It has been a very interesting week of discovery for both myself and my students.  We have learned how to flood our server and not flood our server!  We have learned how to flood a chat and to be far more careful in what we post on chat and in discussion boards, but most of all, we are learning to work collaboratively as a group.

The students are learning to take ownership for their online environment and work.  It is a slow process with one class slightly ahead of the other, but the second class will be the one to benefit most from this experience provided “teacher” here can keep her patience.

There seems to be a definite gender issue happening in both my classes.  In the first class (Class A) there is a large number of high achieving girls who are out performing the boys in almost all areas, especially academic ones.  In Class B there is a very large number of boys, over 3/4’s of the class, who are, for the most part, extremely immature and rowdy.  Each class having its own special and unique dynamic has provided me with some great learning experiences through the online classroom.

In Class A, I have noticed with great delight, one young fellow who is able to lead a chat discussion on a topic, stay on topic and keep his group mates, including other boys, on-task.  Seeing the word “think” aimed at one of his buddies was just amazing considering that not more than 20 minutes later, back in the face-to-face classroom, during a discussion about the online assignment, he was taking apart a hockey pencil and not engaging in the discussion at all.  Online he was leading a discussion and had relevant ideas to contribute. He took ownership for his work and his group.  He was also the one to show his classmates how to open 3 chat boxes simultaneous on their screens and assisted those who were confused.  It was awesome to see the playing field levelled, even for a short 35 minute time frame.

Class B – Well here we have some significant teaching challenges.  We have learned to flood the server, fix the server, flood the chat with spamming or face-rolling if you’re a gamer. We have had the use of several minor inappropriate texting shorts, some very insignificant assignment work being done, and unfortunately, they have all but squashed the girls right out of the chat.  But, all in all, some really good learning came out of this chaos.

The students in Class B have discovered that I can find those inappropriate shorts, highlight them and print them in less than 1 minute.  That I know exactly what those shorts mean and I have laid out some very hard and fast rules based on our first two classes of “play” time.

The class managed quite well overall.  Everyone had a chance to get their ideas out, and carry out a discussion with others.  There were the same surprising leadership showing up here as there was in Class A.  I had a student, who in the face-to-face classroom would make you wonder if you’d chosen the right career path, keep his group on-task, keep the discussion going, if rather superficially, and surprise me to death. He took ownership for his work and online presence.  It was wonderful.

What did I learn as a teacher?  To let go of the control to see where the students would go.  Class A can handle that lessening of control and a more open-ended assignment, Class B cannot and needs very clear boundaries, rules and expectations. Even though I did exert a fair amount of control back over Class B, they still shared, discussed and worked collaboratively, which they could not do before. I learned that if I used the errors made as learning experiences, even with Class B, the students will continue to take a risk and give their ideas in the chat. I learned that the students will rise above and beyond what you may expect.  They are very engaged with the assignment in an online environment, whereas if I attempted this unit in a face-to-face classroom, Class B would not engage at all, and only some of Class A would engage.

I also learned a few technical things like how not to flood our server, how to get multiple private chat boxes up, what spamming/face-rolling is, and how to find it in the chat.  I have to thank my gaming crazed son for all his help.  I also learned how far I can let go with which class and that my Class B will need more of my guidance (”sage on the stage”) than Class A for now and that’s OK. When Class B arrives where it is going, it will have been a tremendous and wonderful journey for the students and for me. (I may need a couple dozen Hail Mary’s to get us there!)

The project that the students are working on within the virtual classroom is one of multicultural diversity. Something we do not have much of at our school. The students will work independently, then collaboratively and then co-operatively on various tasks. (They’ve been divided into 7 random groups of 4.) The research tasks will start with some independent work.  That work will be used to create a collaborative group discussion post.   Groups will reply to others discussion posts.  The groups will create and upload a short PowerPoint and then the groups will work co-operatively on an art project, creating a world flag to represent their group’s view of multicultural diversity.  Hopefully we can take digital pictures of the flags and upload them into the classroom.

With the assistance of two US teachers who passed information on to me through a Twitter companion I revamped the lesson.  Made it much simpler.  I posted the groups on the whiteboard in the virtual classroom and then posted the assignment.  Independently, the students were to write a post telling what their cultural background is, and what family traditions they have at home.  If they did not have any traditions related to their culture, they could write about any family tradition they had.  Then they had to respond to one or more classmates posts with a positive comment.  After that they were allowed to chat.  SUCCESS!  Thank you, Jeff, at TappedIn for this valuable chat advice – they have to earn the right to chat by completing their work – properly.

Problems?  Of course!  One student could not log on no matter what we did.  Why?  I didn’t figure it out until about 20 minutes after the class ended.  I had misspelled his name.  Jeez!  I logged him on as me so he could still join in.  Tech problems?  None.  Thanks Super Techieman.  Owe you some chocolate chip cookies!

What did I learn?  To keep the lesson simple.  I talked to the students after and asked what they liked about the lesson.  They really enjoyed reading about their classmates cultural backgrounds and traditions.  Several found they had almost the same traditions. I asked what they liked about the virtual classroom. They loved the idea of being able to post replies instantly as it was different than in class because in class you have to raise your hand and wait to be called on, have to listen to others talk too much.  They liked the idea of being heard right away.  A good thing? Well maybe a double-edged thing:  a sign of our high-speed Internet socializing and on-the-other-hand, shy students are willing to venture out and be heard, bouncy ADHD-type students don’t have to wait and lose interest.

We had one MAJOR learning experience that will be looked at next class.  One student replied with an inside joke that was something that should not have been posted. She regretted this and gave me a note to see if I could delete it, ASAP.  I checked the post reply.  It was not hurtful, rude or anything along those lines.  It was a play on words, the word being assassination. The context it was used in would be somewhat similar to jokingly making a bomb comment in an airport.  The other students told this particular student that the FBI would be contacting her and she became deeply upset.  I was unable to delete the comment.  I spoke to her after class and she was in tears over the whole thing.  Told her to ignore the other students, I’ll talk to them, but ask what she learned?  She learned an awful lot about choosing your online words carefully!  She gave permission to have the post put up on the projector and use it for a class discussion next class.  I just cannot believe what pulling back that “teacher power” can do for student learning.

The chat.  Needs more work.  They discussed how people just kept saying Hi when not needed as the chat says who just joined the group. They discussed how the chat moves too fast and how it is hard to get a conversation going with so many people joining in.  I need to show them some of the chat actions such as detatching it, increasing the text size and putting things on the pasteboard if they need to slow it down.  I think we need to have a topic to chat about so the conversation has a purpose.  This time it was just play.  They learned much by just playing!  Time to add a little structure to the play.

I chose TappedIn for a number of important reasons.  First: it is a totally secure environment to bring students into.  They are locked into the classroom and cannot leave to other areas of TappedIn without the teacher’s express permission.  No one can enter the classroom or view it without being invited by the teacher. There is a chat feature which is locked into the classroom so the students are only chatting with their own class.  This can be changed to allow the students to collaborate with other classes via teacher invitation.  All chats are recorded and sent to the teacher’s email, including private chats. This chat can be disabled until the teacher gives permission to use it. You can lock your classroom and students cannot access it from home. How much more secure can you possibly get.  Second: they have amazing support, both tech and teaching. They give scheduled tours of the site that are listed on the calendar so you can see the date/time of the tour.  There is a reception room where there is always someone online to answer your questions or help you join a group if you’re new.  The staff are incredibly welcoming and helpful. Third: They have an incredible array of free professional development on a wide range of topics.  I belong to 4 different professional groups, including one for gaming!  I may be a WoW convert yet!  Actually, I want to learn how to use Quest Atlantis!  Fourth: you can set up your own office space there and create and lead your own professional group if you wish.  Fifth: there is an area secured for students to go to with different “rooms” such as NASA, gaming, one for special ed students….and the list goes on. I cannot say enough about this site.  My tech is even impressed to death!  My principal is happy with everything!  Yeah, I’m afraid I’m raving about this place!

So what happened when I actually brought the students in?  Well of course things went wrong!  This is me in the lab we’re talking about!  (4 computers and 1 mouse died!) The first time there was some concern about the chat not being enabled.  My Super Techieman had problems getting the chat through the filters and thought it wasn’t working.  SURPRISE! It was (which is why he is Super Techieman) and the kids jumped all over that like bees on honey!  Had to disable it quick as we had not discussed that yet.  Also the lesson, which I thought was just fine, was too big and too overwhelming for the students in this environment. When I disabled the chat, they turned the whiteboard into one, just sort of naturally, not on purpose to disregard instructions.

The chat on the whiteboard was very, very interesting. These students have never been in an online environment like this and appear to have only limited experience with texting, MSN…They stuck to a given topic, wandered off, self-policed back on topic again. Was fascinating to read – too long to paste into this post.  One student posted a comment to which another replied that the comment was rude.  I held back with a rapid heart rate – keeping with my vow to stop controlling things with my “teacher power” (as I did with disabling the chat) and waited to see what would happen.  The student with the “rude” comment (it was somewhat rude) apologized stating he/she hadn’t meant to be rude.  The conversation carried on.  No teacher power needed or given.  Was awesome! But the lesson was still off.  I’m not used to teaching in this environment any more than the students are used to learning in it. With some discussion with the TappedIn folks and with some help from a PLN member from Twitter, I went back in and fixed things.  I also added the principal as a moderator so she could also log in and join in anytime she felt like it.  I liked that idea as both security in helping the kids understand the responsiblity they have been given and that she would experience this with us.  A great way to collaborate.

Last thing to go slightly south was the issue of off-school access to the site, thus the chat.  I was asked by a student if they could log in from home.  YIKES!  I had no answer so I hedged the question. TappedIn staff informed me that I could lock the class and the students would be denied access.  At 3:03pm the first student attempted to access the classroom, was denied and informed that I would be emailed.  I had the email in my inbox complete with student username, time of attempt.  I have no issue with them going in the classroom, except for one:  who is supervising them at home, if anyone?  So the room remains locked and we had a class discussion on the rules of use and I held up printed email copies of chat transcripts and access notifications.  Rules understood.

It was a great learning experience all way around.  We’ve earned each others trust.  I’ve learned some lessons on teaching online.  The students are learning some netiquette and how to learn online. Very cool.

I looked at three research questions:

1. What impact does the use of a computer-based graphic organzier for note-taking have on increasing student retention of factual information?
2. What does the use of a computer-based graphic organizer do to enhance skills such as developing and organizing ideas; seeing relationships and categorizing concepts?
3. How does the use of graphic organizers support cognitive learning theories such as dual-coding theory?

I created a research project on Nepal with the students for two reasons: one students enjoy learning about other countries and I felt it was a country they knew very little about. I conducted the Nepal research on two classes of gr 6/7’s – 58 students total.  To create a baseline to record prior knowledge I gave them a ten question pre-test about Nepal.  Both class averages were 1/10 demonstrating they knew little about Nepal.

Britannica On-line encyclopedia was used as our information source.  Students took notes on paper using a key-word note-taking system. They created an Inspiration web using version 7.5.  The nodes were coloured coded and linked together with some students decided to use shapes as well as colour.

Some used coloured backgrounds and linear webs.

Some students used a more clustered web, no coloured backgrounds.  Each student seemed to have his/her own preference.

I gave the students a post-test of 14 questions on Nepal based on the research subtopics.  First class average was 9/14 and the second class average was 12/14.  This supported the factual recall claim by Inspiration Software.

I repeated the process with new subtopics and made instructional changes.  I changed from on-line reading to reading on paper, added words to the links, demonstrated this on a paper web, changed note-taking to a phrase system instead of the key-word system. First class received the instructional change, second class missed a class and did not receive the instructional change. Second post-test administered.  Results: first class average dropped to 8/14 and second class average dropped to 10/14.  Most information recalled  was from information from first set of subtopics researched.  Most new information was not recalled.

After pondering on this in the usual glacier manner as well as surviving considerable stress over the entire matter and then reading more research articles I concluded that the drop in recall was due to several variables.  One: moved too quickly and hurried the students, Two: no time given for editing  the web, Three: words needed to be added to the links, Four: good instruction was lost in time crunch.

I firmly believe that had I not run out of time, kept to my modified instructional plan, recall would have increased or remained a the previous level.  I think that changing the note-taking system was a mistake. It appeared that students understood what the key words were, but did not comprehend what they read.  Now I’m not sure that is true.

The students’ abilities to use the software to organize and categorize information is apparent in the webs. The final project given to the each class involves synthesizing the information into either a formal essay or a visual poster about Nepal.  The students writing the formal report were easily able to write their paragraphs using the web clusters (rather the the outline feature).  Most interesting was working with the a student from one of the classes who is on an adapted program.  The student was able to use the web to write a topic sentence, create supporting details using the web nodes and write a “clincher” at the end without either my assistance or that of the teacher-aide who works with the class.  Impressive.  Supports the claims and research I read about Inspiration concept webs being valuable and successful with students who have learning disabilities.

Did Inspiration Software support the dual-coding theory? I believe it did, but it is too long to post.

I believe Inspiration Software holds up to its claims for recall and I think it is a valuable tool for students with learning disabilities.  If I was a classroom teacher I would most definitely be using this program consistently for Social Studies, Science and Lang. Arts.   I would absolutely be using it with all LD students/struggling students.  Its easy editing features are great.