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Spotlight on the 2002 SIG/Tel Online Award Winners

Honorable Mention Nancy Gardner and Ferne Martin-Hosking with Jan Van Dam and Sally Bair. (Al Rogers)

All About Me Nancy Gardner, Ferne Martin-Hosking Yutaka Okamoto Target Audience: Grade 4

Art Freiler School
2421 West Lowell
Tracy, CA 95377
USA
fhosking@tusd.net
209.831.5170
www.tracy.k12.ca.us/afes/technology/aprce.htm
www.sbpark.com/2002pjt/sbpark2e.html

Project Summary

The All About Me project was developed as a pilot portion for a long-term project developed by Yutaka Okamoto (in collaboration with a variety of other contributors) called "Asia-Pacific Regional Cultural Exchange for Children and Young People". As the pilot, students in a fourth grade class created photo journals of their daily lives to be shared via internet with students in other countries. The purpose was to establish an introduction and open communications between students from a variety of countries, beginning with Japan and the US.

Objectives

Freiler School is a science and technology magnet school in the Tracy Unified School District in Tracy, California. Because technology is a crucial piece of this project, the project supports the general vision and mission of the school as a technology magnet as well as achieving a variety of classroom objectives.

The classroom involved in the pilot of the project is a year-round fourth grade classroom of 32 students. The following classroom/grade level objectives were addressed through the All About Me project:

• Students compare and contrast the daily lives of children from a variety of cultures
• Students experience global communications made possible by technological advances
• Students use technology tools to create and publish documents
• Students build descriptive writing skills
• Students learn to adjust writing style to best suit a variety of audiences

Necessary Telecommunications Resources

• Internet ready computers, loaded with Microsoft Front Page (our district's standard for web page construction) and Microsoft Word (Office XP Professional Suite)
• Internet Services and infrastructure to allow internet access in the classroom
• Students in our pilot connected to the internet via use of wireless laptops, however a hard-wire solution could be used as well
• Web-based translation services through an international clearing house of translators organized through the international project founders.
• Scanner
• Digital and regular cameras

Role of Telecommunications

Tele-collaboration and telecommunication are the most critical pieces of this project. It is the sharing between countries that creates the perpetuation of the project itself, but it is the global communication and understanding that will develop over time that makes the project meaningful for students; not just as a year-long experience, but as a life-long learning experience.

Curriculum Area(s) Involved

The All About Me project directly involved language arts and social studies and covered both district and State standards in these two areas. It also covers a number of the benchmarks in our District Technology Plan. Additionally, future projects will involve students in collaborative discussions and problem solving in the areas of math and science. Students also learn presentation skills, gain global awareness, and grow in their sense of "self" as they discover more about the world and its inhabitants. Because this project is the first of its kind, some students have also had opportunities to practice public speaking as they present their project to a variety of audiences.

Grade Level(s) Targeted

The All About Me projects were created by 4th grade students, however the larger-scale international project will eventually involve all grade levels represented at Freiler School (kindergarten through eighth grade).

Planning Requirements & Procedures

Initial planning for the All About Me project involved meetings between the technology coordinator and the classroom teacher, and between the technology coordinator and Mr. Okamoto (coordinator for the larger-scale international project). These planning sessions occurred both in person and via e-mail. Once a general idea of the project was formulated, planning sessions grew to include the entire 4th grade team, additional teachers who are interested in becoming involved in future projects, site administration, and District administration.

The initial project was also presented to District Technology Support Advisors, and to the District's Board of Education.

Print Materials Needed

Hard copy of project requirements for students to take home Hard copy of scoring rubric for each student Permission Slip for use of student pictures on web page

Class Management Strategies/Required Activities

1. Technology coordinator and classroom teacher team-teach an introductory lesson about the international project and its purpose.
2. Students generate a list of questions they have about life in the other countries involved.
3. Students are given the project assignment to create photo journals with descriptions that would answer the questions they generated, but about themselves and their lives.
4. Students begin taking and collecting pictures of their daily routines at home and at school.
5. Technology coordinator and classroom teacher team teach a "how to" lesson about how to use table format, insert picture and other functions of Microsoft Word to create a well designed page layout for their "book."
6. Students work at stations during class time to scan pictures into digital format and write descriptions of activities depicted.
7. Final projects are printed in color for students, and are converted into web pages by the technology coordinator (eventually, students will learn to do the conversions as well).
8. Web pages are published and the URLs are e-mailed to Mr. Okamoto for translation so that Japanese students can read them in their native language. The translated web pages are posted through Mr. Okamoto's Research Foundation.

Suggested Class Time & Project Duration

• Introductory lesson: 45 minutes
• Student picture collection time: two weeks (with periodic in-class check-ins)
• How-To Microsoft Word lesson: 1 hour
• Individual student work time after week 1 of picture collection (students work in stations): 1 hour per day, four days per week, three weeks.

Schedule is flexible and may need to be modified depending on available computers and other resources. Additional time will also need to be scheduled after completion of the project, to allow for responses to other countries' projects and questions. We anticipate devoting approximately 1 hour per week for follow-up projects and communications initiated by this project.

Method(s) for Evaluating Student Achievement of Objectives

1. Teacher assessment of "book" using teacher-developed rubric
2. Teacher observation of use of technology tools
3. Survey of student attitude about project