I don't remember where I first heard or was introduced to the idea of a digital word wall. The first example I saw dealt with math and was a great way to have a constant review of vocabulary or other important terms that students need to remember or learn. I've since seen other examples from various other classrooms from my PLN.
So, I thought that I'd give it a try as well. I wanted to start off a little smaller so we used the vocabulary from some of the texts that we have been reading in our reading group this week. Students worked in groups of threes to create posters for each of their vocabulary words. There was a poster created of the word, the definition, and a picture representation. This is the first attempt.
For this particular Digital Word Wall, we put it together using Photostory. Students were able to load their pictures themselves and arrange them in order. I have seen other Digital Word Walls put together in other applications using Powerpoint and the uploaded to sites such as Slideshare, and 280Slides to name just a few. Our plan is to have this digital word wall playing continuously on our television screen during our reading class. Students tend to pay attention to things in which they create themselves.
I can see this idea being more effective for larger topics during math or even to help teach plot during reading class. Other possibilities could include adding a video of students acting out the word similar to those of Steven Kimmi's students
Another wonderful example is from Mrs. Hines 4th grade class in North Carolina, in which they used a digital word wall to show their knowledge of Polygons in math.
While this is essentially no different than teachers creating their own powerpoint slideshows that rotate vocabulary throughout the day; this is taking things one step farther and tapping into students higher order thinking skills when you begin to have them making connections to the words through pictures and reinactments in videos.
The Digital Word Wall
Who Moved My Cheese for the 21st Century?
I remember several years ago watching the "Who Moved My Cheese?" video as our school district was getting ready to make some BIG changes. Now, I feel as though the moving of the cheese is referring to the digital age.
As an introduction to our building wide staff development, we are planning on showing this video to our fellow teachers. How will they react? Will they think it's something important or "just one more thing"? Which percentage of teacher did you fall under?
Hopefully, as far as technology is concerned, the cheese isn't moving too fast for us to keep up with it.
Small Steps toward Technology Integration - Clickers
With the addition of eInstruction Clickers in our building after the first of the year, several of our teachers are using them as a motivational way to prepare students for the state tests, with some interesting results for both teacher and student. We have learned several different uses for said Clickers depending on the goal that you are wanting to accomplish. But, this has not come without some lessons in management along the way.
One problem that has come up when using them is, what to do while waiting for everyone to send in their response. With students working at varying paces, some activities would take forever, thus creating some downtime in which participants could get off task. To help this, some have resorted to using a "student led" option in which students work at their own pace and send in their answers as they complete each problem. This has been a favorite because each student is provided with immediate feedback of their own work. However, this is not where the Clicker software's capabilites should end.
Our classroom has found that the Clickers provide a good way to start a discussion during a novel. Giving students several choices to a debatable situation and then letting them explain their position has led to more than one higher level discussion during our read alouds. The question, "Based on events up to this point in the story, which of the gods do you think is Percy's father?" from early in Rick Riordan's, The Lightning Thief, led to some heated debating and some students to read further into some Greek Mythology.
The use of Clickers to come up with solutions to problems that come up during our class meetings
is a great way to get a student's true feelings about a situation. Being able to enter students' solutions to a problem or concern into the CPS software and then, as a class, vote instantly on one of their options has given each student their own "voice" back instead of the persuasion of a friend's vote.
With the ability to add photos and pictures into a Clicker lesson, provides learners with some other higher level thinking skills and an opportunity to explain their reasoning.
There have been a couple of positive things that I have seen as a result of having the Clicker sets in our building. Of course, the students are very motivated to answer questions and like having the opportunity to get that immediate feedback (unless someone is taking an extra long time answering). Secondly, it has persuaded some technology reluctant teachers to venture into something new and engaging. Teachers are now starting to use some of the available resources to assess a lesson or even to gather information from students. While I could see some teachers getting into a "rut" and not using them in a meaningful way, but at least for starters, the willingness to try something that wasn't in last year's lesson plans is a big step forward. Baby steps, baby steps.
