Online Research

 There many things that my students have to research about and the main place we do this is the internet. I know from my own research how time consuming it is to find information that is both relevant and useful. Some websites have a bit of what information you are looking for and not all of it so you have to dot about through a selection of sites. I also find the language that is used on websites when you do find them is not always the easiest to understand what they talking about. To help my students while they are doing their research, I have been putting links onto our class website as helpful starting points to save them some time.

Examples here - Year 11 Designers - Year 12 Design Era Hexagons - Materials Research

A website that I use with my students a lot and that I rate very highly is Technology Student.Com. The content on this website is great and written in a way that is easy for students to understand. It is better to get information about types of hardwood, for example, from this website than a website that specialises in wood, as the language used is much more technical on the specialist website that is not relevant or understandable for the use it is needed for in a student project. Also, doing this kind of research is not the main focus of a project and I find that the student s are turned off really quickly if they are finding the research hard or they are not able to understand what they are finding. Copy and paste happens and no understanding is going on.

As much as I love the Technology Student website for its content, I absolutely hate the layout and the navigation. I don't bother going on the main site and searching for something. I normally do a Google search along the lines of "types of softwood technology student" as I know that this will point me to where I need to be.

This year, I have started doing research for my Year 11 Visual Art students too and I find this even harder as the language that is used to talk about artworks and artists is at a much harder / higher level than is easily understood or is needed.

My blogpost about reading about Henri Rousseau.

Marc Milford's blogpost about this same exercise, as he helped me put it together.

With all of this in mind, I have decided his year to start to put together my own website of "stuff" based on the research that I do to find information for the students. What I have got on this website at the time of writing this blogpost is not a lot. I have mainly focussed on starting on materials as that is what my students are needing at this time, but it is a job that will be ongoing and I will plod along with it into the future. I am not expecting this to be a quick thing to put together at all and will work on things that my students are needing at any given time so that it slowly builds up to be something that is useful over time.

Link to website - its hasn't even got a front page yet!!

Link to materials page

Link to wood page

Reading for Identification in DVC

 My Year 11 DVC class are currently starting their seating designs. They have already looked at their design influence (the has to look at either Frank Gehry, Frank Lloyd Wright or Antoni Gaudi - Link to planning here ). They now have to think about their second design influence, which has to be Māori inspired. We looked at Matariki as a starting point for this influence and I gave them this presentation to start them off on their research.

After they had done their general reading, they had to decide on one star in the Matariki cluster and find the story of that star / character. This story was to be copied and pasted onto a Google doc and then they had to read it and highlight where something was mentioned that they could then find as an image.

They then had to find images to go with the story and put it all on the same doc ready for printing.

This is my example.

After their document was printed out, the students had to cut everything out and arrange it on a page in the sketchbooks.

We kept the highlighted areas on the written sections as it made clear the parts of the story that they were focusing on.

From here, the students have been drawing the images from their research. I think that drawing the images and not just using them to look at for inspiration, gives a greater insight into the shapes and forms as you are making stronger connections in the brain by physically working with them.

What we are on with now is design development. The students have their initial sketches based on the design elements of their chosen designer. They now have to take those initial ideas and use the drawings from their Matariki stories to inspire how the development goes.

Fun with Google My Maps

Learning intentions

• To see the differences between 3 given architects
• To choose one architect to focus on
• To collect images and information about the chosen architect
• To showcase information about the three architects as a class using Google MyMaps
• To understand where in the world the buildings are that they have been researching.

My Year 11 class started their second project today (we haven't actually finished our pull along toys, but are waiting for the MDF to be delivered in order to produce the final thing).
This second project is about looking at the work of an architect and using the influence of that work to design their own product.
The first part of this work is to analyse an architect of their choice. I gave them a choice of three but also said that if they didn't like any of those then they could choose their own. Link to choices on the class site.
This work is set up on a Hapara Workspace too. We worked on the dark purple section today and collected images and basic information.

