Blogging in the Deep Blue Sea
Come sail away with Ron, my 1st graders, and me
As we discover mysteries under the sea!
"Tonight while I was walking on the beach, I found this and thought I would send it to you as a natural science mystery question. " This simple note tucked inside a small box arrived one gloomy January day in my first grade classroom. Little did we know that day, that the little piece of a mystery sea creature would take our class under the sea and around the world by way of a blog [K1].
Author and scientist Ron Hirschi began communicating to my first graders via the U.S. mail service. The students immediately wanted to reply to him by asking more questions. Exchanging letters would take much too long for these seven year-olds whose motivation [K2] to learn the answer dictated immediate feedback. Since Indiana is landlocked and few of us had traveled to the ocean, we had very little schema [K3] to assist in making an educated guess. The class decided to email Ron with more questions. “Is this the piece of the animal’s back? Is this the piece of a skull? Does it grow outside the body or inside?” they asked as they took turns holding the hard shell-like piece up to various parts of their own bodies. I quickly typed in their questions on my computer. They watched the television screen as I typed. When the students were satisfied with our first communiqué, one student came to my desk and clicked “SEND.”
While waiting for a reply, we carried our new treasure with us to the media center to ask our instructional media specialist [K4], Mrs. Smith, if she happened to know what this piece of animal could be. Not only is Mrs. Smith a great resource for books, she is an avid traveler and nature lover who frequents Florida and the east coast, and who had recently returned from a Hawaiian vacation. Mrs. Smith could serve as a primary source [K5] in our investigation. Mrs. Smith listened intently as the students recalled the events of the day and chatted with her about their wonderings and hypotheses. She turned the piece over in her hands several times, while looking closely at the markings. She smiled and said that she might know, but wanted to check a few resources first and that she would get back with us soon. The students were audibly disappointed in not receiving an answer but were even more determined to continue the investigations.
After school, I pulled the few ocean animal books off of my non-fiction [K6] bookshelves. While these books were colorful, they contained far too much text and the text was at a higher level than most of the students could read. I was relieved when Mrs. Smith walked in carrying a book on shells with a yellow sticky note marking a page. The book contained lots of large, colorful photos with minimal text, large captions, and many students would be able to read the level of the text. Mrs. Smith asked more about our inquiry [K7] project with Ron and asked how she could help. I told her my concern with finding enough books for first grade research. She told me that there were many items we could use. She also reminded me
We brainstormed other forms of resources we could begin accumulating. We soon had quite a list: fiction, non-fiction, poetry, songs, jokes, various levels of text [P7], big books, regular books, paired texts, book sets, choral readings, and Read the Zoo articles from the Indianapolis Star newspaper. In the next month we would add websites and videos to the over 200 books that comprised our collection [P5]. One of the strategies Mrs. Smith suggested, and which I so appreciated, was that as we accumulated resources students sorted them into categories they found useful, such as fiction, nonfiction, mammals or fish, and stored the categories in book tubs or crates they marked with large category labels.
The next day, students came bouncing into school asking if we had an email yet from Ron. Yes, there was an email – “No this is not from this creature's back because this animal belongs to one of the groups within the large group of animals called the Invertebrates.” “Invertebrates? What are invertebrates?” they asked. While I knew the answer, I had never been asked to explain this to a seven-year old. I was thankful for the book Mrs. Smith had given me. I had looked at the marked page and had believed that the mystery animal was probably a Chiton. I then removed the marker to allow students to discover the answer on their own. The new clue would assist the students focusing in the invertebrate chapter and the simple glossary would assist with the new vocabulary.
“Constructivist teachers nurture students’ natural curiosity.” While focusing “the students’ questions and giving meaning to new terms or vocabulary. Discovery at its highest level will involve learning for both the student and the teacher as collaborative learners (Callison, Preddy 339). ”I showed the students the books I had pulled, along with the book Mrs. Smith had loaned us. After reading the new email, students were eager to get inside the books to find the answer. But more emailed questions followed before an answer was found. Questioning is “fundamental to critical thinking (Stripling 52).” It was during this initial thinking phase, I realized that I was in too much control of receiving emails and determining the amount and timing of communications. Mrs. Smith popped in one morning [P8] to see how the students were doing on finding an answer. We discussed the slow interchange of ideas via email. She suggested and offered to assist me in setting up a blog. Blogging was the perfect technology [K8] solution [P9].
