Getting ready to blog - course 2 final project

The bumpy road of collaborative work

Thanks Jennifer Keenan for this collaborative work!
I really enjoyed working with you and I think we are a great team!
Thank you Suzy Ramsden for sharing your brilliant ideas and thank you Tanya Irene and Sean Walmsley for launching this project!
This final project has changed from its initial statement. We decided, with the 4 others teachers working at my school and taking the Coetail programme, to work together with 3 others teachers. After realizing (we were told!) that the group was too big, some teachers left it and the others sub-divided the group into 4 groups.
At first, it was:

The vision for the whole project would be to have a working infographic for students and teachers as a guide, reference and reminder with lesson plans to go with it.
Sean and I (Tanya) are looking at the big picture. We are trying to create an infographic for posting online that starts the conversation and thinking process but also identifies the 'outcome' and can be modified. It will cover everything we are learning in course two...use positive language instead of a 'don't or watch out' approach. It might be printable and also 'postable' with hyperlinks and multi-media. We are also working on a slideshow to accompany it and a lesson plan. Suzy is contributing by backwards designing and trying out lessons with first graders that address some of the things that will be on the infographic, like digital footprint. Magali is doing the same, but with 5th grade French and Jennifer with her grade 5.

flickr photo shared by luc legay under a Creative Commons ( BY-SA ) license

Getting ready to blog!

So here we are adding our resources and ideas on a shared Google doc. But then the project turned to be more for the early year students.
So Jennifer asked me to work with her as we both teach Grade 5.
We carried on using Google docs to share our collaboration.
We kept the title “Getting ready to blog” as we both feel the importance of teaching digital citizenship, if I could say it like that.
If we want our students to blog, we need to make sure that they understand the concept of digital citizenship and the safe and appropriate usage of the Internet.
We agreed on developing a unit that would address some of the 21st Century literacy ideas, questions and issues.

Here is our UbD planner


What I like about our unit

I like that all the lessons have been tried before!
I like the visible thinking routines that Jennifer added to the lessons I’ve already taught.
I like the writing of the pledge as it is something that the students would be able to refer to as they’re using technology. It goes without saying that digital citizenship cannot be taught as a one-off lesson. I think that the plegde and the visible thinking routines (compass and the “I used to think, now I think”) are visual tools that could be reused during the year. Why would they need to be reused? If students would make mistakes online, it would help them developing a digital resiliency.

What I would do differently (or not)

The use of French in this unit!
At the school I work, the French program is an immersion one, meaning that I speak in French only with my students. Then I have two options to use this unit.
-I could work along the homeroom teachers. While they are teaching this unit, I could introduce the essential vocabulary to my students and have them write the pledge in French
-I could make an exception and use the unit as it is and have the students write the pledge in English. (but it wouldn’t make that much sense!)
I am completely in favor of option one as it would make the unit so powerful.