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Re-purposing Technology Lesson Plan

Amber Rutan
TE 831

Summary Box















Lesson Objectives:

Students will be able to celebrate their narratives by mixing visual and audio
details.
Students will be able to explore different online programs and experiment
with them to gain hands-on experience (these programs will be reference again
towards the end of the semester for the English IV Final Exam Part III
Presentation).
Students will be able to consider their audience and how to use their genre (or
online program/technology) to best capture their audiences attention.

Student NETS Standards Alignment:
ISTE Student: 1a. Apply existing knowledge to generate new ideas, products,
and processes.
ISTE Student: 1b Create original works as a means of personal or group
expression.
ISTE Student: 5a. Advocate and practice safe, legal, and responsible use of
information and technology.
ISTE Student: 6a. Understand and use technology systems.
ISTE Student: 6b. Select and use applications effectively and productively.
ISTE Student: 6c. Troubleshoot systems and applications.
ISTE Student: 6d. Transfer current knowledge to learning of new
technologies.

Lesson Title: Personal Narrative Visual Project

Prepared by: Amber Rutan

Subject Area: English IVHigh School Senior English

Technology Used: Glogster, Photo Story 3 for Windows, and Weebly

Length of Lesson: Two Days (81 minute blocks)

Suggested Grade Level: High School

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Materials:
Narrative Visual Project Description Sheet and Rubric
Narrative Visual Project Notes Sheet
Narrative Visual Project Samples (teacher Weebly, Photostory, and Glogster)
Computers (lap top carts)
Voice Recorders

Lesson Procedure:

Before:
Students will need one of their later, if not completed, drafts of their personal
narratives. Students should have a draft that has been revised several times and is
close to publishing (student have been working on these drafts for several weeks).
Students will need to bring that draft to class and highlight one of their favorite parts
(at least half a page or so) that they would like to share or offer as a teaser to an
audience to entice them to read more.

During:
Students will be introduced to three samples of three different technologies that
help capture my own personal narrative. Students will have already read my narrative
called, A Childs Contrition and will look at three different visuals I have created to
celebrate that narrative. They will view a Weebly page, a Photo Story, and a Glogster.

As I show each sample visual to the class, students will record down what they
notice and how the genre is being used (see Resource #1). They may take notes
concerning the visuals, audio, citation, graphics, etc. After each sample and
independent note taking session, students will discuss in their table groups of four,
and then as the whole class, what they noticed and what they think of each
visual/genre. After all three samples have been thoroughly viewed and discussed,
students will move onto the project description sheet and rubric (see Resource #2).

Students will read through the project description sheet along with the teacher, and
make annotations/highlight as they go, especially when the teacher stops to clarify.
Students will also discuss the use of audio and be introduced to voice recorders or
the audio option with Photo Story. The teacher will do some modeling for each
technology program as well as how to use and upload audio from a voice recorder.
The modeling will be quick for the first time, but the teacher will model again during
workshop when the students have the technology program up and running in front
of them, as well as when common technology issues arise with different students
over the next two days.

After the samples, modeling, and discussion, students will be asked to briefly reflect
on which genre piece they want to try and whywhich they will answer on the notes
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sheetand be ready to share that with their shoulder partner and their teacher later
on during workshop.

For the rest of day one, as well as day two, students will be working on the
computers and trying the three different programs. Students will be encouraged to
spend the first day experimenting and playing around with the technology, while
day two will be more focused on organizing the actual project. Students will also
conference with the teacher each day (conferencing is a quick, informal, check in
or meeting with the student and teacher for no more than 3-4 minutes, with the
teacher recording in a journal the students progress, questions, etc.).

Students will also expect to see the teacher model occasionally during both days
tips and help with each program, especially as needs arise or the same
technology issues are mentioned by students. Students will also be reminded to cite
their image, just like they learned earlier in the semester with The Great Gatsby Image
Project.

At the end of day two, students will be expected to finish the project on their own
and outside of class and be ready to turn it in one week from now along with the final
draft of their narrative. Students will get directions to turn the project in via an e-mail
link (for Weebly, Glogster) or attachment (for Photostory) to the teacher by the
designated due date and time.

