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Teacher name:  Mary Jean Mangione

Grade level :  Seventh Grade (Middle Low Grouping)

School: Swift Middle School

School district:  Watertown

Literature Cyberlesson: Hatchet

1. How did you implement your cyberlesson? (small group, whole group, posted on the Internet to be done at home? Individually, as a learning center etc.)

I used my cyberlesson as a whole class activity, with some work completed in pairs.  My center activities at the conclusion of the unit are completed in a small cooperative group setting.

2.    How did your students respond to the project?

Despite technical difficulties, the students liked the Internet activities associated with the unit.  They are reluctant readers and generally do not perform well on standard, routine assessments.  Being able to use the Internet appealed to them and made reading non-fiction articles about bears and tornadoes a lot more tolerable for them.  The web dictionary also helped make the vocabulary worksheet less routine and almost ‘fun’!

3.    Strengths?

This cyberlesson was a great way to teach this novel.  The students saw connections and were eager to participate in the lessons. Using the computers and reading on the Internet are real life skills that they need more practice with. Their enthusiasm helped to make the unit a success.

4.    Weaknesses?

The cyberlesson took a long time to complete, as I was experimenting and learning myself.  Once completed, however, the job of daily planning is gone, so I am sure that the upfront work is worth it.  The biggest challenge that I encountered was that the technology available in my school is so outdated that the PowerPoint could not be read by the old Macs in the computer lab.  I had to use the CTX machine to show the PowerPoint off of my PC and then the students used laptops to access the Internet sites.  What was lost was that they were not able to move back and forth between the PowerPoint and the Internet.

5.    How would you modify the way in which you implemented the project to make it more successful?

To make the lessons more successful, I would have asked the students to keep a daily record of what we accomplished each day and to provide feedback about the plusses and minuses of each activity.  I would also have gotten the other teachers on my team involved and perhaps designed some interdisciplinary lessons that connected to the novel.

6.    Recommendations?

We need improved technology in our schools in general and more staff training to complete lessons similar to these.  Computer processing and Internet knowledge and research skills are not the future, they are the here and now.  We need our students to be able to handily use the computer and the Internet and to do so, as teachers we need to be trained and encouraged.  The power of these tools to access information, to inspire and to connect is awesome and our students can only benefit from their use.