Lesson 1C
I used the French edition, and searched for "house." The response was quick, but I was surprised by how many items pertained to the United States. I had expected the articles to emphasize houses in France and French speaking countries. I did not get the article on Maisons that focused on houses; rather I got articles on Hull House, Halifax, and Jane Addams. The sidebar information was cognates and unremarkable. I noticed when I hovered over certain terms like "suivant" an English definition popped up. Students would like that.
Next I browsed "Peuple" and scrolled down to find "Maison." For results, I got three pages of articles ranging from terrariums to lamps to pets to vacuum cleaners. There was also a wonderfully complete article on houses, and once I found the Translate button I was able to learn a lot.
I encourage my students to explore and just have fun in the French and Spanish editions. They rarely have enough free time or patience to do this, but on the occasions when I have required them to do it for 10 minutes, they laugh a lot and enjoy it. Sadly, there is very little opportunity for this kind of playtime in a middle school day.
Tuesday, January 21, 2014
Lesson 1B.1 WB Online Info Finder Kids
I went to Games, hoping I might find something for SPED student in my middle school. The Spelling Maze was too graphically immature for my students. The words were challenging enough for some SPED classes, but the only movement comes from using the arrow keys, and that is too simple for any students in my level. The line drawings were neither clever nor engaging.
The second game I tried was multicolored multipliers. As you solved a multiplication fast fact, numbered sections on a simple line drawing would get colored in. It would hold a child's interest for a while, and it does reinforce basic multiplication facts, but I am a real believer in using technology when it is the best way to teach, not just because it is available. In this case, I would far rather have the child select the colors they wanted and get the much-needed small muscle skill of coloring the sections themselves. The picture would look better, the child would be more engaged and proud of their own efforts. Having incorporated more kinetic activity, the exercise would be more deeply embedded in the child's memory.
The last game I tried was a kind of Social Studies tic-tac-toe. The questions were challenging; I liked playing against an unknown opponent, and the game was entertaining enough to be fun. I would recommend this to 7th grade Social Studies teachers in need of a fill-activity while they reteach lessons for struggling students.
Lesson 1B.2 WB Online Info Finder grades 5-9
I may have the title of this WB site incorrect. To my mind, there are so many WB sites it is very confusing. I have the same problem when I teach WB Online, and so do my students and teachers. I wish their names for the Public Library sections and the basic reference sections were radically different from each other.
I went to the virtual tour titled, "WB Explores the Pilgrims and Colonial Life." It loaded quickly and looked promising. The Q&A format was clear, but the time- and location-jumping between the questioner and the costumed responder seemed contrived. I would have preferred to see a 21st Century child speak their question directly to the re-enactor. It got even more confusing when a 21st Century historian joined the re-enactor in the video frame to try to re-answer the child's question. Then the historian explained in a slightly patronizing way that the term "Pilgrim" is never applied to these people, and that they never called themselves that nor thought of themselves as pilgrims. The questioner was using exactly the same terminology used by WB. If that's the case, why doesn't WB use proper terminology in its title for this tour?
I reviewed a few other questions. The re-enactor responder uses the same opening in each video clip, which would seem pretty fakey to kids. The language the re-enactor uses to answer the child's question is far too complex and mature for the age of the questioner. When the 21st Century historian steps into the video frame to clear it all up, she uses equally lofty language.
The last question I tried was "Did Native Americans marry?" I think the question rightly should be, "Did Wampanoags in the 1600s marry?" as variations likely existed between tribes and across the centuries of Native American life in North America. The re-enactor presents what seems to me like a late-19th Century notion of love and "wanting to spend the rest of their lives together" as the reason Wampanoags married. Were there no economic or political incentives in selecting mates? Did the young people choose their own partners without advice or interference from their elders? I did appreciate the explanation of a give-away.
Lesson 1B.3 WB Online Reference Center
I researched Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Under Related Information, the Primary Sources left me totally confused. I could not figure out how they related to Huck Finn, and there were no narrative introductions that I could find to help make the connections. This would not be something I could send 8th graders to and have them get anything out of it. The Back in Time articles had the same problem. They may have made glancing reference to Mark Twain or Huck Finn, but for students at my level, it would have been wasted time and effort to read through all this morass.
Of the six websites, the first one could not be found. The second and third went to the same site, but the material there was high quality, varied, and original. Sites 4 and 6 gave information on Twain works too loosely related to Huck Finn to be of use to middle schoolers. But site 5 on Tom Sawyer was very interesting and pertinent to understanding both Mark Twain and Huckleberry Finn.
