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Holidays around the world
Rhonda Thornburrow, a Library Media Specialist, describes a technology research project
for first and second graders.
By Rhonda Thornburrow
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 t St. George
Elementary School, in St. George, Kansas, the technology and media center is
positively and progressively supported. We are very fortunate to have an
administrator and a team of staff members that allow the media center to be the
"hub of the wheel." Three years ago, a program called COLTS was implemented at
our school. COLTS is an acronym for our first and second grade students in
multi-age, continuous progress classrooms. It stands for Concentrating On
Learning Together Successfully. Each year, students participate in
technology-related thematic projects with the guidance of a COLTS facilitator.
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"We are very fortunate to have an administrator and a team of staff members
that allow the media center to be the 'hub of the wheel.'"
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s a Library
Media Specialist, I headed a committee for our district that helped to design a
gathering information process that is to be used by our staff to maintain
consistency in our K-12 curriculum programs. With this program, we have
implemented the Great Source books as a supplement for our gathering information.
Great Source books are a collection of teacher-friendly resources designed to
aid K-12 teachers in teaching subjects such as math, science, geography, language
arts, and writing. Along with resources on various subjects, there are resources
that teach strategies for student success. Using this program, Debbie Swoyer, a
COLTS facilitator, and myself, developed a lesson that would introduce the use of
various technologies for research in the library. The project involved students
gathering information about the theme Holidays Around the World.
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 n the first
lesson, students were asked to choose a holiday that they would like to study.
Debbie Swoyer, the COLTS facilitator, guided the students to brainstorm questions
that they would like to know about their holiday. These were written down on big
sheets of paper under each holiday to be researched. After that was completed,
she asked them what they expected of their project? This began the development
of a rubric that could be used throughout their project to help maintain a focus
toward the completion.
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Students record questions they want to research on notecards.
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n the second
lesson, the Great Source book, Write Away, was used when deciding what method
would be used when recording the answers to their questions. It was decided that
they would use note cards. One question would be put on each note card. This
was also introducing the method the third and fourth grades use when recording
their information for projects. This would assist them in focusing on only one
question at a time.
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 ow the
students were ready to begin their research using the technology and resources
available at the library. The students arrived in the media center with their
note cards in hand. Assisted by the teacher, the media specialist introduced and
reviewed with the children the various resources in the library. After the
lesson, the children helped to decide which resources would best serve their
needs.
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Students conduct research on the online catalog.
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listed all
of their ideas on a large sheet of paper. After discussing the various ideas, we
came up with the decision to use the online catalog to find non-fiction books to
answer their questions. The Internet would provide them with some sites that
would be bookmarked for their use. The information would also be reviewed with
the use of the text encyclopedia and the CD-ROM encyclopedia. The use of both
types of encyclopedias gave us the opportunity to compare the similarities and
differences in the reference tools.
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fter several
days of gathering their information, they were ready to put it down on paper. We
wanted the students to type their work using a word processor. We have a computer
lab in our school. There was a conflict with using the computer lab during our
class time. I had trained my third through sixth grades to use the Brother Power
Notebooks. I had decided that I would like to train the COLTS to type their
project on this word processor. They were extremely excited. The students were
able to take their notes and using this word processor to finish their article
about their holiday.
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Students type their research papers using Brother Power Notebooks.
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 he students'
digital camera was also used to take pictures of them during their projects. I
gave them a training session prior to their taking the pictures. These pictures
were put into their weekly classroom and school newspapers.
The Holidays Around the World research learning
project was a great success! The end result was a very excited and enthusiastic
group of students that learned more ways to access their learning through
technology.
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Rhonda Thornburrow is a Library
Media Specialist in St. George, Kansas.
Teacher Testimony authors are
nominated by people like you. Send nominations to the editor.
© 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000 SCR*TEC.
This page is Bobby
Approved.
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Great Source
Education Group. This site provides information about the K-12 resouces
available from Great Source. Take note!
COLTS: Concentrating On Learning Together
Successfully. Debbie Hodges, a COLTS facilitator, describes learning through
thematic adventures.