Initially, I didn’t believe developing the content for my module would be very difficult as I chose a topic that I already have some content for and it is a unit I feel is engaging for my students. However, when developing an online course, there are other considerations that need to be acknowledged and as a result, I found it more challenging than expected. In Ciampa (2014), it states that “motivation is a necessary precondition for student involvement in any type of learning activity” (p. 82) and I imagine this to be even more true for elementary students participating in an online classroom. Below are some of the challenges and solutions that I experienced.
Ongoing assessment is very important with elementary school students who require guidance and practice (Gibbs & Simpson, 2005, p. 9) so it was necessary for me to use tools that would allow me to provide online support. Since Google classroom is integrated with the GSuite of products, I created a Google document for each one of my activities. This would allow me to put feedback directly into the students’ documents hopefully alleviating anxiety they may have about their work.
Because all these activities were going to be done online at home, I wanted to find interesting and engaging ways to share the work. I spent a lot of time looking for a variety of tools as I didn’t want every activity to be a slideshow. While this was difficult at times, it was engaging for me as a learner and I acquired new skills with tools such as Storybird, Canva, EdPuzzle, and Blogger, to name a few. As stated above, each activity has a Google document which is relatively static, however in some cases I included hyperlinks to videos that students will use to enhance their learning within the document. I also included a variety of presentations such as Prezi and Google slides in which links were included or videos were embedded. This is another downfall of Google in that presently we are still unable to embed videos in any of the products.
Google Classroom itself has some challenges that I wasn’t aware of before because I hadn’t used it much but with some initial support from my instructor in helping to streamline my course some of those concerns were resolved. I am still not happy with the fact that I cannot pin certain items at the top of a page. This would allow important material to be viewed first by the students. I do like the ability to break my classroom up into topics but I would like the option to have information go directly into a topic and not be part of the stream. I find that items can get lost easily in the stream.
In the same vein, one of our requirements for this assignment was to include some discussions and this also presented a challenge in Google Classroom. While it is easy for me to set up groups in separate topics, this would also mean copious comments throughout the stream which I believe would cause more confusion for the students. As a result, I decided to create a blog, external to Google Classroom, using Blogger, which is also integrated with Google. This took a bit more time but ultimately the result will be beneficial for my students. All I needed to do was create a link to the blog in it’s own topic within the Classroom and the students can head over to the blog and post their comments and/or discussions there.
As I was trying to decide what to do for my digital story and what software to use, I came across Storybird and used it to illustrate a storybook using Maya Angelou’s poem. It is a beautiful tool and I shared it with my colleagues at school. The grade 8 teacher loved it and when I suggested I use it with one of my special education students to create a poem she agreed. What a wonderful experience. This young man is on the autism spectrum and he is diagnosed with a mild intellectual disability but he easily created a beautiful repetition poem following the same instructions the rest of the class had. What a fabulous tool for differentiated instruction. It definitely demonstrates how “media and technology can help accommodate these differences” (Bates, 2014, s. 8.2.1), meaning the differences within the classroom.
I didn’t really feel the above met the criteria of the assignment, however, so I also created a comic strip to demonstrate onomatopoeia. This was a lot of fun and a great way to show this literary device. As Siemens (2003) said, we need to find the best tool for presenting the learning material (p. 1) and comic strips are a perfect way to demonstrate onomatopoeia. The comic strip tool I used was Pixton, available at www.pixton.com, and I chose it because our school board is now using it but I haven’t had the time to familiarize myself with it so this was the perfect opportunity! I used some of my own images, some that are part of the program, and even included a sound bite. I think if I could have so much fun with an activity like this then my students would too. This is also another great tool for differentiation that aligns with the students section in Bates’ SECTIONS Framework (Bates, 2014). I would allow students to have the opportunity to choose this tool to demonstrate their work and my comic could be a model for them. As an assessment tool it would be engaging and familiar to students. Many students read graphic novels these days and would be familiar with the look of a comic strip. While I want students to have variety and choice in their tools, I also want them to use tools that are familiar to them.
The image I chose for my banner is meant to inspire poetry with the snow falling gently over the beautifully frozen trees. There are many descriptive words that can be used to represent the picture and I would hope my students would appreciate it. Google classroom doesn’t allow for much customization here but I like having the option of including my own image.
Overall, I really enjoyed this assignment. I learned a lot by actually having to create my own classroom, which I hope is illustrated in the work and the reflection above. This activity is an excellent example of constructivism at work.
References
Bates. T. (2014). Teaching in a digital age. Retrieved from http://opentextbc.ca/teachinginadigitalage/chapter/5-8-assessment-of-learning/
Ciampa, K. (2013). Learning in a mobile age: An investigation of student motivation. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 30(1), 82–96. Retrieved from http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jcal.12036/epdf
Fosnot, C. T. (2005). Constructivism: Theory, perspectives, and practice (2nd ed.). knowledge. 2011.
Gibbs, G., & Simpson, C. (2005). Conditions under which assessment supports students’ learning. Learning and Teaching in Higher Education, 1(1), 3-31. Retrieved from http://www.open.ac.uk/fast/pdfs/Gibbs%20and%20Simpson%202004-05.pdf
Siemens, G. (2003). Evaluating media characteristics: Using multimedia to achieve learning outcomes. Elearnspace. Retrieved from http://www.elearnspace.org/Articles/mediacharacteristics.htm