Lois McLean, Ed.D. & Rick Tessman, Co-PIs McLean Media, Grass Valley, CA NSDL Annual Meeting - Nov 7, 2007 OBJECT LESSONS Content Clips in the Classroom Copyright 2007, McLean Media All Rights Reserved

presentation overview 1.Content Clips overview 2.Evaluation Summary 3.Activity Examples 4.Other Applications 5.Questions

research project focus  Enhancing the educational impact of digital libraries  Standards-based science content, Grades  Feasibility of a Flash-based template system that helps teachers assemble online presentations and activities with multimedia clips from digital libraries Learning Activity Templates for Digital Libraries Targeted Research NSF DUE

research project goals broader long-term goals  Public service and site for teachers and students  Services and applications for NSDL community  Applications for other audiences and subject areas  Build a digital collection of life science clips (3-5)  Develop a prototype template system  Evaluate with elementary teachers and children  Explore ways to apply the results to the NSDL

How can we design a dynamic online system to help teachers use clips from distributed digital collections in classroom activities and presentations? How can we design a dynamic online system to help teachers use clips from distributed digital collections in classroom activities and presentations? research challenge

As granularity increases, so does reusability. As granularity decreases, context increases. Activity Asset (jpg, aiff, mov) UnitLessonCurriculum Digital Learning Objects Granularity Continuum Reusability Context More granular Less granular learning objects granularity Adapted from Wagner, E. (2002) Steps to Creating a Content Strategy for Your Organization. eLearning Developers’ Journal. eLearning Guild. Oct 29, download PDF versiondownload PDF version (1/31/05) (Learnativity Content Model)

teaching with objects is not new from … Children's pictures to amuse and instruct, exts/darton/images/pe1449- c536_00001.shtml

assign tab - album Assigning items to Class Clip Zone

assign tab - large image Assigning items to Class Clip Zone

elements of the Content Clips system  Clip Collection life science “published” clips  Content Kit for teachers - to build and assign activities  Flash Templates (shells) - to combine clips with backgrounds to create activities  Presenters - to launch individual clips such as images  Tools - to manipulate or modify clips within activities  Class Clip Zone - presentation view for classroom use  Student Accounts - separate class login for evaluation sites

home page ( Sonia 4th-grade teacher 4th-grade teacher

assign tab - clip info - image clip Searching for clips to assign Searching for clips to assign

Clip Zone Sonia’s login redirects her to the Content Kit Sonia’s login redirects her to the Content Kit

create tab Creating activities Creating activities

choose a background

match activity Assigning items to Class Clip Zone

add your own clip link

Fall 2007 evaluation study  19 Teachers - California (3 sites) and Hawaii (1 site)  400+ Students  Grades classroom and lab  Training - in-person workshops, phone, print guide  Assignment - create 2 activities and try with students  Online Survey - 27 questions on surveymonkey.com  Observation - 6 classes in Grass Valley and Yuba City

1.Fits standards and curriculum 2.Grade-level appropriate 3.Easy to use and find 4.Kid-friendly 5.Functions properly 6.User or teacher-friendly what do teachers want in an online resource? Rank criteria from 1 to 6 according to their importance when choosing a web resource. Most important = 1 Least important=6 Rank criteria from 1 to 6 according to their importance when choosing a web resource. Most important = 1 Least important=6

how often do teachers use web resources?

how do they use web resources?

published versus personal clip use 1/3 used no personal clip links 1/3 used only personal clip links 1/3 used from % personal clip links (self-reported estimate, 18 responses)

Photosynthesis Cycle

No bones about it

Roots

Volcanoes

Camouflage

Mtn Food Chain

Prairie Food Chain

Energy Pyramid

Salts

Habitat features

Tree Damage

Water Cycle set

challenges to teacher use  Interface design issues in Content Kit for Teachers  Features wanted - saving text labels and targets  Training needed for system and for science teaching  Lack of time to find clips for specific content  Technical issues - Safari versions and pop-up blocker

what teachers liked  Clear and compelling visuals (9)  Easy-to-use and organize (8)  Engaging and motivating for students (3)  Alternate way for students to show learning (3)  Helps teachers create differentiated instruction (3)  Flexible, open-ended (3)  Not the textbook (2)  Ability to access outside the computer lab (2)

what teachers said Previously when I was preparing my students for learning about different species and different habitats, I did not have such clear and memorable visuals for them to connect to. This was so much more powerful. Once a teacher learns how to compose this, it opens up endless possibilities and more importantly students are excited and learn from this interaction.

Telling STEM Stories through Content Clips  NSF Research on Gender in Science and Engineering grant  Update, expand, distribute CD-ROM content

Copyright 2007, McLean Media All Rights Reserved Copyright 2007, McLean Media All Rights Reserved