Project Overview

Description:

Middle school students will be participating in weekly message boards in Spanish class this year.  Each student will complete a response to the week's topic.   Afterwards, he or she will check back to react to two different responses. I will also respond to each student weekly.   This project will not be unlike our WebBoard discussions for EdPsy 387.

Assessment:

My students will be assessed on depth of discussion in their own writing responses and completion of two reaction responses. I will not use these activities as a way to assess their grammar use. However, I might ask them to print a few of their favorite responses for a portfolio. At that point, the students and I could take a look at their language use.

Goals:

Increased i ndividual contact:  Students and I will communicate on these boards weekly.  We will also review their writing quarterly as part of our portfolio development.

Communication practice: Students will respond to a writing prompt, read other the students' responses,
and respond to two students.  When the assignments occurred in notebooks, there was no correspondence with other students, and the instructor was only able to collect the journals periodically.  

Global participation:  I have posted this idea for other teachers to see.   Norma Scagnoli also offered to help me connect with some students in Argentina.  I hope my students are able to learn about the culture of others as well as to share their  own with our global participants.


Kinds of learners:

I have created two message boards: one for fifth and sixth grade students; the other for seventh and eighth grade.

Access to those learners:

As a class, I plan to sign up for the lab or our laptop computers every Monday.  Our students will have other classwork to complete for that day as well.  In addition, I will give students some free time periodically during the week, and they may choose to complete these message board assignments or other work at those times.  I have also made the students aware that they may use recess and before or after school to finish these weekly assignments.  Finally, students who use the Internet at the library or at home will be able to finish their assignments outside of school.

Issues Raised During the Project:

Q:  Will an assignment like this give students better opportunities for using the language? After all, we had been using journals to do a similar project last year.

A:  This process will give my students more opportunities to communicate.  By reading others' responses and writing back to their peers, students will have opportunities on these boards that they did not have in their notebooks.

Q:  By ending journal use, would students who do not have internet access at home be at a disadvantage and, therefore, receive less practice and individual attention?

A:  The discrepancy will remain between students who have home Internet access and those who do not.  However, I expect students to finish in class, s ince they have a week to complete one original response and two brief responses to other students .  If they do not finish in class, I have provided ample time during recess and outside of school (bus transportation is provided  45 minutes after the school day ends) for students to finish the assignment.  Finally, my school is considering a laptop checkout policy for students without computers.  I truly believe that students who do not have Internet access at home are not at a major disadvantage with this project because our school has taken steps to close the gap.

I have given this last question major thought over the last few weeks.  Because my school has a decent supply of computers, I feel that the "have-nots" must have assignments like these.  Since they cannot get exposure to the Internet at home, school is the only place these students can experience the Internet.  If we as teachers take this type of assignment away from kids now in the name of equality, the kids without home access are put at a further disadvantage in the future because they have missed out on an experience that other students will have had at home.  I do not feel I can discontinue a project like this because some students do not have home access; that is exactly why I feel we must continue with projects like this one.