After
The day students turn in their final narrative drafts, students will also be expected to
e-mail their teacher a link or attachment. Students will have time at the start of class
to pull up their visual project and share it with their shoulder partner. They can listen
to each others audio and take 10-15 minutes to explore what their classmate created,
including the visuals, graphics, links, etc. At the end of the share session, students
will write down one thing they liked from their partners piecesomething specific
and thoughtfulon an exit slip and share it with their partner first, and then turn it
into the basket for the teacher to review.

The teacher will later evaluate the projects from e-mail and will find some great
examples to use next semester (with student permission) and post to the teachers
website.

Additional Resources:
(Teacher-created samples)
http://www.glogster.com/mrsrutan/narrative-visual-project/g-
6k50m515ek26jqa80hl3r3k
http://mrsrutanhchs.weebly.com/personal-narrative-visual-example.html
http://mrsrutanhchs.weebly.com/uploads/1/7/0/4/1704414/brick_house.wmv
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All these teacher samples can be found on teacher webpage:
http://mrsrutanhchs.weebly.com/personal-narrative-visual-examples.html

(Student-created samples)
http://ganeyenglish4.weebly.com/personal-narrative.html
http://www.glogster.com/rrg16/personal-narrative/g-
6k4sohofbrngo6ulomasceh
http://www.glogster.com/tessahollister/because-we-were-cool/g-
6k4ju16k4q4l102f2tn233v


Reflection

To help you understand why I chose these three technology programs as options for
this Personal Narrative Visual Project, you need to consider my Vodcast on the English
IV Social Issue Project Final Exam from a few weeks ago. For three years, and six
different semesters, students have been asked to pick two genres to help present
the third part of their social issue projectwhich is a proposal for change. Each
semester, the other English IV teacher and I have struggled to help the students pick
from the different genre choiceschoices that include Prezi, Glogster, Photo Story,
Weebly, etc.and we have always experienced those workshop days with
frustration. It appeared that our students reverted back to the Stone Age and
apparently very few of our English IV students could figure out what and how to use
a Prezi or Glogster, etc. We also were almost always running out of time; the end of
the semester was fast approaching, so we had to cram in Part III and the workshop
for these different programs into two, maybe three days if we were lucky.

This year, the ACT/MME testing week was going to take away a nearly half of our
students from the morning classes. We had to come up with an extension activity for
the sophomores and seniors who were still going to be in class for those three days,
and the idea of the Personal Narrative Visual Project was born. Part of it was to help
make for a meaningful extension lesson of their narratives they had been writing, but
the other part was to give our students exposure and time to play with at least
three of these possible genres before the final exam came rolling in.

The results were so incredibly successful and next semester this project will be
required for all of our students because it really did give them some great experience
with technology and is going to make the final part of their final exam easier. It was
such a wonderful way for students to be creative and extend their personal
narratives beyond the written experience and into the world of audio and visual.

I choose Glogster, Weebly, and Photo Story because they offered three crucial
elements I felt were needed to express their narrative teasers. They offered
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visualsincluding pictures and graphics; they offered audiothe ability for students
to record themselves reading their own narratives; and they offered textthe ability
for students to add captions or upload quotes from their own writing. I also wanted
to choose programs that would be easy to access outside of the classroom. While
Photo Story is limited to our school computers, Glogster and Weebly can be accessed
at home and students were given the option of any of these three programs, so if
they couldnt work at school, they might have chosen Glogster or Weebly instead. I
was also open to other programs if students could suggest them, and would be more
than willing to expand the list beyond these three if new and appropriate technology
arises in the future.

