Moore gets more with technology

By Joshua Cole

When large portions of the rest of the world is condemning literacy as being dumbed down to talking points or 140-character “Tweets,” when Atlantic Monthly asks “Is Google making us stupid?” and finding that scientific professors are saying “Yes,” a group of fifth graders in Littleton are saying, “No. We’re smart. And technology is making us smarter” – and they’re doing so in essays, testimonials, blogs and other eloquent ways.

Fifth-grade students at East Elementary School in Littleton, near South Broadway and West Littleton Boulevard, use nearly as much technology every day as rocket scientists guiding satellites to other planets and moons.

Among the various tools:
• Color document camera projector, which can project a solid piece of paper or other object onto a large screen
• SMART Board, which projects a computer screen onto a large screen and can be used like a touch screen
• Video camera
• 3D projector, which helps teachers show things like dissecting a frog
• Clickers – each student has his or her own remote control to answer a question

While listening to teacher Chris Moore read aloud to the classroom, Miguel Casillas reacts and reads his peers' responses on a live blog. Each fifth grade student in Littleton Public Schools has a netbook, and activities like the live blog help improve students' reading and writing skills.

That doesn’t include the array of programs at students’ fingertips they can access through netbooks, which each student has, including word processing, e-mail, blogs, live and moderated chats, research, a digital portfolio.

And the list keeps growing of things they can do as new educational programs are created each day. In the fall, students were using Bubbl.us to create story maps, coloring different categories of a story and connecting and un-connecting parts of stories.

But the main thing they’re doing is becoming better readers and writers.

On the 2009 Colorado Student Assessment Program, fifth graders at East had almost two-thirds of students score at or above proficient in writing, and students’ median growth percentile was 58. In reading, 72 percent of students were at or above proficient, with a 55 median percentile. That followed two years – without the same technology – of about half of students at or above proficient and 23-38.5 median growth percentile.

The technology is expanding across Littleton Public Schools. As part of Inspired Writing, which was funded by grants, all fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth and ninth grade students will use a netbook in class as a way to improve writing.

East was a pilot for fifth graders, and East has one of the expert technology instructors.

Due to his students’ success and innovation, fifth-grade classroom teacher Chris Moore was named one of the “20 to Watch” by the Technology Leadership Network of the National School Boards Association. The group recognized superintendents, managers of technology companies, district technology leaders and teachers.

Arapahoe High School English teacher Anne Smith was also one of the “20 to Watch.” Smith and Moore were the only ones from Colorado, and both are teachers in LPS.

Follow what students in Mr. Moore’s class are doing: http://eastdragonden.blogspot.com/

Moore’s students use technology as a tool, not a toy, that enhances opportunity rather than replacing or substituting traditional activities.

East Elementary School fifth grade teacher Nicholete Vander Velde moderates a live blog while co-teacher Chris Moore reads aloud and students type and follow along the discussion. Activities like the live blog not only help students read and write, they help teachers get immediate sub-assessments and give immediate feedback.

“The main reason I think technology is so important is that authentic audience,” Moore said. “When you know your work is going to be read in the real world, you’re going to put more effort into it. We have a map of who’s reading our classroom blog. There are dots in every continent – they know they have a real audience. The audience and the purpose for their work, it creates a unique situation where we can get them to push their thinking beyond what they’re able to do without that audience. Because they’re so interested in showing the world what they can do, they push themselves beyond what’s possible. We show them how they can push their thinking. They have an immediate connection to real work and real resources to use on the fly.”

Moore, who teams with Nicolette Vander Velde at East, may be the classroom teacher, but the students are the instructors, he said. Vander Velde was nominated for a 2009 Apex Award for CSIA, Colorado’s largest and most influential technology association.

“The kids are doing it for the first time, and so are the teachers. We’re constantly trying new things. As a result, it changes the community of the classroom,” Moore said. “A lot of teachers will talk about being a facilitator. When you have the kind of tools that we have, you’re forced into that position. The kids can find any piece of fact or information. You’re helping them navigate that information. You’re helping them determine what’s important. They have the information in the palm of their hands. You have to trust them to take risks.”

Students are eager to use the computer. Fifth grader Raymond Chahyadi found a plethora of ways the computer helped him learn faster, better and easier. When he reads, he can listen to correct pronunciation if he’s unfamiliar with it. When he types, he doesn’t need to shake out his hand like he would if he were holding a pencil too long.

“Sometimes when you read by yourself, you don’t know if you made a mistake or not,” Chahyadi said. “Sometimes my finger hurts when I write, but with this (keyboard) my finger won’t hurt.”

East students’ success is evident across the Internet.

When the students did a live blog while watching President Barack Obama’s speech to students last fall, a parent in another state asked if his child could participate. An article was published in Educational Weekly about it.

“We had no idea that some of the news media were watching as we were doing it,” Moore said. “You never know who’s watching it. The kids get fired up.”

On some well-read educational blogs asking for responses, replies to posts averaged about 50 words, some with typos and other errors. Students from East replied, writing 250- to 500-word, edited, personal essays. One of the blogs asked students from across the world to respond to how technology helps students learn – with middle school and high school students responding next to East’s students.

Students improve their reading skills by paying attention more and by reacting. Each day, students from both fifth grade classes come together to listen to a book. As Moore reads it, students respond to what they’re hearing with questions and comments in a live chat, which Vander Velde moderates. If students don’t write in complete sentences or correct capitalization, Vander Velde sends the post back to them. If students write something unique or interesting, Vander Velde posts it for the rest of the class to see. And if many students are confused about the same thing Vander Velde and Moore would know. For instance, as the class was reading Things Not Seen, by Andrew Clements, the narrator thought he was invisible, but he wasn’t and readers should have known. Moore and Vander Velde asked students if he really was invisible in an online poll and found out students didn’t understand the character’s ironic situation, so the teachers explained it.

“One of the greatest things we can do is immediate feedback. With paper and pencil, the best is one day,” Moore said. “I can be giving them feedback on the fly as they’re working, all of them at once.”

Technology supposedly should make the world and everything easier, but ask anyone after a computer freezes and see what they say. At East, students learn this lesson early.

Moore is the main culprit for pitfalls.

“It’s technology. Stuff doesn’t work on a daily basis,” Moore said. “There are always a couple of Plan B’s. We move along, and it’s no big deal. If everything goes haywire, the kids know to pick up a book. We move so quickly. There is always work that needs to get done.”

The typical teacher grades stacks of papers, sorting through them, straining to read often messy handwriting, with time spent collecting, organizing, grading and then returning papers to students. East’s fifth graders submit most of their work online, with about 70 percent of time spent on the computers. With a click of a button, Moore gets everybody’s work, and with another click he can send it back.

All homework is on paper to keep the netbooks at school and to be fair to students who might not have computers at home.

“If you came in (to the classroom) for the very first time, it would look like pandemonium,” Moore said. “Kids are all over the place. It would be a noisy situation. It won’t be kids in rows. They’re managing the little daily jobs. They’re in charge of checking homework. They’re checking that everyone is getting to arts and (physical education). You’re going to see a lot of technology tools. You’re going to see they’re respectful of each other. We have a wide variety of languages and reading levels – second to seventh grade reading levels. They’re using different materials. It’s an organized chaos.”

Moore has a way to navigate the classroom: “A lot of my job is to get out of the way,” he said.

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josh@villagerpublishing.com, 303-773-8313 ext. 301, @VillagerDenver