See Jane Read... See Johnny Write: An electronic book project brings together elementary and high school students and helps the high schoolers learn to write for audience.
By Lyn C. Howell
Howell, a high school writing teacher from New Mexico, collaborated with her sisters second grade class in Georgia to create an electronic book project. At first Howell explained how she used to do the project with actual letters instead of emails and actual books instead of PowerPoint books. There were many drawbacks to the traditional way of doing this project but doing the project with technology made things less time consuming, easier, and more fun. This electronic book project benefited both the high schoolers and the second graders. For the high schoolers, they learned how to put a PowerPoint together, practiced writing in a very vivid and descriptive manner, and they had to focus on brainstorming so that the book would flow and make sense to the second graders. The second graders benefited because they were able to email back and forth with their high school buddy, and they were experiencing a new media for reading which encouraged literacy.
There was one part of the article that really impressed me. Howell had a couple of English Language Learners whose primary language was Spanish. So Howell asked her sister, the second grade teacher, if she had any students who spoke and read Spanish; and sure enough she did. So Howell allowed her ELL students to write their books in Spanish. I just thought this was a great way to modify an assignment so that the Spanish speakers would get as much out of this as the other students.
Overall, I would be interested in involving myself and my future students in a project like this one. I think its a great idea and I like how both classrooms would benefit from this project. Thank goodness for technology because it makes projects like these a lot easier and cheaper for the students and the teachers. Howell explained how expensive it was to send 30 hard copies of books through the mail but having the books as a PowerPoint and emailing them to the second grade teacher made it completely free.
Even Recess Can't Beat Technology
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"Who Are Today's Learners?" is the question that Christine Greenhow asks in
her article regarding how students feel about technology use in the
classroom. ...
16 years ago
This is a great example of how technology can help make projects more efficient, cheaper, and easier to adapt to different students. The truth of the matter is that books are being transferred into electronic formats all the time, and so many papers and assignments are going to be paperless for students today. By the time they get to college, they may not even need a printer, so these kind of assignments are great. Especially when teachers are hurting for funding (even at CSUSM, professors can't print out copies for students!), this is a great way to cut costs, in my opinion.
ReplyDeleteQuestion, are the students creating their own books or are they creating PowerPoint books of actual textbooks?
ReplyDeleteThere is a lot of benefits of having the class participate in this assignment. First, having the students recreate/create their books on PowerPoint will increase their understanding of topics covered on the books. It is said that writing out notes helps students be well-prepared for exams. Secondly, students are able to communicate with other students outside of their classroom. Students need to expand their social circle in the classroom in order to become tolerant to cultural diversity. Lastly, exposing young students to technology early on will help them be comfortable with using different technology tools in the future.
This is a great idea in making writing and reading fun. Also, gives several grade a chance to use technology. Not only did it get the high school students interesting in writing but they got to share their writing with other students who were younger which I thought was great, and not only where they younger but from different states. By being from different states students can share more and learn from others who live in different places. I would defiantly do something similar with my class.
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