HIT: Using technology in English classroom (Pt3)

[Peta Ward <petaw@IAFRICA.COM>]

I think that laptops would be ideal for peer editing of draft documents
for children.  Two could either share one laptop and discuss by one
reading aloud the other's work from the screen, allowing instant editing
of the first one's work, and vice versa.  Laptops would be useful say for
notetaking keywords from a video, lecture, discussion etc. and then
fleshed out later.


We have had great success with book raps. Try this link to find out
more.

http://owl.qut.edu.au/oz-teachernet/projects/book-rap/br.html

We have had a Year 8 class study A Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine
Paterson and a Year 10 class study Bridge to Wiseman's Cove by James
Moloney (1997 winner of the Book of the Year here in Australia). We have
found the boys become highly motivated to read the books and also to
compose responses to email back to the rest of the students working on
the project. (It's great fun for the teacher too!)
It adds to the excitement of the project of students from other
countries join in as well. With Terabithia, we had American students
participating if I remember correctly.


Two successful projects involving technology in the English classroom at our
school
have been -
1. Using desk top publishing to produce a text response to a short story in
the form of a newspaper about the incident in the story, and
2. Using HTML to present an advertising campaign (on the WEB only locally
though) after learning about the language of advertising.


Many word processing programs have spelling check functions and some
even have grammar checking.  When the program spots what it "thinks" is an
error, it requires you to identify and correct it.  From what I've seen
among American students, these capacities are vital!  Quite a number of
older literary works and criticism are available on the Internet.  For
example, there's a wonderful site on Victorian society and literature
created by a professor at Brown University, and Project Gutenberg is
putting many texts of classical literature on the Web.


I think laptops would be a great help to students in English class.  And,
think of having international keypals, editing e-mail messages, writing
stories in collaboration with someone half a world away!  Could be great
fun as well as educational.


As a tool in aid of writing (technical or creative) or reading, a laptop in
every student's lap would be of enormous value, if the teacher are ready,
able to make use of the technology.

We do not have laptops at my site, but I have visited a school in
the Los Angeles area where they did have laptops for students. I saw
students doing word processing, taking and keeping class lecture notes,
accessing the Internet, working on and completing major multi-media
projects, etc. It seems to me that English classrooms might genuinely
find more use for laptops than any other classroom. Incidentally, I was
an English teacher for 25 years before I became a Library Media Teacher.



Some of our students have created Power Point presentations for their
research projects instead of the traditional research paper.  Of
course, they still have to turn in a bibliography and paper explaining
the graphics that they use in the slide show. Actually, that's a very
good method for teaching organization and transition.


 If I had laptops for all my students...we would do a lot more research and
writing. After all the currency of education is the ability to research and
communicate what you know. (writing...) So why not use the tools that the
students will use during their lifetime? Hope this help a little...by the
way...I would use Microsoft Office professional edition.  It has PowerPoint,
Word, Access, Excel, and outlook. All the programs one would need.


Our school has had students develop writing projects on computers and then
present the projects to their parents on parent conference days.
We've done book reports with hyperstudio, travel brochures, reports by
importing photos we've scanned, etc. It's a nice showpiece for the parents. We
don't have laptops in our school though. All elementary classrooms have 1
computer in them, and then we have 3 support labs which schedule classes and
allow for extra time when classroom teachers need it.
----

Peta Ward, Head of Media Centre
Hilton College
Private Bag 6001, Hilton, KwaZulu-Natal, 3245, South Africa
Tel: +27 331 430100          Fax: +27 331 430080
e-mail: petaw@iafrica.com    http://www.hilton.kzn.school.za

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