See results from: Spring 2005 | Spring 2004 | Spring 2003 | Spring 2002

Spring 2005 Technology-based Field Experience Projects in a Professsional Development Community
Curriculum-based, technology-enhanced field experiences are one hallmark of the Littlewood Professional Development Community (PDC). Prospective teachers are given firsthand experience integrating technology in K-5 classrooms via collaboration with a practicing teacher. The relationship between prospective and practicing teacher is based on the notion of collaboration. The team pools their experiences and knowledge to develop activities/projects/strategies that support student learning and that improve both partners’ ability to integrate technology into the curriculum.  In addition, this effort is systematically studied through a process known as teacher inquiry. Glenda Good, principal of Littlewood Elementary School, provides administrative support for these experiences. Mary Hall, Littlewood Media Specialist, and Kara Dawson, UF faculty member, collaboratively facilitate the experiences. Download an overview of the 2005 Teacher Inquiry Abstracts. Read an article about the evolution of these experiences.

Megan
Megan worked with Mrs. Rollo in a gifted fifth grade classroom on a project entitled Overhead and Underfoot that was designed to support the students as they explored plants and insects living on the campus of Littlewood Elementary School. Students created field guides as well as a video-based documentary. Mrs. Rollo and Megan inquired in to the influence of this project-based learning activity on students' higher level thinking skills. Download a copy of their inquiry presentation (includes a clip from the documentary) 8MB. Read a copy of the FETConnections article about this project.

Carolyn
Carolyn worked with Mrs. Ware's first grade students to produce a "We are America" play using video, still-images and sound as supporting features of the students' performance. She also focused on using simple technologies such as Powerpoint and Word to improve the reading comprehension of selected students. Learn about what she did and what she learned by viewing her inquiry presentation.

Carrie
Carrie worked with Miss Paton's multi-age classroom to meet language arts objectives through electronic books. During this process Carrie inquired into the benefits of integrating issues related to academic standards, social skills, technology standards and empowerment. See the results of this inquiry. In addition, Carrie and Miss Paton supported the students as they completed an interdisciplinary, video-based documentary on Habitats. The project involved the integration of social studies, science, language arts and art (with support from the art teacher). It also included parental involvement and culminated with DVD in which each student was responsible for working with peers to accurately present habitat issues from the perspectives of different animals.

Lea
Lea worked in Mrs. Redman's fifth grade classroom to implement a variety of technology integration activities. Students created a persuasive newsletter for the principal related to school improvement issues (see example story), developed a Powerpoint biography and used technology as a tool to analyze their performance in a social studies play about the Lewis and Clark expedition. These wide range of experiences led Lea to explore ways in which technology may be most effectively integrated into a classroom. See her results.

Meghan
Meghan worked with Mrs. Gumbiner's first grade students to produce a "We are America" play using video, still-images and sound as supporting features of the students' performance. She also helped students produce electronic books for the annual "book share" event. More importantly, she focused on using technology to improve the communication skills of an autistic child. She used many research-based strategies and was rewarded as she watched this child's communication skills improve. Read about her outstanding results!

Lisa
Lisa worked in Mr. Duckworth's gifted fourth grade classroom. They used to technology to support a project-based, bridge building activity. Within this activity Lisa supported the students as they used a variety of technologies. She became particularly interested in the way technology integration may be supported by cooperative grouping. See the results of her inquiry as well as examples of the bridge building project in her inquiry presentation.

Hannah
Hannah worked with Mrs. Johnson's kindergarten students to use technology to meet language arts objectives. Hannah's work with the students was very valuable, however, more importantly, Hannah enabled Mrs. Johnson (a well-respected, veteran teacher with little knowledge of technology) to add technology to her repertoire of tools for productivity and instructional purposes. Hannah inquired into this process throughout the semester. View her inquiry presentation.

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Spring 2004 Technology-based Field Experience Projects
A teacher inquiry component was added to this year's field experience requirements. This enabled the preservice teachers to think more critically about their work with technology and encouraged them to reflect on their teaching in a systemic and integrated fashion. Download overview of 2004 Teacher Inquiry Insights.

Ginno
Ginno worked with Mrs. Seymour at Chiles Elementary for the second year in a row. He worked to integrate technology in the 3rd grade mathematics curriculum and to study his work through the process of teacher inquiry. View Tessellations example.

Lindsey
Lindsey worked with Mrs. Hutchinson at Foster Elementary to integrate technology in the Science curriculum. View more details of their work in an online Powerpoint presentation.

Lauren
Lauren worked with Mrs. DeSha at Foster Elementary to integrate technology in a variety of ways. They created a class web page that displays student writing and communicates with parents, created a solar system presentation and used the Internet to support a study of London. In addition, they had the students become teachers during a unit on the solar system and studied the results through teacher inquiry.

