MonstersBloominOurWiki

=**Welcome to the Monsters Bloom in our Wiki Wiki**=


 * Category:** **Kicking it Up a Notch**
 * Presentation Title: ”****Monsters Bloom in our Wiki”** (14:16) **__2 CATNIP HOURS__**
 * Webpage:** http://k12onlineconference.org/?p=338
 * Presentation Description:** Learn how our Monster Project encourages creativity and the development of reading and writing skills while integrating technology into the classroom. Using monsters as a vehicle, students across the United States exchange written descriptions and recreate their partner’s monster without ever looking at the real thing. Teachers will discover free tools available online, connect drawing and writing tools, learn how to work with multiple files in a wiki, and equate various goals of the revised Bloom’s Taxonomy with an electronic platform. Lesson plans, tips, and resources are shared.
 * Presenters:** **Ann Oro,** Roselle Park, New Jersey, USA & **Anna Baralt,** St. Petersburg, Florida, USA

//If you have questions regarding entering information into this Wiki please contact Kim Thomas (kthomas@msd38.org).//

If you are using a VoiceThread for your Summary please post the link in the Summary section. Make sure your VoiceThread is //not// private. If you are submitting an audio response you will need to email that directly to Kim Thomas (kthomas@msd38.org).
 * Essential Questions and Summary.** (Please follow this format.)

1. Your Name: Elysia Levy Session Title: Monsters Bloom in our Wiki

Essential Question 1: What type of project can allow a young student to collaborate with others outside their building? Response: Monsters were used as the vehicle for allowing others to collaborate with their peers to make the others monsters without ever seeing the real thing. “Monsters” can be changed into anything, a new state, a new principal or pet. This can be done not only with different classrooms within a same school but schools across the country. Essential Question 2: How can a young student analyze the work of their peers? Response: Students were able to judge, critique, of the drawings compared to the actual description written down. This also helps students who might have forgotten to write an adjective for a specific part because the drawings will look different. This also is a good way to see how had the best descriptive words by seeing which pictures might have the closest match. Essential Question 3: How can a teacher integrate the various levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy with an electronic platform? Response: Each part of this lesson was a different step in Bloom’s starting with the bottom and went up to the top. All steps of the project were aligned exactly with Bloom’s Taxonomy. It was a great way to break down a bigger project for first time Wiki uses that are so young. Students were also asked to use these higher order thinking skills to evaluate their peers that had posted their ideas based of the descriptions provided. I really enjoyed watching this and learning how I can use technology to a topic that I already use. My students will enjoy the interactive approach. I also want to start using the ideas of making other drawings that students will share (like a dog, person, or even a store). In my classroom I have a template that says “My monster has __(pick a #)(pick a shape) (pick a color) body__ and then so on for all the parts of the monster’s body. I mainly have done this project in the past to build skills such as, fluency with spelling number, colors, and shapes, and also to help build confidence when reading out loud to the whole class. Now this can be done with other schools or just classrooms that also have SmartBoards.

2. Your Name: Keri Hargrave Session Title: Monsters Bloom in our Wiki

Essential Question 1: What type of project can allow a young student to collaborate with others outside their building? Response: There are many types of projects that can allow young students to collaborate outside their classroom. Global collaborative projects, video conferencing projects, a virtual classroom project with students in various locations, and a wiki project are some examples of how students can collaborate. These are all projects using the latest technology where students can communicate with others through computers and/or cameras to accomplish a task. In the video, we watched students use a wiki to collaborate (the final project). The teacher helped in facilitating lots of the collaboration outside the classroom during the length of the project. Essential Question 2: How can a young student analyze the work of their peers? Response: In the video, the students compared and contrasted their work to their peers. If for example, the description said long hairy red ears, then the student drew that. If one student didn’t draw the ears red, then he could analyze that the illustrator didn’t read the description clear. Essential Question 3: How can a teacher integrate the various levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy with an electronic platform? Response: One way to do it is just as they did in the video - you create each lesson based on one step. For example, in one of the final lessons, they judged, critiqued and analyzed their peer’s lesson. They were to write what went right and wrong with the description/picture. This was in the “evaluation” phase using Bloom’s taxonomy. You can look at the various levels of Bloom’s taxonomy and chunk out your lessons accordingly. Summary: This video showed that with the right technological tools and proper organization, teachers can create theme based lessons that are extremely engaging. It was perfectly chunked out, it used all of Bloom’s steps, and it grabbed all the various intelligences in the classroom. For example they read, they were read to, and they listened to stories that had to do with adjectives. Then there was a tactile lesson where they used adjectives on a card sort. Finally they were using technology – which while being a tactile tool, helped them tap into intrapersonal and interpersonal intelligences as they read and analyzed stories and drew their own version. The project continuously offered the students a creative and directive role in their work. In the final stages, the project was up on the wiki and the students could go and see their peers, comment, edit, etc. The Monster Project was one of the most creative projects I have seen using the wiki. 3. Your name: Rob Lazarus Session Title: Monsters Bloom in our Wiki Essential Question 1: (type the question)What type of project can allow a young student to collaborate with others outside their building? Response: In the case of Monster Bloom in Our Wiki, monsters were used as the vehicle for reading, writing and technology skills, but virtually concept can be used as a vehicle to collaborate between others. For example, I once presented a lesson for sixth grade about constellations. After reading several mythical stores of how certain constellations were named, I had students draw their own constellation, name it, and write a mythical story on why it was named. Then another student had to write a short story explaining what they thought the constellation looked like to them, as well as how the constellation got its name. The two students then compared their stories. High level Blooms taxonomy objectives were a part of the lesson, much like with the "Monsters" lesson. In the constellation lesson, students critiqued and evaluated each other work. The only thing missing was the Wiki technology factor that could have been easily applied. Although this was a second grade lesson, this can easily be modified for upper grades in any subject area.

