Technology Integration at Collingwood

Ms. Marriot and her senior Earth Science class have moved some of their learning to an online portal dedicated entirely to their course.  The Collingwood Earth Science Ning is an amazing place where students are writing blogs, leading discussions, contributing ideas and debating issues based on the course material.  Ms. Marriot has been impressed by the quality of the discussions that have taken place since the Ning started.

Along with participating in this unique learning experience, the ning serves as a portal that holds many of the resouces the students will need to succeed in this course.

Turnitin is an online ‘plagiarism checker’ that is used by high schools and post-secondary institutions across North America.  This service has been provided by Collingwood for the first time this year and all students in Grade 8 – 12 have an account.

Mrs. Karcz was eager to try this program out with her Geography 12 students and use it as a teaching tool.  Once her students had submitted their final paper  (after the research lessons, research work periods and the grading of the final paper), they submitted the assignment to turnitin purely for the learning experience.  This activity would not alter their mark but would better prepare them for any research essay they will do in the future.  Turnitin would show them if they had properly cited their research and if they had plagiarized.

The class went extremely well.  Students submitted their papers quickly and easily and were interested to learn why certain sentences or paragraphs were marked as plagiarism by the program.  The program hilights sentences that are taken from other sources and then supplies a link to the source from where they were taken.  Using the expertise of Mrs. Citton and Mrs. Karcz, we identified incorrect citations, outlined the importance of paraphrasing and talked about what plagiarism is and is not.  Even in grade 12, students really benefited from this learning experience as most of the plagiarism we saw during this activity was accidental.  We emphasized that this is the time to learn and master the research essay because they will have to be more independent in the coming years.

Learning about plagiarism is an essential part of a high school education, especially as academic integrity comes more and more to the forefront.  This tool will hopefully help us better prepare our students so when they leave Collingwood, they are well prepared for their post-secondary education.

Why do something the old way when you can do it a new way?  Technology often lends itself to a more creative approach to learning content.  Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t but you’ll never know if you don’t try.

In Socials 10, instead of studying Canadian Physiographic regions in the same manner as the previous year, students were asked to create a Capzle of a journey they would take through their assigned region.  The goal of the project was to create a series of “postcards” and to present the journey to the class.  This activity was effective in many ways because it required students to process the information they learned (research) and transform it into the series of creative postcards.

Although the learning and instructional design was good, the technology wasn’t seamless.  Capzles recently underwent an update which actually made it less user friendly for this type of activity.  There were problems with the design as well as the site crashing.  Next year, Jen Hobson and Chris Jacoby will consider other options including PowerPoint, something new in technology or just good old fashioned poster paper and markers.  Capzles is a free program that can work for a lot of things; however, in this case we got what we paid for.

To view student work, from Jacoby’s class click here, and from Hobson’s class click here.

Having students create a digital footprint is becoming more and more important.  These days, kids need to know how to use Google well, but they also have to be “Googled well.”  As soon as they come to the Morven campus, we start impressing the importance of online presence to our youngest learners.  Their online words and postings really represent who they are when they are online; many people will see their words before they ever see their face.  Hopefully, when they are at home doing their own thing on the internet, they can think about what they learned in class about putting their best “face” forward when they are online.

In grade 6 Social Studies, Sarah Worth starts the blogging unit in the first few weeks of school.  We introduce the management tools of the blog, and have them complete some simple Social Studies assignments.  This is really simple stuff so the kids grab on to it quickly with very little guidance.  This works out well because it gives us time to emphasize the quality of their work, the global audience that can now read their posting and their ethical responsibilities as bloggers.  In grade 6, we keep the content controlled by the teacher and ease our control off, until they are managing their own blog and content by Grade 8.

Last year, Sarah found the quality of work posted on blogs wasn’t always the students’ best work so this year we’ve tried to emphasize the fact that they now have an much larger audience.  Hopefully we’ll continue to see some success with their writing and thinking skills as they blog throughout the year.

There is something about social media that is very exciting to students.  Something tells me it’s the social in social media that they like. My thoughts are simple, if a technology works for our students in their personal lives, how can we adapt of teaching so we can use it to help their learning?

When Shirley approached me wondering how to use technology for a Biology 11 assignment, I suggested a Ning.  Fresh out of an Alan November conference, we both knew how easy and user friendly a ning (social networking site where you create your own network) could be.  Basically, she needed somewhere students could post their completed projects for all to see and allow classmates to comment and discuss issues surrounding the projects.

Within the same day, Frykberg had created the Human Impact Ning for her class.  I volunteered to teach both her class and Val Morton’s how to use it.  I use the word teach lightly as I essentially provided the link, asked them to create an account and they taught themselves.  They have seen this before – it essentially operates like Facebook. The majority of the time was spent reminding them to be responsible.  Kids will be kids, however, and some of them spent too much time focussing on making friends and writing on walls before they got down to the project.  The good news is that they got over this initial distraction and I received an email from Shirley in the middle of her class that said, “the students are doing their ning thing in their groups now and it is working brilliantly.”

I have been toying with nings in my classroom.  Piovesan and I used one two years ago for The Lord of the Flies and last year, I did something for Romeo and Juliet with my grade 8’s.  Both were successful but short lived, dying off once the unit was complete.  This year, I am hoping to use a ning throughout the year in Grade 8 English.  The trick is getting access to technology so it isn’t always homework.  Stay tuned…