Jennifer
Jennifer worked with Mrs. Compton at Finley Elementary School to integrate technology in many different ways. To learn more about this work please visit Jennifer's online showcase.

Meredith
Meredith worked with Mrs. Hope at Waldo Community School. They created a class web page that includes information for each of Mrs. Hope's classes. They also created an AuthorQuest that enabled students to learn more about the authors of the books they read in class. In addition, students used Powerpoint to share information about a book they read with their peers. See more about this work (downloads a 9 MB PDF file)

Jennifer
Jennifer worked with Dr. Hall at Littlewood Elementary School. They created a Webquest in which students developed a campaign flyer for a book that was nominated for the Littlewood Medal, an award designed to parallel the annual Caldecott Medal. View "The Caldecott Medal" webquest.

Spring 2003 Technology-based Field Experience Projects
The following paragraphs describe some of the outcomes of the second year of the technology-based field experiences. The majority of elementary students in the participating classrooms had little to no computer experience beyond tutorials and drill and practice software.The outcomes of these experiences show what students can accomplish and learn using technology as a tool for knowledge construction and collaboration.

Leslie
Leslie worked with Mrs. Robert's third grade class at Metcalfe Elementary to integrate technology into the science curriculum. Most of these students had little to no experience with computers so the team decided to implement a variety of projects using a variety of different applications. View details of this work.

Anne
Anne worked with Mrs. Roger's fifth grade class at Waldo Elementary School to integrate technology into the science and language arts curricula. They also created a home page for Mrs. Roger's class. View details of this work.

Ginno
Ginno worked with Mrs. Seymour's fifth grade class at Chiles Elementary School to integrate technology into the mathematics curriculum. Ginno and Mrs. Seymour implemented projects and activities related to the Golden Ratio, the solar system, optical illusions and triangles. View details of this work.

Kristin
Kristin worked with Mrs. O'Quinn's second grade class at Waldo Elementary School to integrate technology into the language arts curricula. Students worked in groups to create Internet-based activities that related to the various stories in the reading series adopted by the county this year. They also created a home page for Mrs. O'Quinn's class. View details of this work (click on Webquests to see student work)

Lindsay
Lindsay worked with Mrs. Fletcher's second grade class at Foster Elementary School to integrate technology in the science and social studies curricula.

Annie
Annie worked with a fourth grade class at J.J. Finley Elementary School to integrate technology throughout a variety of curricular areas. View details of this work.

Spring 2002 Technology-based Field Experience Projects
The following paragraphs describe the outcomes of the inaugural technology-based field experiences.See results from Spring 2003 (Year 2).

Jamee
My practicum was in a fifth grade class at J.J. Finley Elementary.  Over the course of the semester, I created a Civil War WebQuest for the students to complete that helped them explore the causes of the Civil War.  The students worked in groups to complete the Quest and then created presentations demonstrating what they learned from the Quest.  In addition, I spent a good portion of time working one-on-one with my cooperating teacher, teaching him how to use various software programs and helping him plan out lessons that incorporated effective technology implementations for the next school year.

Allison
During my practicum experience, I partnered with Mrs. James, a fourth grade enrichment teacher at Norton Elementary school. Mrs. James and I implemented four major curriculum focused technology projects. These projects included a math Hotlist, two PowerPoint presentations and an iMovie. The math hotlist contained several links to web pages that have appropriate math activities for Students in the primary grades. It was linked to the School's website and was available for use by all interested students. The first PowerPoint was with first graders and depicted how an avocado seed grows into a plant. We used a still digital camera to in insert actual photos into the presentations and composed text to accompany each picture. We made a more extensive PowerPoint presentation with the second graders entitled, Gardening with Math. This project involved math activities developed by the students that focused on the garden outside their classroom. Finally, our fourth project that we completed was an iMovie on 3D-geometric shapes that the students built with cardboard boxes. This features the students actually building the shapes as well as students narrating how they created the geometric Shapes. All Of the above projects were featured during the Schools Education fair in mid-April.

Amy
During my practicum experience, I worked with Mrs. Hutchinson in a Fifth grade classroom at Stephen Foster Elementary School. We focused on Social Studies, the Civil War specifically for a research project. Basic computing skills were taught so the necessary research and keyboarding could be completed as well. Since the text provides little information about key Americans from the Civil War, the Internet was used to provide them with information. Once research on their person was completed the students used a word processor to type and print out a paragraph about their famous American. These paragraphs were then put together in the form of a book and presented to the class.