Essential Question 2: (type the question) How can a young student analyze the work of their peers? Response: It seems that students enjoy analyzing and evaluating the work of other students, especially when it relates to their own work. In writing, the six traits is a vehicle to use in in analyzing the work of others. In "Monsters" the students used the six traits to create their original "monster art". The other students who were reading the description to create their version of the monster can also use the six traits to analyze such things as proper voice, and word choice.

One activity I do with my students is the creation of a paper plane. Although this relates to science, it has a great deal to do with listening and speaking skills. While one student is on one side of the room, he/she creates a paper airplane while giving step by step directions to the other student on the other side of the room who is to create the same paper airplane, based on the directions given. After, they compare the two paper airplanes and discuss why they may look very similar or why they don't. What word choice could have been used to make the directions more easily understood and the paper airplanes more similar? The students evaluate the set of directions. How can they be improved? What would you say different? This activity can be easily done using the technology of Wikis much like the "Monster" activity.

Essential Question 3: (type the question )How can a teacher integrate the various levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy with an electronic platform?

The "Monsters activity was a great way to show that although it may not be done in one or two days, that you can start the early Bloom's Taxonomy objectives (remembering, listing, memorizing) working up to evaluation throughout the lesson. Students need to have a basic understanding of the concept such as by listing or memorizing words then applying them in the creation of story, then analyzing stories for descriptive word choice, voice etc, and evaluating the writing pieces. This was clearly show in the "Monster" lesson

Summary: The overall objective of the authors was to show that students can collaborate on a project in reading and writing using the Wiki as the technological vehicle. This lesson can easily be modified for any grade level and for any concept using blooms taxanomy objectives. I look forward to using this type of activity in my classroom using the technology.

4. Your name:Alec Fick Session Title: Monsters Bloom in our Wiki Essential Question 1: What type of project can allow a young student to collaborate with others outside their building? Response: There are many types of projects that can allow young students to collaborate outside their classroom such as video conferencing, video streaming and podcast.  These students use the Wiki as a tool for collaborating with others. Essential Question 2: How can a young student analyze the work of their peers? Response: A young student can analyze his peers' work by asking themselves questions about how helpful certain instructions were in describing their monster or what better way they could have described their monster's characteristics to draw a more accurate reproduction of their monster. Essential Question 3: How can a teacher integrate the various levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy with an electronic platform? Response: A teacher can use the Bloom's Taxonomy to help the students through the various levels of learning no matter what is being taught. Summary: During the Monster project, students are able to learn the importance of using descriptive words and phrases to convey meaning to others. In a fun and exciting platform, using new technologies that can unite students from off-campus locations, the Wiki internet site was able to stimulate the creative thought processes of the students.

5. Your name: Joella Bever Session Title: Monsters Bloom in our Wiki Essential Question 1: What type of project can allow a young student to collaborate with otuhers outside their building? Response: After completing the Smart Board class I have learned that there are many different means that students can collaborate outside their classrooms. I am sure that I have only touched on a few and they are growing daily. This video, "Monsters in our WiKi" uses monster as a vehicle for young students to learn about adjectives through pictures of monsters and share with students across the country. Amazing! Essential Question 2: How can a young student analyze the work of their peers? Response: The video shows how students compare and contrast their work to other students across the country. Using the six traits writing process the students created monsters. The other students only read the descriptions of the monsters and then created what they thought the monster looked like. The student can see how well they did on their writing by how much the monsters looked alike. I think this would be a fun lesson and by making a few changes could also be used for older students to enhance their writing. Essential Question 3: How can a teacher integrate the various levels of Bloom's Taxonomy with an electronic platform? Response: This video shows how Bloom's can be integrated at the simplest levels. They started with one step and continued up the scale and ended with the students judging, critiquing, and analyzing their peers lessons. Then they were to write if they thought they had all completed all of the parts correctly. Summary: This lesson looked like it would be so much fun with a lot of learning using all of the parts of Bloom's. The students are using technology which is so engaging to **all** students. The lesson included fun stories, tactile lessons using the card sort, and then using technology to creating their monsters. The lesson covered many different areas of learning including showing students that their class is opened to the world.

