Artifact # 2
Context: This letter was created in the Spring of 2002 at Appalachian State University during the Elementary Education Block Semester in order to make me, the intern, familiar to my students and their parents.
Impact: This letter, and letters of this type, is a simple and effective way to both communicate with my classes and teach them how to write a friendly letter. I will use this letter as an example for students in my class of a letter created on a Netscape Composer blank page, including pictures from Adobe Photoshop, and including properly sited pictures from the Internet.
Using this letter, I can teach them how to create a letter on Netscape Composer; identifying the benefits of communicating online (1.1, 2.1), recognizing the need to cite photos or information found on the internet (1.4), and gaining basic computer skills (2.2, 2.3, 2.4) The letter is also in "friendly letter" format which fifth graders are required to be familiar with according to the North Carolina Standard Course of Study (4.05, 5.01, 5.03, 5.04, 5.06, 5.07, 5.08). This letter-writing skill includes understanding word choice and impact, understanding the audience, proofreading text, editing text, and using technology to create an acceptable word processing document to communicate the final document. I will email this page to my students so they have to check their email with their parent/guardian and send me an email back saying they got it to get credit for showing it to their parents. Students without a computer will be given hard copies of the letter.
By writing their own letters on the computer, in a computer lab, where everyone is learning, Netscape Composer at the same time, students can help each other learn and have equal access to the computers. This will make the letters neater, give students an opportunity to practice their typing skills, and give children equal access to technology that they might not have at home.
Alignment: Writing letters online fulfills many of the Standard Course of Study requirements for teaching Language Arts to fifth graders (Tech. Competency 11.4), but it also identifies the requirements they need to meet according to the Computer Skills Curriculum (Tech. Competency 10.1) and fulfills many of them (Tech. Competency 10.4). The idea of online letters uses technology effectively to communicate with students, parents, and other colleagues (Tech. Competency 11.1, 11.2, 12.3).
Students are required to cite their online pictures (Tech. Competency 14.1) and all students get the same access to the computers and to technology in the computer lab (Tech. Competency 14.2).
I feel confident this is a learning experience that is appropriate for the fifth grade curriculum, relevant to the students, is an effective teaching strategy, and incorporates the use of technology (Tech. Competency 12.7)
This way of communicating with the students maximizes on their understanding of email and the internet (INTASC Standard 2) and encourages students to take responsibility for checking their own email to find out the information (INTASC Standard 4). The method of communication is a model for communicating information and ideas within the classroom without taking class time to hand out letters to be taken home and collect them every time communication is desired (INTASC Standard 5, 6).
These letters home will inform the parents of their child's daily activities
and developments and plans for the classroom that they would be interested
in including opportunities to volunteer in the classroom (INTASC
Standard 10).