2008: The Year in Review for Tech Integration

2008 has been a great year for tech-enhanced learning experiences in Buhler USD 313! 

Recently I asked our secondary teachers to share some of the exciting opportunities they have provided for their students, and I am including their responses here.  In fact, these are just a few of the many, many digital learning projects that Buhler teachers have developed in 2008. 

BHS Communication Arts teacher Holly Kimble has modified her American Literature class structure to enhance student engagement this year.  Using a thematic approach rather than the traditional chronological one, Holly has developed a meaningful way for her junior students to interact with the works they are studying.  In the fall they focused on war themes in literature, and students completed podcasts about family members' experiences with war. She provided a script for students to follow, with each student required to ask five open-ended questions, and the resulting podcasts were very meaningful as well as engaging for the students. Now she is developing a thematic unit on the theme of tolerance, and it will include a class wiki as well as Wordle and VoiceThread projects. In addition, Holly's senior students recently created modern videos of The Canterbury Tales, many of which have been posted on YouTube.

Prairie Hills Middle School science teacher Teresa Poulseen also engages her students in learning through technology integration. She has led our district in the use of Gizmos from ExploreLearning for both instruction and assessment (pre and post-instruction). This amazing software allows the students to experience science-related situations that cannot be created in a classroom, including building atoms and viewing the orbit of the Earth around the Sun. To organize student assignments and resources, Teresa has created a class wiki and a PortaPortal, and she recently has added a WebQuest to her webpage for students to use when they study energy this spring. In her Japanese enrichment class Teresa's students listen to music and the language, quiz themselves on kanji recognition, and take virtual lessons on Japanese houses, flower arranging, and sumo wrestling. Google Images and Google Earth provide engaging and real-life information about Japan for these students.

The traditional "report" on an important person in history has become much more engaging in Trish Unruh's World History classes. As part of a competition for "the world's worst dictator," Trish's students research evil leaders from the present and the past, then create movies which include photos, video clips, and music. All classes watch the movies on a DVD created from the projects.  In addition, while learning about important figures in the scientific revolution, students make business cards using slideshow software. 

Communication Arts teacher Carol Johnson has developed unique and interesting ways for students to share what they have learned as part of their final exams. Last year she allowed students to create GarageBand audio projects as their semester final, and recently she had students develop videos to demonstrate their knowledge of the narrative structure they had studied all semester. These movies were much easier to manage this year because of the set of flip video cameras now available for secondary teachers to use. In addition, Carol's students have used Comic Life to develop a short research project, and she has used Google Earth to present information that ties in with the stories read in class.

As Curtis Morgan's biology classes have worked on their projects based on genetic diseases, he has offered them much more choice than he has in the past. In fact, his students have created Comic Life  posters, digital presentations through Keynote or PowerPoint, brochures, movies, and radio informercials to share what they have learned. Curtis explains the results in glowing terms: "I feel that by giving the students the option of choosing what they want to turn in, they get more excited about the topic at hand. I get better quality work out of students, and those students that don't normally engage themselves fully into projects or work are fully devoted to accomplishing the task at hand because I let them choose."

To engage his students in learning world history, Dave Schroeder recently used VoiceThread to create an activity in which students research and create short video "podcasts" to explain various aspects of the French Revolution. Dave's students truly enjoyed these media projects! Our new subscription to the educational version of VoiceThread has made it an easy project to manage, and Dave has created foolproof instructions for both students and teachers that he is willing to share. View some of these student VoiceThread projects on Dave's web page.

BHS Communication Arts department chair John Knapp has developed an innovative way for his AP English students to interact with him, with each other, and with the texts they are studying. Using Facebook, our students' preferred social networking resource, John created a "Group" and invited the students to be his "Friends."  He then set up a "Discussion" and posted a series of questions that students were required to respond to.  As John explains, "Their responses to the questions were often works in process. In other words, they were postulating theories about what they were reading so that their peers could comment on what they were thinking. More than once, I watched as they guided each other's understanding of the social issues addressed in [the text]. They did all of the plot summary, character analysis, English-teacher-stuff that I had traditionally [wanted], only they did it in context and it seemed to have meaning to them. I also watched as they figured many of the important thematic issues and actually placed them into contexts that had meaning to them--imagine that. In fact, the fun part was, I got to join into the conversation over the summer so that when class started I already knew these kids."

Resource Room teacher Denice Thompson uses technology to meet the needs of her special education students. They have created multimedia slide shows about the Holocaust and Wordle collages as get-acquainted activities. As a followup to the Kansas Career Pipeline assessment results for personality, career strengths, and learning modalities, Denice's students have researched careers that fit their interests and aptitudes. In fact, one student is taking an independent biology class on the computer as he takes notes, does the daily work, and takes all tests online. Denice definitely has discovered that technology can "level the playing field" for her students.

Remember, these classroom activities are just a few examples of the many engaging and "out of the ordinary" experiences our teachers have provided for the digital learners in their classrooms this year. This list could go on and on....

Thanks to everyone who helped make 2008 GREAT for our students. Now let's make 2009 SHINE!