6. Your Name: Deanna Wagner Session Title: Monsters Bloom in our Wiki Essential Question 1: What type of project can allow a young student to collaborate with others outside their building? Response: I like this particular monster drawing project because it incorporates concepts that are important to students with special needs: describing words, colors, and body parts. Using the wiki, students and teachers can share pictures across classrooms. We could also think about using this to add some variety to the Mat Man activities (Handwriting without Tears Curriculum). Students could draw the body parts in different colors and sizes and the teacher could type the description for other students to copy. Essential Question 2: How can a young student analyze the work of their peers? Response: By comparing their drawing to a peer’s drawing, students can discuss how they are the same and how they are different. I like how they can give feedback about which words their peers wrote helped them to draw the monster and which words were missing. They can also look at a monster drawing and talk about how it is the same or different from the monsters in the books they read. Essential Question 3: How can a teacher integrate the various levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy with an electronic platform? Response: The video for this class clearly demonstrated how this project applies higher level learning, including how they applied, analyzed, evaluated, and created their monsters as well as their peers’ on the computer using the KidPix software. Written reflections on the wiki clearly documented higher level thinking skills required of these students.

Summary: I enjoyed watching the video and seeing how the teachers organized their wiki so that the students could see the results of the monsters drawn as well as add their own reflections at the end of the activity. With help from the teacher, this activity can be completed with a wide range of skill levels. 7. Your name: Anne Schamburek Session Title: Monsters Bloom in our Wiki Essential Question 1: What type of project can allow a young student to collaborate with others outside their building? Response: There are various types of projects which allow young children to collaborate with others outside of their school. Students can collaborate through video conferencing projects, Voice Thread projects, and Wiki projects. Teachers can connect with other schools through the internet using Wiki. Students as early as preschool are able to participate in this type of project incorporating monsters or any other topic at a modified level. Essential Question 2: How can a young student analyze the work of their peers? Response: For young children, the teacher can facilitate the activity of covering up the monster and verbally provide the description. Students can imagine a picture in their minds. The teacher can reveal the image of the monster and students can determine if their description matches. Another activity which involves the analysis of student work includes comparing and contrasting their drawings of monsters to the monster in the book “Go Away Big Green Monster.” Essential Question 3: How can a teacher integrate the various levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy with an electronic platform? Response: Bloom’s Taxonomy can be incorporated into any lesson plan involving technology. This video showed how the various activities related to each level of Bloom’s Taxonomy. Summary: This video incorporated various components of technology and the levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy which engaged students in learning. The monster project was creative and could be used with any topic. This project could be modified for students at any grade level. I like the idea of student interaction with others from another state using Wiki. 8. Name: Jan Pavella Session Title: Monsters Bloom in our Wiki Essential Question 1: What type of project can allow a young student to collaborate with others outside their building? Response: Projects set-up by the teacher such as e-mails to students, websites found by or in conjunction with the teacher and voice treads just to name a few. I have already contacted colleagues from my past district and we have decided to put our students in contact with each other. Essential Question 2: How can a young student analyze the work of their peers? Response: Young students can analyze work of others in very simple words. As with this monster project the students can describe what they see through size, color and shape. From there they can use words to describe the monster they see as compared to the monster they drew. Words in the child’s vocabulary such as same or different, big or little or scary and friendly can be used by the child. Essential Question 3: How can a teacher integrate the various levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy with an electronic platform? Response: The six levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy can be incorporated into student’s work. In this video each step of the project was a level of Bloom’s. The teacher of the very young could do the same. They could break down the activity into each level. The project would take longer however with a young student I don’t see that as a bad thing. Summary: This video used monsters as its theme and took the children through each level of Bloom’s Taxonomy. Each step of the project was a level of Blooms. This could be incorporated into all projects and used with all levels of students. It seemed very simple but I am sure a lot of work and planning was put into this project. 9. Your name:Lani Kapanak Session Title:Monsters Bloom in our Wiki Essential Question 1:What type of project can allow a young student to collaborate with others outside their building? Response: Any type of project that can be developed in steps and allows for input from others whether it be like the project seen in the video where the drawings where developed based on a description. Another ideas might be creating a fairy tale where parts are written by alternating classes. One class could write the beginning, a second class could write the next event, class one the next and so on until the story is completed. There would obviously have to be some guidelines developed by the teacher about what elements would be required in the story but this would allow for collaboration between classes at different schools. Essential Question 2: How can a young student analyze the work of their peers? Response: Understanding the requirements of completed work will help students analyze others work. Questions can be developed through brainstorming to help students determine what they are looking for. Students may also come up with questions on their own to help them anaylze and may use words or drawings to do so. Essential Question 3: How can a teacher integrate the various levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy with an electronic platform? Response: The monster project very clearly and deliberately identified their process of moving through the various levels of Bloom's Taxonomy. I appreciated how as they moved through the lesson they also moved higher in levels and at one time even demonstrated how they covered two levels with one of the lessons. As a project becomes richer and more developed it seems natural to integrate the various levels. I don't think it matters what type of platform is used for the lesson but more importantly what the objectives of each lesson and the thoughtfulness of the teacher to integrate the various levels. Summary: This project was very interesting and I think one students would enjoy immensely but more importantly learn a great deal from. I liked the use of different stories, the tool of inspiration and really encouraging students to think about how best describe something so that it could be recreated accurately. These teachers obviously took a lot of time to plan this project and demonstrated a willingness to share ideas. Once again, technology is proving to be an amazing tool in schools.

