CESD Team 7 Teri Patterson, Jody Watson, Cherra-Lynne Olthof, and Kim Gramlich

Is the use of Web 2.0 tools in an elementary classroom setting effective in improving student literacy skills?

 Goal: choose a variety of Web 2.0 tools to use with our students, focusing specifically on tools that best fit our curricular objectives  Teacher and students need to keep in mind that the purpose of this particular use of technology was to monitor the development of student reading and writing skills

 Several action research projects have been completed on the use of Web 2.0 tools with students.  Our project is different because of our specific focus on the improvement of student literacy skills.  Very little research has been done on the connection between Web 2.0 tools and student reading and writing skills.

 A large project such as this would be most effective and gain the most results if used over the course of an entire school year.  A complete and well-developed action research plan was put together.  We picked and chose specific parts of the project to implement to accommodate our 3- month time period.

 Use a variety of Web 2.0 tools with our students in ways that relate to our curriculum  Monitor students’ reading and writing skills with the hope of seeing a definite improvement over the course of the project

 Document using surveys, interviews, videos, samples of student work, and anecdotal notes  Engage students and ensure the students have an audience to share their work with (classmates, friends and family, pen pals, school division, the world)

 Reading and writing skills rubrics: completed at the beginning, middle, and end of project by both students and teachers  Google Docs Form: online survey  Student interviews  Recording videos and taking pictures  Anecdotal notes  Samples of student work

 January to February: begin to prepare, create reading and writing skills rubrics, create Google Docs Form, select students to interview  February to Mid-April: project work, use Web 2.0 tools in meaningful ways, complete the rubrics + survey + interviews, document  Mid-April to May: gather data, put together presentation, present information at PLP culmination

 Group: spread across schools and divisions, so it was difficult to meet face-to-face  Did not lose sight of our goal to use Web 2.0 tools to further develop student literacy skills  We chose our own ways to implement and document the use of Web 2.0 tools  Come together to share our overall impressions

 Kidblog and WordPress: student blogging  Glogster: demonstrate knowledge in a glog  Gmail: pen pals, classmates, teachers  Google Docs: collaborate  Google Sites: build websites to show learning

 Instant chat: communicate with people  Voice Thread: demonstrate learning  YouTube: students film tutorials and post onto the Internet  Wikispaces: student wikis, online portfolios  Fakebook: create profiles for historical figures

 Allowed us as teachers to research a variety of Web 2.0 tools  Students enjoy working on computers so they were receptive to trying new things  All students found at least one tool that they were drawn to (different learning styles)

 Having an audience made a HUGE difference  Smaller projects were well-received, whereas larger ones were too overwhelming  Students preferred working individually or with a partner – lost focus in small groups

 Knowing that they had an audience played a huge role in how much effort and time the students spent on their work  Bigger audience = better work  More accurate information, demonstrating higher level thinking, writing with proper sentences and conventions

 Instant chat: students admitted to not caring about proper spelling and sentences  still a limited audience, but better literacy skills than instant chat  Creating a blog, Glogster, website, wiki, or video that could be viewed by anyone clearly led the students to focus more on demonstrating strong literacy skills.

 Smaller and shorter time-framed projects were more well received by the students and kept them focused on their reading and writing skills  More complex and longer time-framed projects were overwhelming to students and focus on literacy skills seemed to be lost

 Variety of learning styles = variety of Web 2.0 tools need to be used  Blogs and Google Docs may be well-liked by students who enjoy writing, whereas Glogster and Voice Thread may be well-liked by students who are more visual and auditory learners

 Overall, students enjoyed using the computers and experimenting with new Web 2.0 tools  “Technology makes learning more fun”  Expressed wanting to use technology even more in their learning

 Used to monitor and evaluate students’ reading and writing skills before, during, and after the project  Completed by both teachers and students 

 Used to gather students’ opinions about the use of technology, Web 2.0 tools, and their reading and writing skills  Completed before and after the project by all students 

 CESD Team 7: Project Details was compiled using a Google Doc so that our team could collaborate anywhere and at anytime   PLP Wiki: includes project links  k%27s+Edge+Team+7 k%27s+Edge+Team+7

 Student interviews – completed throughout the project  Mid Interview #1:  Mid Interview #2:  End Interview #1:  End Interview #2:  End Interview #3:  Students using Web 2.0 tools:

 Students using Web 2.0 tools

 Students created glogs demonstrate their learning in various ways – text, pictures, video, audio  Enjoyed greatly by the students!  Students viewed and commented on each other’s glogs, shared with friends and family  Example of Gr. 6 assignment: r-assignment/ r-assignment/

 Students each had their own blog to post their responses to poems, as well as post their own poems  Classmates responded to each others’ posts  Shared blogs with parents and pen pals 

 Blog by the teacher (Cherra-Lynne Olthof) to discuss how her Grade 8 class came together to discuss a current event  Students took this forward by using the main words to create a Wordle  /02/obamas-speech-a-grade-8- perspective/ /02/obamas-speech-a-grade-8- perspective/

 Student video filmed with a Flip camera  Designed to be used by other students as a tutorial to help solve a single-step equation  Video link is posted to the class’ wiki page  _efw _efw

 Websites created by small groups of Grade 6 students about poetry devices  Required the students to research poetry devices, learn how to build a website, cite their information, etc.  -devices-group3/ -devices-group3/

 Teacher-based wiki: students can access information and use as a communication tool   Online portfolios: created by students 

 Grade 8 students created fake online profiles for historical figures     