February 2005 — Features
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The Impact of the AACTE-Microsoft Grant on Elementary Reading & Writing
ISAT Scores for Future Comparison. The second objective of the workshop was to improve student writing and scores on the ISAT. When the grant was written, the criteria for the state writing assessment were leveled one through four: Level four being above standards, while level one indicated an academic warning. In 2006, an analysis will be conducted of the third- and fifth-grade 2003 writing scores with those of subsequent years. With the use of the database, third- and fifth-grade students in 2006 and 2009 should be better prepared to perform at higher levels on the writing portion of their tests.
Discussion
Twelve tenured teachers attended the first grant workshop in January 2003, and 10 teachers completed the first five workshops. Data was collected by compiling activities and due dates from the online community site and each teacher’s hard copy records. Of the 10 teachers who completed the first half of year one, three of them took the workshops for three hours of college credit. These three teachers completed two activities in each area of the five target writing areas (10 total activities). The remaining seven teachers completed two activities each for the focus and elaboration areas. Five of the seven teachers completed the required two organization activities, while only three of the seven completed the required two activities for conventions and integration areas. The seven teachers not taking the course for college credit earned seven hours each of continuing professional development units from the Illinois State Board of Education. One teacher attended only the first workshop, while another teacher attended four out of the five workshops but did not put activities on the database.
Overcoming Barriers
The grant provided the use of Microsoft Windows XP, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, MapPoint and Visio software. However, the district computers were lacking sufficient RAM, causing operating problems such as crashing in the Microsoft programs. In addition, there were problems implementing Microsoft Class Server. The intent was that the teachers would post activities on the server so that students could access the activities when away from school. To solve this incompatibility challenge, a Web page was developed on the WIU server where writing activities were posted and could be accessed by all participants.
Teachers experienced two problematic areas when implementing the writing activities in the classroom. First, designing activities required time-consuming directions that took the entire writing period to explain. In order to overcome this difficulty, participants used SMART Boards to present an interactive writing lesson to the whole class.
The second problem was that teachers felt students were losing too much class time on individual computers. As a solution, implementing interactive writing activity time with the whole class allowed teachers to use the technology for demonstrating the writing process. Acknowledging that the literacy areas of listening, speaking, reading and writing should not be taught in isolation, teachers used Gebhardt’s ideas (2002-2003) during the interactive writing sessions. For instance, Gebhardt’s idea to link visual clues to develop meaning, graphics and text enhanced the students’ understanding of the writing area that deals with focus. All learners, including first and second language users, benefited from integrated literacy development during these writing workshops.
