Technology+in+a+Teaching+Program


 * Using a wiki and toondoo in a teaching program **

The selected lesson is a narrative writing activity. The purpose of the literacy lesson is to rewrite the ending of a traditional fairytale. Students have discussed the features of narrative writing, such as an introduction, a conflict or problem that needs to be solved and a conclusion. They are also aware of the different visual layouts of narrative writing, as the teacher has used different fairytales as examples during the teaching program.

Students are given a selection of four fairytales to choose from:
 * The Three Billy Goats Gruff
 * The Three Little Pigs
 * Jack and the Beanstalk
 * The Gingerbread Man

The rationale for giving students a choice is that it enables students to link the task to their world knowledge, in particular their own past experiences with fairytales. Students can select their preferred fairytale from the list, providing an opportunity to personalise their learning within the lesson. A choice of four stories also makes presentation more interesting for the audience, as opposed to twenty two versions of the same fairytale.

The reasons for doing an interactive lesson such as this one are, it can make learning more enjoyable by learning new technological skills and reaching all students by varying the styles of teaching. This could be a worthwhile activity for the quieter children in the room who often don't speak out in class discussions, it could bring them out of their shell. It could also help the children who lack skills when doing written activities, they may be able to get their ideas out on the computer with pictures better than words.

The two selected technologies to be used in this teaching program are a wiki and toondoo. Students have experience with keyboard skills and have used the internet and other applications in previous learning activities. In order to evaluate the effectiveness of these two technologies in rewriting a new end to traditional fairytales, the following samples were created:

wiki - new ending to The Gingerbread Man @toondoo - new ending to The Three Little Pigs