EDLD 5363 Week 1 - Reflection - Digital Photo Story

Working on a theme for a personal story was not an easy task. I’ve always find it corny to talk about my personal life and intimate thoughts publicly, so I tend to keep it low and private. To be asked to present any subject that described any moment in my life was a challenge, one that I hope I tackled in at least a decent way.

On the other hand, learning to use a completely new software was not as difficult as I thought. Downloading, installing and learning Photo Story 3 was very user friendly and I felt very comfortable that I could complete the assignment without searching for tutorials or asking for help. I was right!

My only roadblocks dealt with the recording feature and requirement of the assignment. Not because of the software at hand, but rather the lack of appropriate hardware. Note to self: buy a better microphone and find a way to soundproof a room in the house.

Hope someone would enjoy my story!

Digital Photo Story - My Journey to Motherhood

Action Research Project Review

The increase of student engagement in the classroom and improvement of student performance through meta-cognitive and graphic organizer tools presented in digital formats.


During the past years our school has worked in implementing the use of graphic organizer across all grade levels. For the most part the use of paper and pencil graphic organizers has proved to improve student performance and engagement. By looking at the data records I was able to determine a tendency that showed the strongest student performance improvement concentrated among those students that were already making considerable good grades, while student who were scoring lower in general were able to improve ever so slightly.
Based on individual student interviews I came across the idea that the graphic organizer in itself did provide a more organized way of thinking for all students, but its presentation in paper and pencil might be hindering student progress for those who struggle with transferring their thinking into paper form. With the acquisition of the Kidspiration Software I propose to use it to help those students express their thinking in an easy, digitally-assisted way.
As a main objective, it is expected that by allowing the students to use the Kidspiration Software to create and manipulate graphic organizers digitally, their thinking processes would work more fluently, avoiding losing time and effort in the actual creation of a handwritten form. By the end of the action research project we would be able to establish whether or not the use of technology to create and present information would increase meta-cognitive processes in students through the improvement of tests scores.
The significance of this research project would branch out in two different areas. Firstly, it is important to measure the impact on academic progress of individual students to better determine the future use of digital tools. This research might shine a light to whether students benefit from using organizers in a digital form and give educators a better way to help “digital natives” (Prensky, 2001) by offering material in a format they are more familiar with and interested in. Secondly, the results of this particular research project might aid and support on the implementation of other technology hardware and software, allowing for a more appropriate instructional model for future generations. In the case that the research shows positive results, administrators might be more inclined to budget towards purchasing similar digital tools in other areas of instruction.
Dana (2009) states that: “meaningful administrator inquiry should not ‘depart from’ the daily work of administrators but become ‘a part of’ their daily practice”. This idea facilitates the selection of this research setting, target population and sample to even a practitioner that is not an administrator. Thus, I have selected as my target population the two bilingual classes that I teach. Both classes are entirely bilingual and struggling with organizational skills as well as language skills. A comparison of their paper-based and software-made work samples would present a good evidence of results.
The research setting is clearly defined as Third grade, LEP classrooms in a Title 1 school. The majority of the students come from a low-income household and receives free or reduced lunch. Even though I teach them only Math and Science, I will extend the context of this research to their Reading and Writing sections.
I will start by collecting data previous to the introduction of the Kidspiration software. Data would include videotaping students while they create their graphic organizers and by collecting paper-based samples. I will also use of Exit Slips and Student Interviews to obtain information on students’ reflections upon their own learning. After the introduction of the digital organizer creation software, I will collect comparative data, including videos of the students working on the computer and printouts of their work samples. Digital Exit Slips and Post-Interviews will also be conducted.
I will include pre and post Surveys with individual students to measure their comfort level with using both formats in creating their graphic organizers.
I have made other changes to my project to include a variety of data collection techniques in order to better evaluate the benefit of using the Kidspiration software versus working on paper-based assignments.
This multiple sources of documentation and information would allow me to analyze all aspects of my project, from the academic value and improvement to the acceptance and comfort students experience during the use and implementation of the software. Another important implementation and development that is needed for the project is the creation of a rubric to evaluate student progress and performance.
Parents, students, staff and other community members will be involved in the process either creating the opportunities for students to work with the software or analyzing the results. Teachers in the third grade level will collect data and later present it to a small committee of co-workers and parent representatives to allow for understanding, analysis and conclusion of the project.
This project is especially important for catering to the needs of students with special and exceptional needs and students with diverse backgrounds due to the fact that Kidspiration enables them to experience a multi-sensory practice. Students that are hearing-impaired would be able to work visually, while LEP students would be able to use the auditive feature to improve their language skills.

GISD Technology Plan Overview

Technology Plan Overview

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EDLD 5301 - Week 2 Reflection

This week's assignments gave me an opportunity to expand my perspective of action research. Watching the videos of the administrators explaining how and what they see as action research, I was able to put myself in the shoes of my own administrators. I got a clearer understanding of the goals and purposes of many school activities that I rather took for granted. For instance, attending the Campus Improvement Team meetings is now a more meaningful activity. I can say that before I attended, paid attention and was actively engaged; but I was far away from understanding the real purpose of discussing campus improvement at that level.

Purpose and Significance - Discussion

I am having a hard time thinking about another research idea than the one I posted last week. The more I read and talk about it, the more I am convinced of working on the idea of researching the effectiveness of the transfer -from paper based to digital- of student-created graphic organizers.

I got some time this past week to work on the software Kidspiration myself. I liked it for the most part, but there are still issues with it that I foresee as a problem for the students.

While reading Dana (2009) I find myself "wondering" about how kids would react to this new software once we introduce it. I have established as the purpose of my inquiry to look at the academic progress of students in our campus after the introduction of this particular program. I am struggling to decide whether to compare two classes (or sets of students), one still using paper based graphic organizers and the other exposed to the digital version. Would that be unethical? To restrict the use of the program by a certain number of students? Would other teachers in my campus agree to participate in such an "experiment"?  Would non-linguistic representations (Marzano, 2004) be more effective once presented on a format friendly to digital natives?

Dana (2009) writes that "Charting new territory can be exciting but also quite frightening when beginning a journey in which you are unfamiliar with both the terrain and your final destination. It becomes less daunting after you do some initial preparation and take your first steps, however. "

This couldn't be more truthful to the way I feel about this research!

Would students be more benefited by this? Or teachers?

The significance of this inquiry is still vague. I would like to have enough accurate results of the effectiveness of this program to be able to recommend to teachers its implementation  in their weekly lesson plans. Mostly to benefit student's performance across subject areas, but by default benefiting educators in their teaching and planning.

 

References:

Dana, N. (2009). Leading with passion and knowledge: the principal as action researcher. Corwin Press. Kindle Version. Loc 766-68

Marzano, R.J., Pickering, D., & , . (2004). Classroom instruction that works: research-based strategies for increasing student achievement. Prentice Hall.