10. Response: ** In this video clip the students used wiki as a means to collaborate with others outside their building. There are other technology mediums such as pod casts and video conferencing that would allow this. In the case of Monster Wiki, the students were engaged in a large project beforehand that concluded with outside collaboration. Response: ** The young students are able to analyzing their peers though the monster recreation. After participating in the recreation the students have first hand knowledge of the ideas, words and drawings that lead to successful recreations. Response ** : Monster Wiki is a great example of how instruction can start at the bottom of Bloom’s and build all the way to the top using one theme and different lessons. This project allowed for the students to experience all the levels of Bloom’s through one thematic unit. 11. Your name: Kelly Hernandez Session Title:Monsters Bloom in our Wiki Essential Question 1: What type of project can allow a young student to collaborate with others outside their building? Response: There is no limit to the type of projects that you can allow students the opportunity to collaborate with others around the world. Students can become pen pals with peers around the world by using classroom blogs. They can also collaborate with another class in the country to study weather patterns in different regions. In the Monsters Bloom in our Wiki video, students learn the importance of adjectives through using a description to draw a picture of a monster. Essential Question 2: How can a young student analyze the work of their peers? Response: In the video Monsters Bloom in our Wiki, young students analyzed the work of their peers by using their descriptions of a monster they drew to recreate it with out seeing the picture. After students drew the recreation they were able to compare it with the original drawing. The students compared all of the recreations to the original drawing. They then analyzed which recreations were successful and why. Essential Question 3: How can a teacher integrate the various levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy with an electric platform? Summary: The video showed how the students applied, analyzed, evaluated, and created monsters. The students created their own monster and description. They evaluated and analyzed their partner’s description and original monster. They also recreated the monster based on their partner’s description. In this lesson the students used the higher levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy. 12.  Your name: Erin Campbell Session Title: Monsters Bloom in our Wiki Essential Question 1: What type of project can allow a young student to collaborate with others outside their building? Response:There are many types of projects that students could collaborate on with peers that are not in their same school site. One way is by creating lessons that require feedback from peers. For example, is a student writes a story and uses voice thread to record it, they would be able to send it to a student or whole class in another school for feedback. Students could also use live streaming to work with another class, either showing them presentations or working on projects together. This would also be a good way to have student from different areas share what it is like where they lived and they could compare surroundings, customs, etc. Another project would be that students could be pen pals either via regular mail or email.  Essential Question 2: How can a young student analyze the work of their peers? Response: In the video it mentioned 2 different ways that students could analyze the work of their peers. One way was to show their work to the entire class and ask for feedback. Another way was to do a walk about and have the work sitting out. Students were then asked to share which project they felt met the expectations. Students can also analyze each other's writing and offer feedback for editing.  Essential Question 3: How can a teacher integrate the various levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy with an electric platform? Response: The monster wiki is a great example of taking students through the all the levels of Bloom's Taxonomy. Any project that requires students to use a previously learned skill and create something beginning with a plan will allow students to move through these levels. If the project is complete with any type of technological format it would be integrating both technology and blooms. Summary: This video did a great job of showing how you can use technology, reading and writing to move students through the levels of Blooms Taxonomy. The activity is wonderful and could be tried even if you don't have the technology available. 
 * Your Name: ** Michelle Hebert
 * Session Title:** Monsters Bloom in our Wiki
 * Essential Question 1: What type of project can allow a young student to collaborate with others outside their building?
 * Essential Question 2: How can a young student analyze the work of their peers?
 * Essential Question 3: How can a teacher integrate the various levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy with an electronic platform?
 * Summary: ** I look forward to using a version of Monster wiki in my class, it is an awesome example of how technology can be integrated into language arts curriculum. In addition, the technology and the lessons in this project gave the students many opportunities to be engaged and express themselves.

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