Tammy Griffis

Great Barrier Reef...Here We Come!

2008-12-09T23:07:00.000-08:00

Great Barrier Reef Australia ~ January 29, 2009
Overview
Students will interact with a scientist on land for half of the field trip and the other half of the field trip students will interact with another scientist who is in the ocean! Students will get a first hand look at the Great Barrier Reef. Parents will be invited to view the field trip. Students' work will be displayed and refreshments will be provided after the field trip. TAG students in grades 3-5 were invited to participate with my class.

PRE and POST activities

Background Information:

Students will watch two videos from SOESD about the Great Barrier Reef
Students will receive an informational packet, which we will discuss in class.
Students will use globes and maps to find Australia and identify time zones.

Research:

I will provide students with a list of animals indigenous to that area. Students will choose an animal to research and write a report. The writing process will include an outline, rough draft, revise/edit, final copy, and a bibliography. (The report will become a scored writing sample.)
Students will prepare and give a speech about their animal. (This will be a scored speech sample.)

Art:

Students will prepare a 3-D display, organizing information they have learned about the Great Barrier Reef and/or their animal. It will include drawings and pictures.
Projects will be displayed during the virtual field trip for parents to view.

Overview of First Year

2008-05-17T10:39:00.000-07:00

After attending the training last summer, I was excited to start planning activities using the equipment. Naturally, there were technical obstacles to overcome. But through collaboration, problem solving, and exercising patience, those problems have been reduced dramatically.

Virtual field trips have opened up the world to my students. It has enhanced my teaching. I have learned the value of creating lessons that lead up to the virtual trip as well as culminating lessons afterwards. Being able to plan units of study centered around a virtual field trip, and having the funds available for supplies that support those lessons have made all of the troubleshooting worthwhile.

I am the TAG coordinator for my building. After talking to 3rd and 4th grade teachers, we decided to invite their TAG students to come to my room and do the virtual field trip units of study. It was a great way to provide learning enrichment for those kids.

Staff development is crucial to the success of virtual field trips. We held three staff development trainings this year. The first one was in our computer lab to allow teachers time and training to research virtual trips on the CILC website. The second training was directly with CILC. It was good for teachers to experience a virtual interaction firsthand. The third training was having teachers participate in webCT to earn eBucks.

This year my class learned about owls through the Carnegie Museum of Natural History. The culminating activity was dissecting owl pellets. Next, they wrote stories and shared them with a first grade class at Wolf Creek Elementary School using the document reader. We finished the year by learning about Egyptian hieroglyphics with the Cleveland Museum of History. Through a collaboration with Learning through the Arts, students built cartouches and broad collars. They also built pyramids and solved hieroglyphic riddles.

I am just learning about how to use wikis to enhance student learning. My advanced reading group participated in my first wiki. They read two companion books to The Giver by Lois Lowry and answered the comprehension questions using the wiki. Students were very excited about using computers to do their work. Many students accessed the site from home to get ahead (or catch up) on assignments.

I have learned a lot this year and am excited with all of the possibilities for next year.

Wiki Wisdom: Literature Circle

2008-03-20T22:52:00.000-07:00

OVERVIEW:
I just started a wiki for my advanced reading group of 15 kids. We are reading two companion books to The Giver by Lois Lowry, Messenger and Gathering Blue. Kids are working in groups of 2-4 to read and discuss the book. Instead of doing comprehension questions on worksheets, kids are answering questions (including many open-ended questions) on the wiki. Additionally, I’ve required kids to respond to at least two of their peers’ comments. This has given me the opportunity to teach kids about how to respond to someone online. We talked about being respectful with our words. I sent a permission slip to parents explaining the project.

NUTS and BOLTS (How to Set it Up):
1. Go to www.wikispaces.com and create an account.
2. Read the online guide to set up. It is extremely helpful.
3. Email the list of kids and passwords to wikispaces.com and they will set up your kids’ accounts.
4. Type "practice" questions in the discussions piece of the home page. It is helpful to kids.
5. Go over procedures and expectations BEFORE kids start.
6. Give each kid a folder. Include directions for how to get on the wiki, including username and password, and spiral notebook to write down online questions to take back and discuss with the group if needed.

LESSONS LEARNED (thus far...):
1. Small groups work best.
2. When kids respond to others comments, wikispaces.com does not show the response. Instead, it is sent directly to the student.
3. Not a good idea to be "notified" via email when a kid makes a comment. I received 55 emails in one lesson!
4. Instead, print out a "feed" of the discussions for each question. This shows who said what. I’m planning to keep track of questions answered.
5. Make sure each kid has their own book to read.
6. Remind myself I am still learning how to use it, too.

KIDS’ FEEDBACK:
After class, I asked kids how they felt about answering online versus pencil/paper. Overwhelmingly, kids preferred the online method - but maybe that’s just because it is new.

IDEAS for OTHER WIKIS:
I’m very interested in getting one started with our pen pals at Madrona.

AUTHOR’S CHAIR: Virtual Trip to Wolf Creek Elementary

2008-03-07T17:56:00.001-08:00

Yes! We had a successful (with a little help from SOESD) connection from Evergreen School to Wolf Creek Elementary. (video was a little pixilated, but not too bad)

My fifth graders had written and illustrated their personal narrative stories in mini-books. They knew they would be sharing their writing with first graders via a virtual field trip. I found kids were more conscientious of their writing when they knew they had an audience, other than me. Since it would take too long to read all 29 stories, I chose a few stories to share with Kelli Lovell’s first graders. I copied the stories ahead of time and sent them to Kelli so that her kids could generate questions for my kids.

Her first graders did a marvelous job asking their questions! They made my students think about their writing and why they chose to write about the specific narrative. Part of the assignment for my kiddos was to include a simile and an idiom. One of my students wrote that she was “in the doghouse”, meaning, of course, that she was in trouble. One of the first graders asked why she was put in the doghouse. It gave my student the opportunity to explain an idiom and what the phrase meant.

I felt the learning for both fifth graders and first graders was tremendous! My class is excited about doing it again some day.

The Thrill of Victory and Agony of Defeat

2008-03-03T19:58:00.000-08:00

Victory
The first virtual trip to the Carnegie Museum of Natural History went fabulously well! The kids behaved perfectly and the connection was good. After the trip, several kids commented how much they enjoyed the virtual trip. They were eager to get started on the follow-up activity, which was dissecting owl pellets.

Defeat
The following week we tried virtual field trip #2. The plan was to connect with Mr. Talty’s 8th graders at Lorna Byrne Middle School to begin a series of activities pertaining to science. Mr. Talty and I put our students in 10 groups of 3. The groups would be matched up and introduced to each other. His students wrote a science procedure that my students were going to try and replicate via the virtual field trip. Both classes were excited about getting started. Unfortunately, we were unable to connect due to technical difficulties.

Carnegie Museum of Natural History (owls)

2008-02-20T20:11:00.000-08:00

Tomorrow we will be having our first virtual field trip to the Carnegie Museum of Natural History to study owls. After downloading the information from the museum, I divided it into smaller sections for kids. Topics included Myths and Legends, and About Owls parts 1 and 2. I have invited the 3rd grade TAG students to share the experience with my 5th grade class. Today, we practiced connecting to another classroom in preparation for the trip. Unfortunately, we had technical difficulties and could not see the classroom on the other end, but we were able to practice procedures. For example, eight students will be asking questions and sharing what we know with the museum. Those kids had the opportunity to practice speaking and rotating into the preset chairs. Kids are excited about tomorrow’s trip. Hopefully, all will go well. As a culminating activity, students will be dissecting owl pellets and graphing results.