GlobalReadAloudproject


 * 21st Century class-FINAL PROJECT 2013**

GLOBAL READ ALOUD with //Out of My Mind// text tying into the new district elementary level UNIT ONE: Ethical Behavior-Respect

//__**PART ONE**__//

To give you an overall picture of how all of this ties into my classroom, I'd like to take a moment to tell you about a literacy/global collaboration project that I will be engaged in at the beginning of the year. I first learned about it from a friend who teaches at the same grade in Geneva, IL. It is called the Global Rad Aloud Project. You can find out more information about it by going to www.globalreadaloud.com or http://globalreadaloud.wikispaces.com/.

The element that I will be focusing on is CREATING STRONG COMMUNICATORS through writing.

It is my belief, that our students are going to have to be able to effectively communicate with purpose in a global manner in all aspects of their life in order to be a well-rounded and globally aware contributing member in our ever-changing world. Their ability to communicate in a respectable and meaningful way with others from all walks of life will become increasingly more important as we prepare them for jobs that do not even exist today in a world that is growing smaller due to global communication devices.

I anticipate that student learning will be enhanced in a variety of ways through the use of this element. One example would be that over the course of the six week unit, students will show growth and development in their writing for purpose. With other classes around the globe, we will be reading the same text over a six week period of time. The other teachers and I will design instruction so that our can communicate with each other effectively through various different social medias. An example of this would be students utilizing Kidblog to write reflections back and forth to one another regarding the text we are reading "together" globally in a meaningful and purposeful way with others on a local and global level. If I don't use Kidblog, I will use Edmodo. I will need to communicate with other classrooms that I will be working with and we will determine together the venue that will be used amongst our group with our students to communicate with each other over a six week period.

After reviewing and reflecting upon the "Manifesto" for 21st Century Learning Design, I believe that this ecosystem and the overall unit design could incorporate all the other elements in columns 2 and 4 of the chart. However, during my intentional planning and design, I am hoping to impact the areas of SOCIALLY RESPONSIBLE, CONNECTED, COLLABORATE, TECHNOLOGICAL LITERACY, and ASSESSMENT. At any given time, these will be the focus of my six week unit, because of the various "hats" we will wear when being STRONG COMMUNICATORS with others in our own classroom community and the larger global community.


 * //__P__//**__AR**//T TWO//**__

__**ARTIFACT #1**__

I hope to use this Google Form with my kiddos at the beginning of the unit to gauge prior knowledge and during the process as formative assessment. These particular questions will also be woven into the final summative assessment in some way, but worded differently. I'm still working on that part since I haven't done this unit before. As you can see it focuses on the respect.

__**ARTIFACT #2**__

With this second artifact, I will be using this Edmodo prompt.

Over the course of the six week unit, they will use this same format each week. After we have done the read aloud at the beginning of the week, students will have several days during the week to complete this task. There are two parts to it. The first part addresses literacy goals in the text and making connections. Also, we will work on communicating effectively and for a purpose through their writing. The second part will work on providing meaningful feedback to others respectfully regardless of where the other person is globally. As you can see, students will be broken into small groups of 5-6 people for this part of the unit.