Raj is a grade 5 elementary school teacher in Coquitlam. His undergraduate degree was in biochemistry, and he finds it at times challenging to balance his passion for science with his responsibility to teach other subjects—particularly English Language Arts. That the BC IRP for grade 5 English cites “making personal connection to texts” as a goal makes him feel even more pressure: he has never really enjoyed reading fiction for leisure very much himself. Raj fulfilled the history requirement for admission to his B.Ed. program by taking a course on the history of Aboriginal peoples of Canada. He found the course very challenging because of its reading load, but the topic fascinated him and he did reasonably well as a result.
In fact, when Raj can use history (rather than literature) texts for Language Arts, he’s much more comfortable. Raj grew up in Coquitlam and really noticed how little of his K-12 schooling addressed his own community; as a result, he tries to bring as much Coquitlam and BC material into the classroom as possible.
Raj has found one resource really helpful when developing lesson plans: the website The Far West: A History of BC (http://www.knowbc.com/learninglayer/farwestmain.html). There’s a lot of great content there, particularly on Aboriginal history. But it’s also very generic content, more often about the whole province rather than Coquitlam. It’s also told largely from the perspective of Europeans, rather than Aboriginal persons.
Kwikwetlem
Raj would like to create a self-directed, online learning module about the Kwikwetlem First Nation, delivered via a customized web site. The Kwikwetlem First Nation has its own website (http://www.kwikwetlem.com/home), but Raj thinks it’s a bit too sophisticated for grade 5 students. He’s also looked for something existing that might work, but nothing’s come up so far.
Last weekend Raj visited the Kwikwetlem’s Port Coquitlam reserve. Chief Percy Cunningham was very pleased Raj wanted to teach his students about Kwikwetlem history. He gave Raj a tour of the reserve and shared with him the story of the Kwikwetlem. He even agreed that Raj could videotape his storytelling and use the video for his lesson (Raj also took over 100 photos). The entire visit really inspired Raj—he’s even more motivated to get working on this module!
Raj has timetabled five hours of class time for this lesson (one hour per day for one week), beginning one month from now. However, his prep and marking obligations mean he will be working on this evenings and weekends. Raj estimates he could squeeze about 10 hours a week in total for the project.
Discussion questions (please answer them in the discussion forum topic Raj, under Module 5):
- What might be three (3) important questions Raj could ask himself when deciding which multimedia to include?
- Do you think Raj can deliver this in a month? Explain your answer and either:
- Suggest how Raj approach developing his website?
Offer an alternative to the website, one that will use some of Multimedia already collected
Questions Raj should ask
The three questions I think Raj needs to ask himself before beginning his site are:
1) How much experience does he have with HTML and web design? Then adjust his search for a tool accordingly.
2) As he is dealing with younger students – How will his images and video be displayed? Will they easily be embedded and easy to view?
3) Will he be able to replace this web site with another tool if things do not work out? Will his work be easily transferable?
Can he do this in a month?
I feel like he can. However, I liked Heather’s idea of having the students help him with the creation of certain parts. For instance if he created a shell for his websites and populated it with some images and video, he could then provide his students access to his site (I’m thinking of something like Weebly) to supplement and add to each of the modules. The tools on Weebly would allow for a lot of inter activities with his class.
If Raj found that a web site may not work the best for him, I would recommend DVD authoring or creating a series of digital stories using the images and video he already has.