On the whole, this side of the WB Online offerings leave me cold.
I went to Games, hoping I might find something for SPED student in my middle school. The Spelling Maze was too graphically immature for my students. The words were challenging enough for some SPED classes, but the only movement comes from using the arrow keys, and that is too simple for any students in my level. The line drawings were neither clever nor engaging.
The second game I tried was multicolored multipliers. As you solved a multiplication fast fact, numbered sections on a simple line drawing would get colored in. It would hold a child's interest for a while, and it does reinforce basic multiplication facts, but I am a real believer in using technology when it is the best way to teach, not just because it is available. In this case, I would far rather have the child select the colors they wanted and get the much-needed small muscle skill of coloring the sections themselves. The picture would look better, the child would be more engaged and proud of their own efforts. Having incorporated more kinetic activity, the exercise would be more deeply embedded in the child's memory.
The last game I tried was a kind of Social Studies tic-tac-toe. The questions were challenging; I liked playing against an unknown opponent, and the game was entertaining enough to be fun. I would recommend this to 7th grade Social Studies teachers in need of a fill-activity while they reteach lessons for struggling students.
Lesson 1B.2 WB Online Info Finder grades 5-9
I may have the title of this WB site incorrect. To my mind, there are so many WB sites it is very confusing. I have the same problem when I teach WB Online, and so do my students and teachers. I wish their names for the Public Library sections and the basic reference sections were radically different from each other.
I went to the virtual tour titled, "WB Explores the Pilgrims and Colonial Life." It loaded quickly and looked promising. The Q&A format was clear, but the time- and location-jumping between the questioner and the costumed responder seemed contrived. I would have preferred to see a 21st Century child speak their question directly to the re-enactor. It got even more confusing when a 21st Century historian joined the re-enactor in the video frame to try to re-answer the child's question. Then the historian explained in a slightly patronizing way that the term "Pilgrim" is never applied to these people, and that they never called themselves that nor thought of themselves as pilgrims. The questioner was using exactly the same terminology used by WB. If that's the case, why doesn't WB use proper terminology in its title for this tour?
I reviewed a few other questions. The re-enactor responder uses the same opening in each video clip, which would seem pretty fakey to kids. The language the re-enactor uses to answer the child's question is far too complex and mature for the age of the questioner. When the 21st Century historian steps into the video frame to clear it all up, she uses equally lofty language.
The last question I tried was "Did Native Americans marry?" I think the question rightly should be, "Did Wampanoags in the 1600s marry?" as variations likely existed between tribes and across the centuries of Native American life in North America. The re-enactor presents what seems to me like a late-19th Century notion of love and "wanting to spend the rest of their lives together" as the reason Wampanoags married. Were there no economic or political incentives in selecting mates? Did the young people choose their own partners without advice or interference from their elders? I did appreciate the explanation of a give-away.
Lesson 1B.3 WB Online Reference Center
I researched Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Under Related Information, the Primary Sources left me totally confused. I could not figure out how they related to Huck Finn, and there were no narrative introductions that I could find to help make the connections. This would not be something I could send 8th graders to and have them get anything out of it. The Back in Time articles had the same problem. They may have made glancing reference to Mark Twain or Huck Finn, but for students at my level, it would have been wasted time and effort to read through all this morass.
Of the six websites, the first one could not be found. The second and third went to the same site, but the material there was high quality, varied, and original. Sites 4 and 6 gave information on Twain works too loosely related to Huck Finn to be of use to middle schoolers. But site 5 on Tom Sawyer was very interesting and pertinent to understanding both Mark Twain and Huckleberry Finn.
On the whole, this side of the WB Online offerings leave me cold.
Thursday, January 16, 2014
Lesson 1a World Book Kids
I went to World of Animals and, lo and behold! there was a picture of an animal I actually know something about: the axolotl. I know of this Mexican salamander through a young microbiologist at the University of Minnesota. She is in a lab that is researching the axolotl's amazing ability to heal injuries with virtually no scar tissue. In fact, the axolotl's regenerative capacity is such that if you remove the poor thing's entire liver, it will keep itself alive while it grows a new liver. If we were to learn the secret of the axolotl's regenerative capacity, it seems that humans might truly be able to live forever, replacing each organ system with a new set as needed.