Dana
I worked with Mrs. Phipps in a gifted classroom at Norton Elementary School. We planned lessons that would enhance her fifth graders' science fair projects. PowerPoint is a valuable tool for anyone to have experience with, but the fact that fifth Grade science projects needed to be presented at a science fair opened the door for our activity. By introducing PowerPoint and revisiting search strategies, fifth graders were able to use technology to enhance their science projects. The Internet was used as a research tool because of the invaluable resources found on the World Wide Web. PowerPoint also offered capabilities beyond poster and paint. Presentations included images, video, and sound clips.

Gina
In conjunction with Deb Bruner, a media specialist at Stephen Foster Elementary School, we developed two projects that allowed a fourth grade class to learn basic computer skills integrated in a Social Studies unit on the Seminole tribe of Florida. During this project the students visited websites that gave concise information about the Seminole tribe. The second project involved updating and maintaining the media center's current web site.

Jennifer
My inservice partner, Dagni Christian, a fourth grade enrichment teacher at Lawton Chiles Elementary School, and I used a variety Of technology based activities that were implemented throughout the semester. We integrated various technologies into the curriculum such as Tom Snyder's Science Court (fossils) digital microscopes to look at different soil samples, Internet searches, and PowerPoint. As a culminating activity for the semester the students researched a famous inventor and had to create a PowerPoint presentation on that inventor. Using a LCD projector and a SmartBoard, the students presented to each other. The student's PowerPoint presentations were then highlighted at a parent day and then posted to Mrs. Christian's web site.

Aisha
During my practicum experience, I partnered with Mrs. Hofstetter, a fourth grade Teacher at Finley Elementary school. Mrs. Hofstetter and I met several times for planning. By the time I started working with the class, they had started collecting information about Florida as a part of the fourth grade curriculum. Besides learning how to research, the students were responsible for creating a Technology Report (a word processed essay about a Florida topic) and a presentation for their parents about what they had learned. Mrs. Hofstetter and I decided that we would begin by teaching the students to research on the Internet. I started by teaching the class Internet search skills such as planning, using search engines, and evaluating websites. Once the students found websites that fit their research interests, they printed the information and paraphrased (on another sheet of paper) content that they wanted to include. I also taught the students to cite their sources by including a references page where they listed the title of the page, the web address, and the date they retrieved it. Following their research, the students synthesized their information, wrote drafts of their reports, and word-processed the final copy.

Although I taught the entire class how to search the Internet, I worked with a small group to create a Jeopardy game in PowerPoint. Unfortunately, PowerPoint was not available in the labs so, I had to work on the teacher's laptop. I worked with two groups of three students to create a hyper linked, stacked, Jeopardy game. Prior to using the laptop, the students and I did a significant amount of planning concerning the colors, font, alignment, and basic shape size we would use. It was an excellent opportunity for me to discuss design. At the start of the production process, I gave the students a tour of PowerPoint highlighting where they could find certain items. During the rest of the production process, I served as a guide, available for questions and technical mishaps. They used blank slides and basic shapes (squares) to create the opening Jeopardy game screen. Students created questions and answers relating to Florida and they typed each on a different slide. They linked the money amounts on the opening Jeopardy game screen to its corresponding question. The students successfully completed the game in time to present it to their parents.

This semester, I am still working with Mrs. Hofstetter. Our number one goal is management. How can Mrs. Hofstetter integrate and manage technology in a class of 25 students?

Nancy
During the spring practicum, I worked with Mrs. Bryan in a second grade classroom at Lawton Chiles Elementary. We implemented three curriculum-related activities integrating technology. The first two activities, used Hyperstudio and included a biographical representation to celebrate African American History month and stack of eight cards describing the classification, habitat, ecosystems, and characteristics for survival of an animal the students selected. The third project utilized Microsoft Excel to input and graph data collected throughout the semester.

Susan
My practicum was with Michael Bair in a fourth grade class at JJ Finley Elementary School. Our focus was on extending an existing project called the Florida State Symbols Technology Project. In the past the students used a word processor to create a report of a Florida state symbol. This practicum allowed us the opportunity to expand the reports to PowerPoint and present to their peers.

Leigh
My cooperating teacher and I planned a project about weather. Students researched weather using various resources including the Internet. Then they created a PowerPoint presentation about their topic. The project integrated researching skills, science, oral presentation skills, and technology. The project allowed students to take what they had learned about weather from their science books and take it one step further. Each group became an expert on an area then taught the rest of the class about it. Mrs. Reynolds is hoping this project will help her start devoting more time to using the Internet and other technology.

Jennifer
During the spring semester, I worked with Pat Beach in a Third grade class at Metcalfe Elementary School. We began the semester by teaching the students basic computer skills and Internet search strategies. We planned a research project for their science class. Each student had to research an animal and report on that animal. The students then used a word processor program to type and print out their reports. These reports were put together in the shape of a cube, using a cardboard cube template. The "life cubes" were then displayed in the class.