Transforming students from consumers to creators of media
As educators, we work hard to enlighten, engage, and empower our students through purposeful instruction that affords them the experiences and knowledge to succeed in their future college and career choices. Doing so involves working with many Web 2.0 tools that facilitate both our students and our opportunities for learning. Taking multiple forms as we transition from one modality to the next, we integrate the use of various tools to support learning and instruction . At times, we find one tool supports a task, while at other times we need something completely different to help us achieve an identified purpose. Technology offers us many opportunities to accomplish our purpose and convey our message through multiple mediums. The use of technologies in our classrooms supports instruction occurring through new mediums and venues while still accomplishing a well designed instructional purposes.
Shared below are examples of how we at Health Sciences High and Middle College (HSHMC) a public charter school in San Diego, CA utilize technology to help guide students in becoming not just consumers of media, but creators of media as they engage with various technologies. Our students have incredible ideas and skills and we believe their contributions to social platforms should be well rooted in academic knowledge and behavior. The following examples illustrate some of the great work that our students produce when they are provided a learning environment where technology and instruction are purposely integrated.
Shared below are examples of how we at Health Sciences High and Middle College (HSHMC) a public charter school in San Diego, CA utilize technology to help guide students in becoming not just consumers of media, but creators of media as they engage with various technologies. Our students have incredible ideas and skills and we believe their contributions to social platforms should be well rooted in academic knowledge and behavior. The following examples illustrate some of the great work that our students produce when they are provided a learning environment where technology and instruction are purposely integrated.
11th Grade Romeo & Juliet Character Analysis Using Wikis & Memes
Internet memes have become very popular, with their satirical insights into many popular topics. 11th grade teacher Marisol Thayer incorporated memes into an 11th grade character analysis project. Students developed character analysis observations and then created a meme that best described their characters.
10th Grade Worthy Cause Project Using Facebook
Social networking sites have become the go-to medium when it comes to staying connected to people and topics that matter to our students. Sites like Facebook, Tumblr, and Twitter can also be incredibly powerful platforms on which we can teach students the reach and impact these connections can make. In a 10th grade English class, Heather Anderson attempted to do just that as she developed a social media project that required students to initiate an online campaign to support a worthy cause. This aligned with one of our essential questions, "What's worth fighting or even dying for". With this question in mind, we encouraged our students to develop an online campaign using Facebook to promote and distribute information about their chosen cause.
9th Grade Literary Analysis Using ShowMe
Screen casting has been around for quite some time, but recently is becoming more popular among educators and students. Wanted to take advantage of this medium to facilitate an interactive activity for her 9th grade English poetry unit 9th grade teacher Dr. Johnson created opportunities for students to research poems, create a scrapbook, and then analyze them for literary terms. Using the iPad app ShowMe, students were able to peer review each other's scrapbooks. In allowing students to use this interactive whiteboard/screencasting app, her students were able to create a genuine multimedia product that was well rooted in academic purpose.