Teacher+Page

Teacher Page Joint Statement This ICT integration project requires us to create a unit of work based on our specific learning area (English) while using various ICT resources to enhance the learning experience for a Year 8 English class.

Our ICT webquest is focused on the topic of newspapers and is designed to teach students to critically analyse the construction of a newspaper article through specific language use, culminating in the students creating their own front page of a newspaper to demonstrate their understanding of the intended outcomes.

Through utilizing various ICT, students are encouraged to become actively engaged by scaffolding their initial learning of the content through three challenges in our GreenPepper Newspaper webquest. Once the basic concepts of newspaper and article construction have been mastered by students in the first two challenges, students are expected to, with the help of Microsoft Publisher, write and create their own front page of a newspaper. Their feature article must be based on a fairytale studied in the previous unit, enhancing their learning by manipulating, on a basic level, the elements of one literary genre into another.

From our understanding, the integration project encourages student centered learning as the very nature of the webquest allows for content to be scaffolded so that students can complete tasks at their own pace. 

Project Plan Mind Map

ICT Intergration Statement In addition to making use of the interactive whiteboard and the Internet in class, we will also integrate the following ICT over the course of our webquest:

We will be using the document viewer in our first lesson to analyse the parts of a newspaper. Using a current copy of the West Australian, students will be walked through the elements of a feature article and the layout of the front page of a newspaper. The integration of a newspaper that students are familiar with will aid their understanding and give them some perspective. The document viewer will allow us to annotate the newspaper as we go through it, providing a simple way of projecting this process so that the whole of the classroom can view it easily.
 * 1) Document Viewer:**

Brainstorming is a great learning tool for students to organise their ideas and make connections, especially when done in groups or as a class where they can be exposed to the ideas of their classmates.
 * 2) SpiderScribe**

We will use SpiderScribe in a number of our lessons as an interactive way to brainstorm as a class, with the ability to embed these mindmaps into our class wiki for students to refer back to as a resource. Students will also be asked to create their own mindmap using SpiderScribe to map out their feature article (which forms the last challenge in their webquest). The ability for students to embed pictures, documents and links within their mindmap using SpiderScribe makes it ideal for use in an activity like this.

Microsoft Publisher will be used by the students in their final challenge in the webquest to produce the front page of their own newspaper. Using their knowledge of the elements that make up the front page from our first lesson using the document viewer, and our brainstorming using SpiderScribe of the elements of a feature article, students will be able to produce their own newspaper and thus demonstrate their understanding of the previous three lessons. Students will need to invent the name of their paper, find or take their own photo for their feature article and format the front page for maximum reader impact. Indeed, as Hill and Ford (2000) state, “when students manipulate concepts and ideas via a technological medium, they intrinsically interact with those concepts and skills on multiple levels across diverse intelligences” (p. 22).
 * 3) Microsoft Publisher**

Hill, L. & Ford, K. (2000) Cross Conversations: To What Extent Should English Teachers Embrace Technology? The English Journal (90), 2, pp. 22-26

Evidence Based Learning Theory Our newspaper project is underpinned by constructivist theories of learning. Whilst there are many interpretations of the exact nature of constructivist learning, Woolfolk and Margetts (2010) have identified a number of common elements to these interpretations. Our project employs a range of these elements to enhance student learning:

**1) Complex Learning Environments and Authentic Tasks** Complex learning environments “mimic the ill-structured nature of real life” (p. 351). In our newspaper project, students are to create the front page of a newspaper (an “authentic task”) in which they will need to: - put in to practice their skills at formatting and designing their paper;  - deal with a word limit in order to make sure that their article fits to the page; and  - find or take an appropriate picture to enhance the narrative of their article.

They will no doubt encounter issues along the way in completing this task, however this authentic learning experience is arguably far more meaningful because students can see the context and purpose of their assessment (as opposed to perhaps just handing their article in on plain copy paper like they would an essay).

**2) Social Negotiation** In our brainstorming exercises, students will be required to contribute their thoughts on what the front page of a newspaper looks or should look like and the framework of a good feature article. This collaboration in class is aimed at developing “students’ abilities to establish and defend their own positions whilst respecting the positions of others and working together to negotiate or co-construct meaning” (Woolfolk & Margetts, 2010, p.351).

**3) Multiple Perspectives and Representations of Content** Spiro (1991) states that revisiting material in different contexts enhances student learning in that they are gaining advanced knowledge of a particular subject due to their need to frame understanding within different conceptual perspectives. In our newspaper project, students will be drawing on prior learned knowledge of common fairytales and their construction and reworking this knowledge to write a feature article based on one of these stories.

**4) Student Ownership of learning** A webquest is a perfect example of student-focussed learning, wherein the student takes control of their acquisition of knowledge of a particular subject in this case the construction of newspapers. As teachers, we provide the framework for the acquisition of this knowledge within the links and challenges contained in the webquest. It is up to the students however to make sense of this learning and demonstrate their understanding in the final product – the cover page of a newspaper.



Introduction | Task | Challenge 1 | Challenge 2 | Challenge 3 | Conclusion | Evaluation | Teacher Page