By Beth Miceli-Rundle
Teacher, Western Avenue Elementary
The first grade students I teach with Paula Cohen are working on a “Planting and Blogging” project intended to help them grow as young scientists, as writers, and as good digital citizens. Over the course of this project, students grow different types of plants from seeds in a variety of containers. As a culminating project, collaborative groups plan and create terrariums.
To enhance their science inquiries, students use the Explain Everything app daily as a science journal. They take pictures and label them, record observations, and make predictions. Students write on paper, but they take a picture of their notes and load it onto the Explain Everything slide for that day. The students are extremely focused and motivated in this work.
Students are also getting experience cropping, re-sizing, and manipulating photos, and with recording. After they complete a seed study, they describe what they have learned with a voiceover in their Explain Everything slide show. We work with small groups of students to upload their videos to our Kidblog page.
Students are excited to see their work published on the Internet, and we feel secure using Kidblog because we can control who has access to it. So far, most students have published videos on the blog.
With the support of Toya Anderson from the Instructional Technology Initiative, we currently are working with groups on viewing the video of a classmate and posting respectful, constructive feedback. We are taking our time with this portion to be sure to reinforce responsible digital citizenship. I feel this part is absolutely crucial because it sets the tone for the blog to be a positive learning tool.
Students love reading what their friends have to say about their work! Once we feel confident that students have the tools necessary to use the blog responsibly, we will allow them more access to the posts published by their classmates. Our ultimate goal is to open the blog up to other first grade classes on campus and to parents.
We have incorporated Common Core State Standards (CCSS) for reading (RI 1.5, 1.10), writing (W 1.7, W 1.8), and foundational skills (R 1.1, R 1.3) into the life science FOSS unit “Plants and Animals.” We based our technology integration on Standard 4 of the National Education Technology Standards for students. Their work includes all levels of the SAMR model for technology integration (substitution, augmentation, modification, and redefinition). In addition to observing and predicting, students use RAZ Kids leveled books, trade books, and FOSS texts to deepen their understanding of the science content.
I am finding that the technology allows us to address the CCSS more easily than we could without it. Students have a clear purpose for writing. They want their classmates to be able to understand what it is that they observed and learned about plants and seeds.
Planting and Blogging Project Rubric
