Reading Response 4/21

Leu 11

This chapter focused on the ways teachers can incorporate equitable use of the Internet by all students, especially those students with special needs. Developing a schedule for Internet use, and monitoring students on the computers, are ways teachers can ensure equitable Internet use for their classes. Boys tend to monopolize the computers more than girls in my classroom so I have to monitor my three learning center computers carefully.
My students do love to help other students and show me what they are learning on the Internet at starfall.com. They are always asking me if we are going to the computer lab.
I haven't tried using partners in the computer lab, but it is something I am willing to experiment with.
I liked the resources that were listed in promoting equitable use of the Internet.
The Internet can give special needs students an opportunity to shine before others in the class as long as the teacher has spent enough time training them on the skill they need to teach their classmates. Directories for student inclusion, and additional resources for visually impaired and hearing impaired students were mentioned.
My mother has lost most of her hearing and the doctors do not know why this has occurred. So the issue of cochlear implants is something I want to investigate further.
The last part of the chapter talked about directories for students and teachers who are experiencing issues in the classroom such as autism, ADD, learning disabillities, and challenging behaviors.
Internet Workshops, Internet Inquiries, Internet Projects, and Webquests for special needs students were discussed with websites given to address each area.
I don't have any special needs students in my class this year, but these resources will be helpful this summer as I team teach our upper elementary students that are in our special education classes.

Cummins

This article is about an oral history project that James constructed for his seventh grade students. The students had to pursue individual investigations around two questions. The two questions were "What kind of history can we find in our families?' and "Where do we come from?" Reports were written on their findings.
European students were able to find out more information than non-European students. I suppose this is because Europe keeps better records on their citizens.
Students learned that information on the Internet is not complete or always reliable.
The family tree model did not work for all students who were not in traditional families. There were empty boxes. James showed his students how to use Appleworks draw program to draw a family tree that fit their family dynamics. This is a fantastic idea to show students how they can customize the Internet to fit their projects.
During the family interviews the students designed questions, took notes, organized information, and tape recorded the interviews. Taping an interview helps you to remember details later on. These are good strategies to teach students.
Students were able to interview other relatives around the globe. They came to class with more questions and information.
Each student shared their stories in different ways. James used a video recorder to film each student giving their oral history presentation. An imovie was made from this recording. Parents came to the classroom's open house and were thrilled with the imovie they saw. This project, imovie, and open house was a very effective way to connect the classroom to the home.
After the project James noticed his students' study skills improved. Their critical thinking and analysis were more sophisticated. Probing questions were posed and discussed in depth. Students made text to self, text to text, and text to world connections. This was a well designed project that addressed a multitude of standards.

Cummins Part Two

The Almond Avenue staff and the Fairmont staff developed a biographical joint writing activity project for their 1-3 grade students to complete together. Students worked in pairs to interview each other and then write their classmates' biography. The students' biographies were published and included in the library.
Students at each school were paired up with the opposing school and then did their interviews via email. These biographies were used to introduce their classmates to their distant partner.
The students then proceeded to sort their library's biographies by using a data collection form that had columns for gender, ethnicity,and profession. Students counted and sorted the school's biographies in the library. Fairness issues were approached by listing how many books were about each culture. The results showed that most biographies were about men, caucasians, and dead people.
Students then went to the main city library and found that their findings were the same. 70% of the biographies were about dead white men.
Letters were written to the main library to request more biographies on women and other people of color.
This was a very meaningful unit on utilizing the content areas with literacy. The time and detail work was massive for these students and teachers. It is nice to see a social issue that concerns the school addressed with a plan of action to remediate the social injustices of the gender and ethnicity issues.