I am going to go in to work with the High Point class at Lincoln. These are 4th and 5th graders. I will be starting with what they are already learning in Unit 3. Their culminating project, Lesson 14, is a writing project where they need to interview a worker about their job. They will need to write questions using who, what, when, and where stems. Then they will do the interview (recording with itouches) and then they will write the answers.
I will be working with them to conduct the interviews, record them, and then listen to the answers to write them down using italk. We will then transfer them onto a computer using italk sync and be able to share them with classmates.
Frank Maggi
Oct 13, 2009 10:42 AM
Since the focus is supposed to be Reading Comprehension, I would really concentrate on the who, what, where stuff. Are you going to create a Keynote template to house the kids work? I think they'll have fun with this. Are there any restrictions on which "worker" they can interview?
mlopez
Oct 13, 2009 11:03 AM
It is on Questioning, which is one the the main strategies for Reading Comprehension. These students are very low, and are English learners. They had a lesson on how to use these types of questions today, having read a paragraph about a bicycle messenger. I will be going in Monday to work with them. They will be applying what they've learned by writing interview questions and then performing the interviews and writing the answers. This will tie in all the aspects of Questioning. I'll be taking pictures and recording the interviews to put into the Keynote.
The objective of the lesson is to ask and answer questions and write them. Another objective of the lesson is to plan, generate and organize their ideas and then self-assess.
tomborer
Oct 19, 2009 9:11 AM
You said they are going to record with the iPods. Do you alreay have an audio recorder that you are planning to use?
mlopez
Oct 19, 2009 11:18 AM
I was going to use italk, but per my email it is not on all my itouches because I need to pay $4.95 to upgrade. I prefer italk over speakeasy. Do you have another suggestion?
tomborer
Oct 19, 2009 3:06 PM
You'll want to upgrade all of your iPods no matter what.
If you already have iTalk and iTalk sync is already instalkled on all the computers, you could just keep using this.
There is an app called MobileStudio ($1.99) that allows you to make audio recordings, text documents, and simple drawings that can all be transferred to computers without the use of any extra software being installed to your computers.
I especially like it for it's text document capability. Basically every iPod becomes an AlphaSmart. This app is not a recommended app for iRead yet.
mlopez
Oct 29, 2009 8:26 AM
I had the students hand write their questions, and then was thinking they could use italk to record the interviews. If I used Mobilestudio, could they type their questions in and could that be tranferred to the computer also? Ooooooh, that's exciting!
mlopez
Oct 30, 2009 1:14 PM
This morning we started conducting interviews using italk. It is going well, but I went ahead and looked at the upcoming unit in High Point.
I'm looking at the next project to be identifying the Main Idea and Details in a story. That is actually a Comprehension Skill instead of a Strategy, but is still very important to support the higher level Strategies of Summarizing and Story Structure. In Unit 5, there is a story students will read that would lend itself to this type of activity.