Jason B. Ellis, Amy S. Bruckman
Electronic Learning Communities
College of Computing
Georgia Institute of Technology
jellis@cc.gatech.edu
http://www.cc.gatech.edu/elc/palaver/
Palaver Tree Online is designed to be used in a classroom. Over the past three years, we have worked with teachers to connect their students with elders using e-mail. We have used the lessons learned from that work to create the Palaver Tree software, which is designed to make the process of doing online oral history go more smoothly. The teachers we worked with helped us develop an interaction model for doing online oral history. This interaction model moves from kids reading background material in the classroom to sharing stories with elders, to designing online projects and getting feedback from elders on their work.
1. Recruiting teacher recruits elders from our database
2. Background students read literature as part of the standard curriculum
3. Brainstorming kids brainstorm questions based on their reading & send them to elders
4. Elders Reply elders respond with answers, stories, photos, cartoons
5. Going Deeper students ask deeper questions based on elder replies (repeat from step 4 as necessary)
6. PalaverStories kids build artifacts based on elder responses
7. Feedback elders respond to PalaverStories
8. Revision students revise their PalaverStories based on elder feedback (repeat from step 7 as necessary)
9. Finalization PalaverStories are finalized
Please note that this interaction model is just one way to structure the use of Palaver Tree Online in your classroom. If you have other ideas, please use them and please share them with us so future teachers can learn from what you do. We want to support the sort of online oral history project you want to do, not the other way around.
This is a more detailed look at how the interaction model described above might work in an actual classroom. As you think about how Palaver Tree Online might work for your specific case, please keep in mind that special projects often take longer than one first expects.
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Preparation Week 1: |
Installation of software. Permission slips sent home. Initial recruiting of elders by teacher. Begin unit design, using Palaver Tree curriculum guide as a model. |
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Preparation Week 2: |
Teacher becomes familiar with software. Permission slips returned to us. Receive responses from elders and decide which ones use. Complete unit design. |
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Pen-pal Week 3: |
Student introduction to software (50 minutes) Brainstorm pen-pal questions based on reading & post them (50 minutes) |
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Pen-pal Week 4: |
Informal pen-pal-like interaction with elders. (50 minutes) |
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Pen-pal Week 5: |
Informal pen-pal-like interaction with elders. (50 minutes) Teacher introduces formal use of software. Students decide their project topic. |
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Interviewing Week 6: |
Students spend two days of the week (100 minutes) interviewing elders online. Students brainstorm questions based on readings from the curriculum. Students send initial project-related messages to elders. |
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Interviewing Week 7: |
Students spend two days of the week (100 minutes) interviewing elders online (computer lab). Students finish interviews. Begin work on PalaverStories, get elder feedback. |
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PalaverStories Week 8: |
Students spend two days of the week (100 minutes) working on their PalaverStories. Elders give feedback on the PalaverStories as they progress. Continue work on PalaverStories with elder feedback. |
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PalaverStories Week 9: |
Students spend two days of the week (100 minutes) working on their PalaverStories. Elders give feedback on the PalaverStories as they progress. Students finalize their PalaverStories. |
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Week 10: |
(Buffer Week) |
Since we are designing Palaver Tree Online to be used by many teachers, we want to get a feel for how you think it would be best used. So, what we need is for you to plan for the use of Palaver Tree as you would any special unit we want to know how you would run things. Of course, as you implement the plan, we will be available to answer questions and help with introducing and managing the software.
As you know, I will be studying your class for my dissertation so I will be around a great deal. The research techniques that I plan to employ are listed below. In particular, I need your help in developing a rubric to evaluate the PalaverStories students make at the end of the unit. What kids of learning do you want to see exhibited in the final projects? What kinds of learning do you want to see along the way? How can we help make that happen? Please share your ideas!
Palaver Tree Online is a research project. As such, we plan to study your use of the software in your classroom. The study will employ interviews, discourse analysis, and artifact analysis to uncover evidence of learning:
· Interviews. Pre- and post- interviews with teachers, and a subset of students and elders. My interview technique follows the standards set forth by Seidman (Seidman 1998).
· Discourse analysis. Coding of online communication will use the typical inductive process of reading and coding each message, proceeding to the next one, attempting to apply the existing categories, and where necessary, creating new ones. Chi provides a thoughtful guide to discourse analysis (Chi 1997).
· Artifact analysis. Analysis of online artifacts will use a rubric, developed to help categorize different aspects of project quality in a meaningful way. Baron and Wolf provide a good overview of project analysis techniques (Baron and Wolf 1996).
We will look for evidence of four types of learning:
· Synthesis making artifacts from discussions with elders, using evidence to support a point, revising based on feedback. (artifact analysis)
· Interview skills formulation of questions and follow-up questions. (discourse analysis)
· Attitudinal change changes in attitudes about history and elders. (interviews, discourse analysis, artifact analysis)
· Historiography learning what it means to be a historian, learning that history is more complex than facts in a book (interviews)
Finally, we plan sit in on a number of the classes and videotape some of the classes in order to get a more in-depth feel for how Palaver Tree Online works in a classroom.
In addition to studying how students use Palaver Tree, we also want your feedback! We would like to interview you before and after the project to get your in-depth impressions of how Palaver Tree worked so we can improve it for future classes.
References
Baron, J. B. and D. P. Wolf, Eds. (1996). Performance-Based Student Assessment: Challenges and Possibilities. Chicago, IL, University of Chicago Press.
Chi, M. T. H. (1997). Quantifying Qualitative Analyses of Verbal Data: A Practical Guide. Journal of the Learning Sciences 6(3): 271-315.
Seidman, I. (1998). Interviewing As Qualitative Research: A Guide for Researchers in Education and the Social Sciences. New York, Teachers College Press.