Bridging the Gap Between School and Home Using Virtual Manips

In my previous post about virtual manipulatives, I discussed the benefits of using virtual manipulatives for engagement purposes. Upon reflection, it also occurred to me that these virtual manipualtives, available in the online the McGraw-Hill Virtual Manipulatives toolkit, would be a great resource to offer parents as their children are completing homework or preparing for a unit test. If students are given the opportunity to handle real manipulatives in class and then have access to a computer at home, they would be able to review the strategies they learned using virtual manipulatives.  This interactive and constructivist learning experience could be reinforced using the same tools they handled in class. Providing parents with access to the site and encouraging students to practice using manipulatives at home would bridge the gap between school and home, where math manipulatives are probably unavailable.

I can imagine this being helpful to several of my students who benefit from repetition of very concrete examples of math concepts.  For example, in a recent unit students explored fractions and had difficulty identifying and justifying equivalency.  We practiced identifying equivalent fractions using fraction bars.  This strategy is very common as a way of introducing students to equivalency and some students grasp the concept sooner than others.  For those who were struggling, I was unable to send them home with the durable, plastic fraction bars I use in school, and had to settle for paper manipulatives that were easily lost between school and home.  Next time, I may simply email the parents of these target students the link to the website I provided above and offer instructions for some exercises or games they might play to reinforce the concept of equivalency.  I think students would benefit from an exercise like the one I modeled below, in which students would have to find two or more equivalent fractions and prove their equivalency using fraction circles and bars/tiles.

Taking a Journey Using TerraClues

Recently I introduced my students to a new piece of historical fiction called A Lion to Guard Us.  This novel by Clyde Robert Bulla follows the journey of an impoverished family journeying from England to the New World during the early 1600s as a part of the Virginia Company.  As I was teaching my students about this voyage across the Atlantic Ocean, I distributed maps of the world and had the students track the journey of the Sea Adventure, a ship that traveled from Plymouth, England to Bermuda before sailing on to Jamestown, Virginia.  In order to get a closer look at the colony of Jamestown, I used GoogleEarth to assist my students as they examined the geography of the region.  As I went about introducing my students to this important geographic information, it occurred to me that this would be a perfect opportunity to use the new web 2.0 tool I had discovered several weeks prior: TerraClues.

Using TerraClues I created a virtual hunt, titled "A Journey to the New World in 'A Lion to Guard Us,'"  that followed the journey of the main characters in the novel.  I selected several important locations identified in the story, and provided clues that would support students as they discovered the matching geographic location. For instance, when hinting at the location of Plymouth, England, I wrote the clue, "Amanda, Jemmy, Meg, and Dr. Crider go to this seaside port to go aboard the Sea Adventure."  The description of the characters and the circumstances of the visit would, hopefully, trigger a a memory of where the Sea Adventure was located before it journeyed across the Atlantic Ocean.  I think this kind of activity is a great option for teachers who are trying to teach geography using a more interactive platform.  I hope to use the hunt I created at the end of the reading unit I am teaching.

Going Beyond Brainstorming with Wordle

In one of my early posts, I discussed the potential uses of the web 2.0 tool, Wordle in the elementary classroom.  Since then, I have considered and researched other instructional applications for this word collection tool.  After reading about how other teachers use Wordle (see sites listed below), I considered its value as a pre and post assessment tool.  At the beginning of a unit, teachers often use a word splash or concept map to introduce their students to vocabulary that will appear in the unit.  Wordle could be a great way to pre-assess students' prior knowledge of concepts and then, at the end of the unit, visually capture all that the students have learned.

For instance, the fourth grade curriculum explores the history of Maryland as a part of social studies.  I can imagine using a data collection tool, such as GoogleForms, to survey students about their prior knowledge of Maryland during the years 1630-1800, a period of transition in which Maryland became a state.  The students' prior knowledge would be collected anonymously and then compiled using Wordle.  I imagine it might look something like the Wordle below:

After studying Maryland and its history during this time period, students could be assessed again using the same process.  This time, I would hope that the Wordle would look more like the collection of words here:

This would be a great way to review and prepare for a test and to compare what students knew and what they had learned over the course of the unit.

Additional ideas for the use of Wordle in the classroom:
Using Word Clouds in EFL ESL
3 Ways to Use Wordle for More Than Fluff

TerraClues

When teaching students about the world around them, Web 2.0 tools such as Google Earth have revolutionized geography instruction, offering interactive and meaningful virtual experiences.  However, to my knowledge, Google Earth lacks a mechanism for providing self-paced instruction, requiring a teacher to provide structure for a lesson involving this powerful tool.  It also does little to connect students' understanding of geography to historical significance.  TerraClues is a great Web 2.0 resource that offers greater flexibility and, like Google Earth, has the capacity to expose students to the geography of the world.

TerraClues guides students in a GoogleMaps scavenger hunt in which the user must decipher clues in order to reach the correct destination.  By following a series of these clues, the user will arrive at the final destination, having gained a better understanding of where the places are located, as well as how the locations are related to a central topic.  This is a powerful tool for teachers who are striving to raise their students' awareness of geography while teaching students a content-related lesson.  For instance, while teaching students about the arrival of colonists to America, a teacher could create a TerraClues scavenger hunt following the journey of those colonists.  This would raise the students' awareness of the geographic origins of the colonists in England and their journey to America where they ultimately settled.  Another great benefit of this tool is the opportunity to provide differentiated, self-paced learning.  Leveled TerraClues scavenger hunts could ensure that learning is scaffolded according to the students' prior knowledge.

Wordle

Wordle is a popular Web 2.0 tool that is becoming more and more common in elementary classrooms for its ability to create colorful, interesting word clouds.  Word clouds can be used for a variety of purposes, in both whole group, small group, or individual learning experiences.  A wordle might be used as a tool for collecting content-specific vocabulary words (see example below), a classroom resource displaying character traits/juicy adjectives/writing topics, or as an assessment tool for checking a student's understanding of big ideas in a lesson.

Wordle is a free resource to teachers, offering a kid-friendly and colorful alternative to paper and pencil when brainstorming.

McGraw-Hill Virtual Manipulatives

Any elementary math teacher can tell you the value of math manipulatives.  Hands-on learning engages children, encourages problem solving skills, and has the potential to support learning.  As our students become more immersed in an increasingly digital age, sustaining their interest in math may become more challenging.  Virtual manipulatives, like those offered by McGraw-Hill, are a great option for teachers who are interested in integrating Web 2.0 technologies in their instruction.

The McGraw-Hill Virtual Manipulatives toolkit contains dozens of interactive web tools that support math instruction.  The toolkit includes just about anything you might find in a well-stocked elementary math closet (it certainly has more tools than the math closet I use at my school!), including base ten blocks, bucket balance, clocks, connecting cubes, currency, geoboards, spinners, and more.  The toolkit also includes workmats, offering blank worksheets or games students can use.  The possibilities for this Web 2.0 tool are endless and it is a powerful option for teachers who are interested in integrating more technology.

Introductory Blog

Welcome to my ET630 blog!  As I complete the course "Digital Communication in the Classroom" I will update this blog with descriptions of Web 2.0 technologies.