High school reading teacher helps students develop and enhance 21st-century skills

Americans in general are notoriously and happily ignorant of history—even their own nation’s. A recent national poll found that a quarter of Americans didn’t know from which country we declared our independence in 1776.

High school students are no exception—but they do love technology. Kerry Carrico, a high school reading teacher at Chesapeake High School in Chesapeake, Ohio, is trying to link history and technology in a format that appeals to techie teens while teaching them crucial history.

“I have found that students have limited knowledge of the decades between the 1950s and 1980s,” said Carrico, the 2010 Great Lakes region winner of the International Reading Association Technology & Reading Award, which recognizes innovative uses of technology in the classroom.

Her elective course, called “Reading Across the Decades,” allows students to express their findings in a way that interests them, while learning impor-tant facts about issues that have formed today’s American culture.

The class is designed for junior and senior students to enhance their reading, research, and technology skills. For nine weeks, students research and discuss the four decades. Individually and collaboratively, they create, design, and present projects using Windows Movie Maker, Microsoft PowerPoint, Glogster.com, Blogger.com, and Wikispaces.com.

Glogs are virtual blogs and they are one of the easiest tools to use for communicating and viewing the students’ work that she’s used so far, Carrico said. “Glogs were actually one of their favorite technological tools in that students enjoyed combining graphics, text, music, and video in a poster format to present their projects.”

Diving into the 21st century
The goal of the class is to prepare students to use 21st-century skills while building their reading, comprehension, and researching skills. The class uses software that is available on most computers, and Web tools that are accessible at school and outside of the classroom.

In addition to the glogs, students use Windows Movie Maker to incorporate images, words, transitions, and music, while learning to “cite sources” at the end of their presentations. Many students, she said, compare Movie Maker to PowerPoint because of the “slide show” effect that both programs have.

Students also use PowerPoint to present their information and learn how to add sound effects to buttons and objects which add elements of interest to the presentations. Word processing software also is used because it is essential today in school or the workplace to create basic documents, Carrico pointed out.

The class has a blog and a wiki to prepare students for asynchronous learning, a student-centered teaching method that uses online resources to facilitate information sharing outside the classroom. Asynchronous learning emphasizes peer-to-peer interactions via chatting, discussing work with teachers and classmates, and showcasing work “publicly.” Students learn the importance of commenting with constructive criticism and are graded on their online participation, Carrico said.

Students have created a Movie Maker project based on the events of the 1950s and 1960s, as a well as a presentation using PowerPoint. They have created their portrait at www.yearbookyourself.com in a 1950s and 1960s image and have uploaded it as their profile image on their www.blogger.com account.

Reading, researching, and presenting information have proven to be fun and interesting to Carrico’s students because of their use of technology. They now understand the importance of presentations being visually appealing as well as the necessity of providing relevant content. They enjoy “Reading Across the Decades” so much, Carrico said, that one of the students has decided to pursue a career in digital/graphic arts.

Carrico’s website from last year is available at www.wix.com/kerrycarrico/kerryswelcome. On the last tab, “Reading Across the Decades,” there is a Movie Maker project and a glog created by two students. There is also a link to last year’s class blog, http://readingacrossthedecades.blogspot.com, where you can access students’ wikis for their final projects.

Reading Across the Decades links history, technology (December 2010/January 2011). Reading Today 28(3), 42.