I had substantial feedback from Vallory, Shari and work colleagues as I set about experimenting. When I initially met with our technology integration specialist, Adam Steiner, about trying out the whole class split model in class, he immediately set about creating what we called a “web quest”, but is really more of a process and pathway into learning for the students on the subject of weather. Adam set up the framework right away and sent it to me, and from there I added resources and tweaked away.  We used a Google Doc, and it was fun to collaborate with Adam in creating this weather adventure. Adam had great ideas for varying the types of resources for each topic, making sure that there was more than one pathway to learning for each content item in the project. We also talked about ways that students could show what they know, and worked carefully to provide a variety of formative assessments that would both provide data for me and keep students engaged.  Adam is passionate about UDL, and so I was able to discuss the possible barriers to learning freely with him.


We had to create this document very quickly, within a day and a half, so that I could implement it while the laptops were in my room.  In addition I had to decide how to split the class into groups, provide targeted assistance/intervention, and still retain some heterogenous nature to the groupings.  That part was tricky, and still needs work. The project part was easy.  Students already knew the kinds of topics they wanted to pursue, and many already had ideas for audience and format.  We were off and running.


I decided that for day one we should just introduce everyone to the web quest. For speed’s sake, Adam suggested placing the link to the “web quest” on my web site. Three minutes into the process I realized that was not working. Students were all trying to work on the same document.  I raced to my computer and quickly set up the assignment in Google Classroom, handing out a digital copy of the assignment to each student.  First problem solved! We then discovered that the method for taking screen shots with the “new” laptops differed from the classroom computers, and we needed to figure that problem out quickly. Taking a screen shot was one of the first proofs of progress that students had to provide.


Pretty soon cool stuff started to happen.  Students were teaching each other how to take the screen shots, and then helping each other to discover the different aspects of Quizlet as they reviewed water cycle words. I found I didn’t have to do anything but watch… and that felt really good.  It gave me the confidence to set up and run the teacher group, and release students to the project area as well.


Initially the idea was that one teacher would run the “teacher” group, and the other run the project group. That worked pretty well until testing and coverage obligations removed the special educator or paraprofessional from the room.  I found myself running this thing on my own a couple of days. Surprisingly it worked!  I still would like to have that second adult there, especially for children who have academic and behavioral needs.


Those needs bring me to my next set of observations.  I purposely started out this online learning pathway with review of material we had already explored in depth. I then used the online learning process to introduce new ideas, giving students multiple ways to access the knowledge and demonstrate mastery of the content. Students were free to move at their own pace, with some activities being collaborative, and some independent.  All but four students completed the activity, and demonstrated solid understanding of the new material on the grade wide summative assessment.  Some of my most distractible and active students were totally engaged and demonstrated solid understanding.


The four students who did not complete the activity struggled with the online format, despite our efforts at incorporating UDL principles. I think that the process would have been easier for them had they had the support of that extra adult in the room.  All four students are highly distractible and have behavioral issues.  One student kept changing the screen resolution instead of completing the assignment.  I ended up removing him from the computers and keeping him with me through two teacher groups instead.  Another of the students scrolled through the entire project and declared that she was finished without actually doing any of the work.  She looked busy and engaged, but I realized after twenty minutes that her document (viewed in real time by me from my own computer) had nothing in it.  I was able to get her started on the first activity, and between the groups with whom I was working, I went over to her and gave her a push forward. The other two students left the document part way through and explored other aspects of Google.  It was difficult to ensure that they returned to task with just me in the room.


And then, poof! The laptops were removed to another classroom.  I regarded this as a nice way to carry forward the experimentation with the limited technology available to me.  We grouped students at the three working classroom computers, continued with teacher groups, and the projects…well, we are still working on those as we can.


The students gave me feedback each day on how to improve the web quest document, and together we are working on improving its usability for next year.  The students enjoyed the variety of media used in the lessons, and appreciated the instant feedback available to them from the assessments themselves and their peers. The students also had feedback about the other stations, what worked for them and what didn’t.  Overall the reviews have been very positive, and we saw an increase in engagement and independence.


I have the laptops again in a few weeks.  This time we will try the model with math lessons, self paced with instant feedback for students and teachers.

The feedback from Vallory and Shari has been exciting, thought-provoking, and affirming. I look forward to sharing how my experiment is going, and hearing how their experimentation has been going. They are good at reminding me to not just make good use of technology, but keep the lesson truly blended.

Blended Learning Prototype

Here is my prototype, made with Explain Everything.  It would have been fun to try editing this video in EduCanon, and I may yet try that out.