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Immigration Unit Plan
This document was designed for CTGE5910. It is a unit plan on Immigration
From djaniants
Danika Barker
I
NTRODUCTION
Purpose
The purpose of this action research project is to assess the impact of web 2.0technology on student attitude and engagement in a secondary Englishclassroom. Essentially, the term “web 2.0” refers to technologies that allowpeople to collaborate, share, and create content anywhere, anytime. Commonexamples would be blogs, wikis, Flickr, Facebook, and Google docs. For thepurpose of this study, I will look specifically at two types of web 2.0 platforms thatmimic social networking sites like Facebook: Edmodo and Ning.
Background
For the past year I have had the opportunity to work for our board as a learningcoordinator in the area of literacy. I was lucky enough to have the time to readand research about a number of different topics related to literacy, but I was mostinterested in a report by Kathleen Blake Yancey, called “Writing in the 21
st
Century,”
in which she explores historical attitudes toward writing and how theseattitudes have changed over time as a result of changing technology. She goeson to explain that teachers of English need to acknowledge these changes inorder to provide students with authentic opportunities for writing that better reflectthe kinds of writing they do outside the classroom.This year, I am back in the classroom at a moderate-sized high school in ElginCounty. The school has a reputation for academic achievement, but in recentyears, the population has been changing requiring staff to focus on strategies for student success that they may not have encountered before. I have beenassigned grade 11 and 12 university preparation English and grade 12 collegepreparation English for the first semester of the school year. Although I recognizethat my “clientele” are not the most high-needs learners in the school, they havepresented me with some interesting challenges in terms of motivation andachievement.Most of my students are “digital natives” who have grown up with computers, theinternet, cell phones, and mp3 players. Approximately 67% of my grade 11students have cell phones and 93% of my grade 11 students have Facebook or Myspace accounts and use them regularly. They do a great deal of reading andwriting online, but they have also grown up in a school system that is highlysuspicious of online technology. Cell phones and mp3 players are banned frommost classrooms even though they can be valuable learning tools. Students arenot permitted to bring in their own laptops or have access to the wireless internetat our school. I know many teachers who are very concerned about our students’lack of awareness or concern about what they may be revealing aboutthemselves online, so the solution has been to ban, restrict, or filter rather thanteach.
1
Yancey, Kathleen Blake. “Writing in the 21
st
Century: a report from the NationalCouncil of Teachers of English” February, 2009.
Rationale
My administration have been very supportive of my ideas about technology in theEnglish classroom and scheduled two of my English classes (grade 11 and 12university preparation) in a computer lab. This resulted in a rather mixed reactionfrom students on the first day of class. Some students looked thrilled while otherslooked deeply suspicious and nervous. I have explained to my students that thissemester will be an experiment.While I have access to a huge range of web 2.0 technology thanks to thecomputer lab, the content that I teach is still restrictedasmy administration alsofeels strongly that different sections of the same course should still have thesame content and assessment strategies. I have found a way to work around thischallenge by simply using the technology available to differentiate instruction andassessment. That way, no student is ever penalized for not wishing to usetechnology.A typical period of my grade 11 English class looks like this: Students come intoclass and log on to their computers. They go first to our class website,www.danikabarker.ca, and then follow the link to their class blog,http://eng3u.edublogs.org/. They find instructions and updates and begin workingwhile I talk to individual students and complete attendance. Some students thenlog off the computer and choose to sit at one of the tables, while others staylogged-on. I conduct a focus lesson on a particular topic and then have a practiceassignment, usually in small groups. Students can choose to take a paper copyof the assignment or download the assignment from our class site on Edmodo.We debrief and then I assign any individual work at which point students canchoose again whether they will work online, or at their desks.For the purposes of this study, I will focus my research on two 2.0 platforms mystudents use regularly in my grade 11 class. Edmodo is an online classroomcommunications tool for teachers and students to share notes, files, links, andassignments similar to Twitter or Facebook. The teacher can create a class andadd students to the class, but it is not open to the public. Students can accessthis site anywhere at anytime provided that they have internet access. I do notinsist that students make use of this site. I offer it as an alternative way to receiveand submit assignments. I have also found that they use this for asking mequestions or staying caught up on work when absent.We have also just started to use a Ning which is a social networking site, againsimilar to Facebook, to act as enrichment and support for our study of
The Great Gatsby.
This site allows students to form groups, add content such as video clipsand music, and create discussion forums on topics of their interest. Our GatsbyNing will evolve depending on student need and interest. I am also trying a Ningto support the literature circles in my grade 12 college level English class (thisclass is not scheduled in a computer lab), and to support and extend the study of the novel
Life of Pi
in my grade 12 university level English class.I would like to see how these two types of web 2.0 technology have an impact onstudent achievement and motivation.
M
ETHODOLOGY
Introduction
The methodology summarized in this section includes: demographics, researchmethod, data collection, and ethical considerations. The main question in thisstudy is: What is the impact of web 2.0 technology on student engagement andattitude in a secondary English classroom?
Demographics
The study focuses on a grade 11 university preparation English class composedof 15 girls and 12 boys. All students have internet access at home, althoughsome have limited access due to dial-up. The class is scheduled in a computer lab so students have access to computers for the entire period if they choose touse them. The physical environment of the classroom is unusual for students andmost of them are accustomed to a more “traditional” English classroom withdesks and a blackboard. While most of the students spend one to two hours aday outside of class time using computers for socializing, playing games, andoccasionally doing homework, some of them have been uncertain and evensuspicious about using computers on a regular basis for school work. It is asthough they are uncomfortable with the idea of their two worlds overlapping.
Research Method
This is a mixed-methodology study. Students will complete a survey in October after we had already done some work with a class blog and Edmodo.Throughout our study of the novel
The Great Gatsby
students will have thechoice as to whether they continue to use the Gatsby Ning to enrich their study of the novel, posing questions and posting discussions to add to their understanding of themes, symbols, knowledge of characters.At the end of the unit, students will complete a second survey to see if there havebeen any changes in their attitudes toward technology. Additionally, I willcompare student achievement on the in-class essay to see if voluntary use of theclass Ning has had any impact.
Data Collection
I will collect the pre and post-study surveys for qualitative purposes. Surveyquestions will focus on a number of different areas relating to student attitudeabout specific pieces of technology and learning, influences that may inform their attitudes, and their perceptions of specific learning activities we’ve completed inclass so far.Students self-select for this study which means that it is possible that some of thestudents who choose to use the Ning will already be stronger students, whichdoes limit the reliability of the quantitative data.
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Action Research Project
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| Upload Date: | 11/24/2009 |
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