I found the last part of the Wicked project to be difficult because not having implemented it in the real world, I have difficulties seeing the flaws or issues that may arise, so gentle reader, if you think of things, please let me know so that I may address them.
Thinking through this problem, the various solutions available to me, and a mental walk-through of how the chosen solution might work has proved to be both educational and information in regards to how I approach problems. As I think about this project, I can try to answer the following questions:
Did the project get implemented as planned?
As much I would like to think that getting the readers would be a no-problem process, I am sure that there would be road blocks of any number of sorts. There could be resistance from my department or administration. Finding money may be harder than anticipated, and fund raising may have to be done “by hand” which could, quite honestly, take a school year to do. That aside, the biggest hurdle I see in implementing the project is making the e-readers a normal part of the classroom. Having students see the reader not only as a tool, but understanding the tool and its purpose, so that it is not just something to play around on or something to disregard as just a gimmick. If I can get past that point, and I could see that taking awhile, I can see the readers being successful.
What is the evidence of success in addressing the identified problem of practice?
As I noted in part Part C, I don’t expect to have some sort of miraculous improvement in my classroom. However, I do expect to see heightened levels of student engagement with the text, especially from my students who have struggled with the text in the past. When students work with text, I anticipate seeing more students reading and less zoning out. In terms of hard data, I would expect to see more classwork attempted, turned in, AND more authentic work-that is, I anticipate seeing less copy-cat answers.
How would you approach another project of this type differently given what you’ve learned here? What are the lessons learned that others might benefit from knowing about?
The one idea that has benefitted me most in thinking about this project is starting small. Originally, I was thinking on a whole school scale and I understand now how that is not the place to start. I needed to remember how hard it is sometimes to do something ‘different’ in your own classroom, let alone on a school-wide basis. Baby-steps will help me to understand what problems are bound to arise so that I can help other teachers who want to implement using e-readers in their rooms. Success breeds success. If I would like to see e-readers on a one-to-one basis in the school, then I need to model how it can be realized.
In what ways will you endeavor to do the same project again, and what will you change or not do?
I don’t know why I would not use the e-readers again in my room, but there are some things that I would probably want to work on or try the next time around-basically things that hadn’t occurred to me until after the “implementation” had happened. During my internship on Fridays, the school encouraged Drop Everything and Read for about 10-15 minutes. This was optional, but I chose to participate and really liked the results. It was a nice compromise with the “Do we have to do work on a Friday?” issue: I didn’t make students do history the whole hour, but they didn’t sit unengaged for the last 10 minutes of class. I would go to the library and check out a whole bunch of books relating to the unit we were in and bring them in along with some of my own and we would all read. I never had any issues with missing books. If I had e-readers, I feel that students would be able to utilize this time even more, and I wouldn’t have to lug so many books back and forth. I also feel that this would help make the readers even more a ‘normal’ part of the classroom.
The next thing that I would love to implement would be some sort of ‘check-out’ system so that students could take their text home overnight. Many school libraries have implemented such programs with great success. I would need to get a set of extra readers so that an over-due reader would not hinder what I would want to do in class. The other issue that I will have to tackle is whether or not I will allow students to use their own e-readers in class. I would love to have all my readings and documents up on the class website ahead of time where students could access them as a PDF file, and possibly load them on to their own reader. I would not have the capability to monitor the e-readers like a classroom set of computers with a software program. I suppose, just like cell phones, you need to make sure that what you are doing in class was purposeful so that students are compelled to stay on task naturally.
First of all I'd like to say that you have done a terrific job on this project, given the fact that you had the added challenge of not having a classroom to call your own, at the moment. As I was reading through your post another idea came to mind regarding student achievement levels - Another area of student grow might be increases in test scores for the at-risk students. Since some e-readers come bundled with a text to speech recognition tool, at-risk readers not only hear the text read fluently to them, they comprehend the material better because they aren’t struggling with trying to figure out some of the harder words. Another baby-step option might be using e-readers only with identified at-risk students (Title1 and special education) – that way the number of needed e-readers would be quite a bit lower than trying to cover a whole classroom of 30 students. I loved the idea of posting classroom reading PDF’s on your school web site – great way to give students 24/7 access to the materials. Here are two resources I had in my Delicious account that you might be interested in taking a closer look at: http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Main_Page and http://education-portal.com/articles/Free_Books_-_50_Places_to_Find_Free_Books_Online.html I love the differentiated instruction possibilities that this project holds for students, and I can’t wait to see your final presentation.
ReplyDeleteI really like the idea behind your project, as well as the adjustments you have made along the way. I really like the idea of starting just at your classroom level, and depending upon the success, encouraging other classrooms to get on-board. I have certainly found, as an intern and first year teacher, that it's not the ideas that are hard to come by, but rather the resources necessary to implement the ideas. Loved reading about your project!
ReplyDeleteLaura, I agree that starting small would be very beneficial. That way, you can get the kinks out and make any adjustments to your plan before going all in with your entire class. I think if you do that and document your successes and why the e-readers would be influential in your students learning, you might get more support from your school than you think. I also think your idea about allowing students to use their own e-readers is a good idea, especially if you would upload the readings and such to your teacher webpage ahead of time. Parents with e-readers will also benefit if they want to be in the loop with what their student are learning in your class. Good luck with trying this next year!
ReplyDeleteI agree with what some of the other commenters have said about starting small and working your way up to a whole class filled with eReaders. It seems much easier to scale this project if you started that way and learned what works and what needs to be modified to fit an entire classroom. Having online materials is also a great way to keep students in the loop. I think the biggest headache for you might be the cost, as you mentioned. Integrating technology can be frustrating, but for me part of the fun is the process.
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