We then started on a shared Google My Map.

I made the map then shared it with the whole class so they could all edit it.

We decided to use the layers. So far, as of typing this, Moroni has got onto this part of the work. We will continue next lesson.
Link to the map here.

Manaiakalani Google Class OnAir Lesson 18 - Research Reading

See the whole Class OnAir team here

Direct Instruction

The students are brought together to be shown a Google Drawing that will be shared with them via the class site.
The purpose of this is to get them used to picking out key items of information from written text that they see on the internet.
This is to prepare them for next year when they are going to be collecting information about their architect and they need to pick out key points that they can use.

Link to Google Drawing exercise

Student Created Content

These are examples of student work that they created on the day.

This video shows sort clips of a few students talking about their work.

Lesson Topic :- Understanding Written Research - Introduction
Year Group :-  Year 11 (Jump Start )
Learning Outcome	To be able to read a piece of information from the internet and use SOLO structure to help them IDENTIFY elements, see where design work is DESCRIBED and see where decisions are EXPLAINED.
Success Criteria Using SOLO	Uni structural Multi structural Relational Extended abstract Students can identify the elements in the text where the design and the materials used are identified. Students can read through the information given and can highlight the areas that list and describe elements in the text. Students can analyse the information given and can explain why they are highlighting the parts that they are. They can start to question what they are reading as to what they don’t understand. Students complete the reading and evaluate it so they can highlight all of the areas needed. They reflect on what they have read and pull out the words that they do not know and add them to the Answer Garden.
Links with the New Zealand Curriculum	NCEA Level 1 - Curriculum Level 6 Outcome development and evaluation Critically analyse their own and others’ outcomes to inform the development of ideas for feasible outcomes.
Key Competencies	Thinking - reading and analysing found text. Using language, symbols, and texts - using SOLO to highlight key points in the text. Managing self - working well as a team of two to complete the work. Participating and contributing - listening to the explanation and giving input into the conversation. Giving input between them in the pair work. Relating to others - Listening to the opinion of the other person in the team while doing the exercise.
Prior knowledge	The students know which architect they are focussing on. They have produced some concept ideas for the layout of their posters. They have not started the information collection about their architect or their work yet.
Lesson Sequence	Session Outline The students will work in pairs on a reading exercise. They will read through an excerpt taken directly from the internet and work together to pull out key items and colour code them so they are visible. Student Activity Teacher Activity Listen to instructions as a whole class. Get into pairs and make a copy of the activity. Read the given text. Discuss between them what words / sections they are going to highlight. Explain to the whole class what the activity is about while they are all together at the front of the class. Ensure they are working in pairs. Give help and support where needed as the activity progresses. Discuss individual words and phrases with students. Encourage / remind students to share their work and to put unknown words into the answer garden link that is on the document. Make a copy of the document and share in their pair. Highlight the chosen words and sections with the appropriate colours to make those parts visible on their document. Decide which words they do not know at all and add them to the shared Answer Garden. Share work into the class community. Look at the words that others have shared into the Answer Garden to see what others do not understand.
Resources	Activity set up on a Google Drawing Link to where the activity is set up in the literacy section of the class site Chromebooks Access to desktop / class room computers for students with no chromebook. Access to Answer Garden for collection of words they don’t know at all.
Next Steps	The students will look at the words in the Answer Garden in detail and work through finding out what they mean as a class / team.
Reflection and Analysis
	What went well. The students worked well in their pairs to do the exercise. They read through the given text well and making them highlight sections ensured that they read through it more than once looking for specific elements. This was the first time trying this kind of activity, and they responded well and understood why we were doing it and how it would positively impact their project work in the long run. What still needs work. Should I choose the teams / pairs or let them work with who they are comfortable with? Some teams are more on to it than others so the makeup of the teams has an impact. I only got them to highlight a couple of key things in this initial exercise. Can I get the same impact if they are looking for a longer list of things from the same text?