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Marshian
Chronicles
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Photo by Cris Crissman "Fortunately
many of my students made the connections from their own learning experience
to how they might create the conditions in their own classrooms."
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All this was done in advance of working toward the "Can Do"ówe decided
that what we could do with what we learned was to develop a website (http://soe.eastnet.ecu.edu/fore/crissman/5317/Fieldtrip/estuary.htm)
that would be of value to teachers and students who would be taking the
EstuaryLIVE trip. Three groups formed, each devoted to developing a webpage
about a special project on the estuary. One group developed "Literary Estuary"
page on which they published an annotated list of books about the estuary
and invited teachers and students to submit their favorites. The second
group designed a project they called, "The Kids' Guide to the Estuary"
in which they invited students to submit all kinds of stories and poems
about their experiences with the estuary. The third group designed a simple
survey for students to conduct and submit the data to us for compilation.
We completed our pages and invited the EstuaryLIVE site to link to ours.
Their inclusion of our work in the extensive EstuaryLIVE site was affirmation
for us and we felt like we had arrived! The fact that as far as we know
no one used our pages until Paul Brinkley applied the survey idea at East
Lee did not discourage us, and we learned a lesson from thisówhich you
will read more about in our lessons learned section.
You take a risk when you move university students out of their safe rows made for lecturing and into the uncharted waters of technology-mediated collaborative inquiries. Fortunately many of my students made the connections from their own learning experience to how they might create the conditions in their own classrooms. Linda wrote: And Beth picked up on the modeling going on:Your involvement with the estuary project is only a small part of how you incorporate technology and real life situations into the classroom. You have taught me so much about alternative ways to teach a subject. And Kirstin capped off the semester with this comment:It meant so much more to me learning about scaffolding as you were actually scaffolding the activities we were doing in class. Ralph wrote:It was really exciting to see you guys "live at the estuary." I think that kids would really get a kick out of this because they are getting answers to their questions, but it is not in a tedious textbook fashion. I also learned a lot by doing this project. I hope to use something like this when I get my own classroom. Thank goodness for the skeptics who serve to keep us on our toes. Caroline, on our original class "technology assessment" rated herself more toward the "peril" side of the continuum than the "promise" as in the "Promise and/or peril of technology." The live interactive internet field trip project only served to heighten her skepticism. She wrote:I have never done a project like that before. It was interesting and informative. Students will definitely have fun with online projects like this. They would really enjoy developing the website like we did in class. Having the chatroom to talk with the estuary directors was a great way to get students to realize how technology can be implemented into the classroom. We would like to believe that Caroline's estimation of the project would improve with the RealVideo technology but maybe not. She asks tough questionsóthe kind of questions a professor is pleased to see in the spirit of technology assessment and the development of a critical awareness of technology. We have proven that this grassroots internet field trip can be done. Now the larger question echoes Caroline's own: "Is this really worth doing?" "What's happening in classrooms?" "What lessons have we learned that will enable us to make these experiences truly valuable for students and teachers?"I found it [the interactive internet field trip] an incredible teaseóI imagine the kids out in the field were having a blast, and envied them for being able to take in the smell of the estuarine water, feeling the occasional breeze. Is it an arguable second-best to be able to talk to those students virtually real-time as they experience it? Dunno. With all the lag time, and the way the messages just (eventually) scrolled across the screen in stark black-and-white, I couldn't help but think how much more I'd enjoy simply talking with someone who'd been on the field trip. I'd have to wait until after they got back to ask my questions, but I can't think of a single disadvantage to the wait. Moreover, I'd be able to see their face as they talked. Sometimes I think maybe I just have little patience for sterile, mind-numbing, time-intensive technology. But then I think, should I be trying to develop patience for it? I'd rather spend five minutes face-to-face with a friend, or fifteen with a good book...and get the feeling that I'll be a lot richer for it than investing hours in technology . . . . I just think it's really important not to ask ourselves "What can we do with technology?" but "What can we do with technology that we couldn't do before, that's really worth doing?"
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Meridian: A Middle
School Computer Technologies Journal
a service of
NC State University, Raleigh, NC
Volume 3, Issue
1, Winter 2000
ISSN 1097-9778
URL: http://www.ncsu.edu/meridian/2000wint/estuary/estuary4.html
contact
Meridian
All rights reserved
by the author.
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