Setting that disturbing philosophical possibility aside, let's look at the information offered in World Book Kids. The picture is of an albino axolotl, but the article describes a normally colored axolotl. This is confusing. It's a great opportunity to mention albinos and what the term means, but they never do that. In fact, because axolotls are being so assiduously studied and it is easier to breed albino axolotls for studies, I believe there are more albino axolotls that normally colored axolotls on earth at any given moment. Surely this should be mentioned by World Book Kids.
I loved the "Exhibit" feature and will definitely show this to 6th grade classes doing animal research projects. The facts are clear, organized, and interesting (like that they share gender names with pigs: "boar" and "sow". How did that happen?) The article was mediocre at best. It didn't clear up the albino issue. It said they are popular pets but never explained why anyone would want to keep such an unattractive and apparently dull animal as a pet. What is it about axolotls that makes people want to domesticate them? Their importance in research was not mentioned nor, more importantly, was the regenerative capacity of salamanders in general.
I was surprised that the read-aloud feature was not very helpful. It is an automated voice which pronounces "axolotl" in awkward and inconsistent ways. Worse, if you press the "Hear text read aloud" link it reads every language it could read aloud in, and all the instructions. Students in the target age of "WB Kids" won't sit through for all this nonsense. More troubling, I can't find a way to stop Ms. Robotic Siri. As I write, she is dedicatedly reading the copyright and trademark information at the bottom of the page. I have clicked everywhere I can think of and cannot get her to stop.
When I logged in at South Middle School in Rapid City, the citations were not consistently organized: the APA and Harvard citations were spaced out vertically with one item per line. When I logged in at my house, the citations were lined up correctly. That seems odd.
But the bigger question is this: Why is Harvard citation formatting included in a resource aimed at K-5 in the first place? Are there elementary schools anywhere in the world that require Harvard citation formatting for elementary students? Here in Rapid City, we're being told if you can get middle school students to understand the legal requirements for citation, and to put the citation in MLA format, that's more than half the battle. Why can't those Massachusetts snoots just accept the MLA format? It' s got everything their format has except for the URLs which are impossibly long for students of World Book Kids age to transcribe anyway.
Nitpicking aside, I will definitely use the exhibit feature of this resource for 6th grade animal reports. The chart will make their work much easier and the MLA citation that they can just copy and paste to their bibliographies is icing on the cake.
Setting that disturbing philosophical possibility aside, let's look at the information offered in World Book Kids. The picture is of an albino axolotl, but the article describes a normally colored axolotl. This is confusing. It's a great opportunity to mention albinos and what the term means, but they never do that. In fact, because axolotls are being so assiduously studied and it is easier to breed albino axolotls for studies, I believe there are more albino axolotls that normally colored axolotls on earth at any given moment. Surely this should be mentioned by World Book Kids.
I loved the "Exhibit" feature and will definitely show this to 6th grade classes doing animal research projects. The facts are clear, organized, and interesting (like that they share gender names with pigs: "boar" and "sow". How did that happen?) The article was mediocre at best. It didn't clear up the albino issue. It said they are popular pets but never explained why anyone would want to keep such an unattractive and apparently dull animal as a pet. What is it about axolotls that makes people want to domesticate them? Their importance in research was not mentioned nor, more importantly, was the regenerative capacity of salamanders in general.
I was surprised that the read-aloud feature was not very helpful. It is an automated voice which pronounces "axolotl" in awkward and inconsistent ways. Worse, if you press the "Hear text read aloud" link it reads every language it could read aloud in, and all the instructions. Students in the target age of "WB Kids" won't sit through for all this nonsense. More troubling, I can't find a way to stop Ms. Robotic Siri. As I write, she is dedicatedly reading the copyright and trademark information at the bottom of the page. I have clicked everywhere I can think of and cannot get her to stop.
When I logged in at South Middle School in Rapid City, the citations were not consistently organized: the APA and Harvard citations were spaced out vertically with one item per line. When I logged in at my house, the citations were lined up correctly. That seems odd.
But the bigger question is this: Why is Harvard citation formatting included in a resource aimed at K-5 in the first place? Are there elementary schools anywhere in the world that require Harvard citation formatting for elementary students? Here in Rapid City, we're being told if you can get middle school students to understand the legal requirements for citation, and to put the citation in MLA format, that's more than half the battle. Why can't those Massachusetts snoots just accept the MLA format? It' s got everything their format has except for the URLs which are impossibly long for students of World Book Kids age to transcribe anyway.
Nitpicking aside, I will definitely use the exhibit feature of this resource for 6th grade animal reports. The chart will make their work much easier and the MLA citation that they can just copy and paste to their bibliographies is icing on the cake.
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