Using New Technologies

When given the task of interviewing a colleague regarding his/her use of Web 2.0 tools, I decided to check in on a good friend of mine who I have taught with for over a decade. My friend Jackie Fox teaches 7th grade English, but in another building in my district, so I was not really sure what she has been up to regarding her use of technology. A year ago she was very excited to email me and share a Voice Thread project she completed with her 7th graders, as she was new to the world of Web 2.0. I am proud to say, as I found out last night, that she has not only continued her use of collaborative web tools, but she has reached “hot shot” status. Because of her efforts and use of Google Apps in the classroom, her Principal has asked her to teach her faculty how she incorporates Web 2.0 into her classroom learning. The following interview details our conversation. 1. How did you decide which Web 2.0 tools to use with your students? Jackie wanted an interactive, web-based, self-directed unit for her kids that also incorporated multimedia elements. This led her to use Google Apps, YouTube, and Popplet.com for a reading and writing unit. She set up shared folders in Google Apps for each student, so assignments could be shared and accessed virtually and she could go paperless. The entire United was created in a Google Presentation and shared with the students. First, students accessed a link to a PDF file of the story “The Third Wish”. After reading the story, they created a Popplet account and made a graphic organizer to prepare for their reading response. They shared their Popplets with Mrs. Fox so she could check their brainstorming before they wrote their response. Next, they embarked on another writing piece for a second story, "All Summer in a Day". Mrs. Fox, in the Google Presentation, linked to a non-fiction article about the planet Venus, as a reference to the planet is part of the fiction story the kids will read. The students then completed a pre-reading prediction of what they thought would happen in the fiction story based on the Venus article, and shared this Google Doc with Mrs. Fox by dropping it into their shared folders. While students then watched the embedded YouTube video about the story they were going to read, Mrs. Fox was able to look over their Google Docs to see if the kids were on track with their predictions. She was able to Comment back to the kids on their Docs about whether their pre-reading was right or wrong. Then the students could read the linked story, and complete their prompts, and share them with Mrs. Fox. All students could work at their own pace, as everything needed, including directions, were linked and/or embedded into the shared Google Presentation. The kids loved the virtual feel and collaborative element of the Unit. 2. What obstacles they needed to overcome to obtain permission to do such a project. The biggest issue using these tools, according to Jackie, was depending on all technologies working. Our school runs off of a very overloaded network. Having computers lock up or delay when online is par for the course. If every student tries to access an embedded video at the same time, often the system becomes super slow. This leads to Jackie’s answer to Question #3…. 3. What advice they would give to a teacher seeking to replicate their efforts. Jackie’s greatest advice to teachers who plan on using web-based applications is to have a “back-up” plan. Jackie is prepared to print out documents for each activity just in case there are network issues. Her other piece of advice for educators who want to use Google Apps is to start out the process right at the beginning of the school year, as students need to learn how to share in the Google App environment. Then, the rest of the year can be productive and a well-oiled machine regarding virtual collaboration, and true learning can take place. I have to agree with Jackie, as being a technology teacher, every day brings a new challenge in my computer lab. Sometimes it's a network issue, sometimes it's a web issue, sometimes it's a hardware issue. Few days bring no issues!! I always say, "Technology is wonderful, when it works!" Visit Jackie's webpage here to see the project mentioned above!