Cyberlesson Reflection
I am very lucky to have two computer labs and an extremely helpful technology teacher at the school where I work. Therefore I was able to implement the cyberlesson whole group with the support of the technology teacher. The students each have their own account, so they were able to do all of the activities electronically and save their work. Because there is a range of abilities in my class, I differentiated how portions of the lesson were presented, as well as the sequence chain activity. For example, the on and above grade level readers, read “Boom Town” independently. I read the text to the students who are reading below grade level. The students who are on and above grade level completed a sequence chain independently. The students working below grade level worked on a sequence chain that had the events of the story in each box and they had to supply the last word to complete the statement.
The social studies curriculum for my district lists the units in the textbook as the topics to be covered. The curriculum states we are to teach, “Settling the Land” which is the title for Unit 3 in the book. This covers the topics of, “The Wilderness Road,” “Passages to the West,” “An Early Prairie Town,” and “Life in a Mining Community.” In the recent years we have moved towards attempting to teach science and social studies using leveled books in a guided reading setting. With this arrangement students on varying levels can access text to learn the science and social studies topics to be covered if appropriate leveled books can be found. The way the social studies curriculum is written relies heavily on following the textbook, which is above the level for many of the third grade students in my class. This became a problem.
Two years ago we began implementing Harcourt Trophies as our core language arts program. The literacy facilitators in the school have been encouraging the teachers to attempt to align the science and social studies curriculum with the selections in the anthology. The theme were implementing during the time I taught the cyberlesson contained the selection, “Boom Town.” I realized that this is a great opportunity to align the social studies curriculum with Harcourt. I could build on the theme of western expansion through “Boom Town,” and expand on this topic through the cyberlesson.
My students were eager to begin the cyberlesson. They are motivated by computer projects, and the power point presentation was different than anything we had done before. They enjoyed “Boom Town” and began enthusiastically completing the activities. The sequence chain was more laborious than I had intended and they seemed to tire of that activity by the end of it. The animated graphics made the students eager to “click around” to see what they would find. One of the students’ favorite parts of the cyberlesson was the Disney entrepreneur game during the beyond reading activities. Many of them have revisited this game during “free time” in the computer lab. I was a little surprised by this because I thought the game might be too advanced for third graders. They are required to start a business and manage finances, marketing, etc. I’m glad I chose to include it because I think it gave the students a sense of what it entails to be an entrepreneur like Amanda, the main character in “Boom Town.” The students are looking forward to doing another cyberlesson.
This process also allowed me to learn along with the students. I was amazed at what they are capable of producing on the computer. The cyberlesson used technology to enhance the students’ experiences with the “Boom Town.” The cyberlesson also allowed us to view pioneers as entrepreneurs. I don’t think this topic would have surfaced otherwise if I didn’t make the connection between Amanda’s entrepreneurial spirit in “Boom Town” and the pioneers who were entrepreneurs because they had to start everything new when they first began expanding west. Because some aspects of the cyberlesson were differentiated as I described in the first part of this reflection, all students were able to participate successfully. It also fit in well with the curriculum. I plan to create many cyberlessons to extend concepts from the anthology as well as science and social studies in the future.
The cyberlesson took longer than I expected to implement. A large part of this was due to the sequence chain activity which took longer, and was more involved than I expected. The students’ enthusiasm seemed to wane towards the end of the sequence chain activity. We had to visit the computer lab for three hour long blocks to complete the cyberlesson. Luckily this is possible where I work, however completing the cyberlesson did take time away from other subjects. Also I was fortunate enough to have the help of the technology teacher because some of the activities were new to the students they needed assistance. Without the other teacher I would have been overwhelmed.
5. How would you modify the way in which you implemented the project to make it more successful?
Next time I plan a cyberlesson I will keep it higher level, yet make the activities easier for the students to complete independently. For example I would fill in the first half of the sequence chain and the students could complete it. I would do the activities from beginning to end myself first to get a better idea of how long the cyberlesson takes to complete and determine if there are ways to make it easier for the students to navigate. There were small details that I found could have been fine tuned and I may have caught them if I did the cyberlesson through the lens of a student first.
This cyberlesson takes about three hours to implement. If another teacher were to use this lesson I would recommend that he or she review some of the slides and activities to determine if there are any that are not applicable to his or her specific lesson focus and perhaps not use them. Also, as I mentioned before, another teacher may want to complete some of the sequence chain so that it does not become a daunting task for students as it did for some of mine. The “Boom Town” cyberlesson requires the learners to type, navigate the internet, and use Microsoft Word drawing tools. If students are not familiar with these tasks, it would be best to have another adult to assist them, as it would be overwhelming for one person.