

What is the Difference Between a Blog and a Website?

Because blogs and websites are often lumped under the same category, knowing the difference between the two can be difficult do differentiate. However, if you were to think about a blog as a single voice, belonging to a single person, working as a single publisher, then you would have the general gist of a blog. On the flip side of things, if you were to think about a website in the terms of a business location, holding content rather than voice, then you would have the gist of a website. Perhaps even more simply put; blogs are read like a diary, while websites are explored like a business. Welcome to my blog!!