With each answer the students discovered, a new package with a new mystery animal would arrive. Our blog grew as well as the collaboration [K9] among Mrs. Smith, my students, and myself. Students began writing their blog comments and questions during writing workshop. Students took their writing through the writing process since the comments and posts would be published on the Internet. Our audience had grown to parents, grandparents, other classes in our school, and schools in Ohio, Wyoming, Hawaii, and Australia. But motivated students were writing more prolifically than I could assist their editing or blogging. Mrs. Smith, the media specialist, once again offered to help. Students would place their writings in a “Ready to Blog” box. Mrs. Smith would arrive during writing workshop to assist in conferencing and editing [P4].
While most students were doing well at beginning keyboarding, others struggled with the keyboarding or copying from paper to computer. The library media center became a mini publishing center for those beginning student bloggers who needed the scaffolding [K10] support provided by Mrs. Smith as she “helped learners bridge the gap between current abilities and projected goals (53).” Every time a student saw his or her name appear on the blog was magical. Being a real blogger was equivalent to being a celebrity in their eyes [P6].
The collaboration between Mrs. Smith and I continued to strengthen as the blog illuminated more and more ways to incorporate content area standards and activities within the inquiry process [P3]. One unique animal was part of an ART MYSTERY CREATURE. Ron [K5] writes, “This is the first of your vertebrates, meaning it is an animal with a backbone. This creature has sharp teeth, as you can tell. When alive, it can swim and has fins. Two long fins on its back would help you with its exact identity. Its skull is made of bone, not cartilage. One of the largest Pacific Northwest bony fish, it grows to 5 feet in length. It is a favorite food of sea lions and people. It lives on and near the sea floor and likes to eat octopus and other fish. The artful part of this: Can you draw a picture of what you think this sea creature looks like?” The art mystery allowed students to construct and express their hypotheses. It also allowed Mrs. Smith and me to assist students in making connections to bigger concepts such as cycles – water cycles, life cycles, and food chains [P1]. “Inquiry-based learning is the opportunity for students and teachers to pursue important ideas in depth (Stripling 18).” Mrs. Smith displayed finished art mystery drawings along with Ron’s clues in the media center.
By now students had accumulated quite a stack of blog entries, drawings, concept maps, and “I learned today" journals. Mrs. Smith suggested that the “Inquiry process – connect, wonder, investigate, construct, express, reflect, ask new questions (Stripling 8)” could be better assessed with the development of student portfolios. Together we developed a checklist of items and a rubric for the portfolio assessment. We looked through and assessed the portfolios together since both of us had worked with the students on these materials and activities.
As Mrs. Smith and I evaluated the various products and processes, we came to not only understand how much the students had learned in the academic arena but also how they had developed as information literate students. Within the information literacy standards (Information Power 8-43) the students were developing information literacy when they learned to access and reply to blogs and emails. The students’ growth as independent learners was apparent in their joy of learning and use of newspapers and books every free minute of the school day. Finally, students gained social responsibility as they began recognizing the importance of communication via computer whether by email, websites or blogs. Responsibility also developed as students worked in small groups who researched and blogged together [P2].
The blogging experience became reality as Mrs. Smith and I were able to find a grant source allowing Ron to come visit our school for a field trip to a local nature preserve and creek. Here Ron found living mystery creatures such as salamanders and these beautiful darters for us to discover. In honor of Ron’s visit and his love of whales, the first graders
decided to raise money, by selling popcorn, to sponsor a whale through
the Pacific Whale Foundation.
After Ron returned home, the students wrote and published a book about our experiences. During the writing of the book, we took time to reflect upon our journey. We deemed the adventure highly successful for everyone involved in our learning community [P10] –the students, Ron, the Pacific Whale Foundation, Mrs. Smith, the 100’s of people who either joined or watched our blog, and me. Our learning community was truly a ”global web of individuals and organizations” (Information Power 48) where we had communicated beyond the four walls of our school to inform, inspire, and influence.
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