When it came to creating this lesson, TPACK was highly influential. I knew that my
lesson plan still need to be strong in my own pedagogical methods, which is why I
structured my activities to include samples and models, notes and observation, and
able opportunities for discussion. I wanted to make sure students discussed what
they noticed about each sample I created and were able to really talk and
collaborate about their observations together in their table groups of four. I also
wanted to make sure that my students talked as a whole class, and while this isnt
noted on the original lesson plan, my students actually cut the chart (Resource #1) in
half by drawing a line. The top chunk of their chart/above the line was meant for their
independent observations, while the bottom chunk/ below the line was where we
noted our observations as a whole class on the ELMO during the whole class
discussion.

I started with pedagogy and also considered the content knowledge my students had
about narratives. The very beginning of this lesson was about students reviewing
their narratives and finding their favorite passages; they needed to find a teaser or
a great chunk of writing that they thought would really draw in their audience to
want to read more. When kids were trying to highlight their favorite parts, I gave
them suggestions like using their leads, dialogue, great characterization, the climax,
or sections with strong literary devices. That was content knowledge that wasnt
focused on the technologyat least not yet. I didnt want students to become so
enamored by the technology choices that they forgot what was most important
which was the narratives themselves.

It was then that I moved onto technology and decided which technology that would
best adhere to the visual and auditory components I was looking for, but I also had to
make sure I was teaching students the technology content needed to get started on
the different programs. I did this quite often over the two days we had in class by
modeling and assessing student questions and struggles; however, I didnt want to
take away from the students time to experiment on their own which is why I kept
my first round of modeling brief.

One of my favorite moments to come out of the workshop was when a student tried
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and successfully used a button feature on Weebly to showcase his audio vs. just
uploading the audio on page as an ordinary audio file option (that was what I first did
in my own sample). It was brilliant and I was able to share that with the entire class. It
was a moment where I realized here were some technological content knowledge I
could share first thing next semester when I tried this project again and it was
discovered by a student!

After several moments of modeling and the first days focus on the samples and
discussion, the students seemed very open to trying these new technologies;
Glogster was a favorite choice, and I could see a lot of experimentation on day one.
Some kids were excited and were asking me if they could bring in their cell phones
the next day to upload personal photos. Others wanted to borrow the voice
recorders and record at home that night so they could focus on putting together the
visuals the next day. Then our school technology did what it does bestit got
slow, computers crashed, and several kids waited 15-20 minutes just to log onto the
system. These are the constraints I, and my students, know very well and occur every
time I get the lap top cart. Sometimes working in the library is more successful (they
have desktops, but it is very hard to sign up for a slot), but there are always going to
be technology issues. When these things started coming up (and this is no
exaggeration, you could hear the wave of students anguish from table to table!), I
told students that:

A. Two of these programs are accessible at home and might be easier to work
on there.
B. They had one week to work on this, along with the two workshop days we
had in class, and could see me afterschool.

I also had several moments where Glogster seemed to crash or not save properly. I
had to remind students to save/publish often and if they were too exasperated by
one technology program, I recommend that they could try switching to another.

Overall, technology issues and everything, I still am a huge fan of programs such as
Glogster, Weebly, and Photo Story. I would love to try incorporating these more with
the literature students doperhaps a Glogster on Part I of George Orwells 1984, or a
group Photo Story about If the American Dream is attainable based on Fitzgeralds
The Great Gatsby. I think there is a lot of potential for each of these programs, but my
students need experience with them, especially before we start their final exam and
Part III presentations. I also think other departments and classes need to become
more familiar with them as well. It might be nice to have the senior social studies
teachers incorporate Prezi in their classroom since many of my students take senior
social studies around the same time as English IV.

The more experience and time to play for students, the better. There will always
be frustrations related to technology, and technology can also be very time
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consuming. But if you spread out the technology experience across the semester,
and even across the school, it could be a great way to help alleviate or offset those
time and frustration issues. Also, kids really like and enjoy creating outside the box. I
will always be loyal to traditional papers, but there is still room to be untraditional;
there can still be opportunities to let students extend those traditional moments and
creations into something much more creative and dynamic. My only regret about this
lesson is that some of my juniors didnt get to experience it, but I know next
semester, it will become one of the most crucial, fun, and inventive lessons every one
of my student will get and need to experience.


Resource #1:








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Resource #2: