Week Six

December 4-6, 2006

This was the final week of my planned service learning project for my students, but I have decided to continue the after-school club on a volunteer basis until the end of the school year. I also intend to look into grants that I can apply for to fund this project and my time! The club has given me a great start in learning how best to teach technology to children albeit mostly through trial and error. The students and I were able to make a lot of progress in the much-less-stressed after school club environment, but I certainly hope to use a lot of the things I learned during the regular school day as well. We hope to continue to write to our pen pals in Japan throughout the year and also receive update photos of how our flat kids are doing in Japan.

On Monday of this week, I worked with students on not only some of the mechanical issues of writing letters, but also on how to become more interesting and engaging pen pals. I tried to encourage students to think about what they really wanted their pen pals to know about them. For some kids this came easily and they were able to write letters as if they were really talking to their pen pals. For others it was more of a struggle and they needed a lot more coaxing and input on my part. The more mature students were able to work independently and stay focused, but those who are less mature needed several reminders to get back to work.

On Wednesday I got the nice surprise of a new high school student volunteer who will be helping out with the club from now on. I could have used her 6 weeks ago, but better late than never! She is a former student of our school and is now in the 10th grade. She studied Japanese for two years and also has a lot of computer skills. She is going to be a great asset to our club and already helped out a great deal in helping students finalize their letters and get them sent off to Japan. We’re now waiting for the replies and will go from there.

Week Five

November 27-29th

We started this week out with a new slide show, “Flat Jordan’s adventure in Sendai, Japan.” I had received photos from another group’s Flat Kid contact in Japan. This particular friend in Japan is extremely interested in food, so through the photos, I took the kids on a “culinary tour” of Japan’s supermarkets, department stores, and restaurants. I was able to add my personal experiences and anecdotes from my time in Japan as well. Following the slide show, I gave the students a mini-lesson on how to enter photos and texts into the slides to make a slide show, then put them into small groups to start on their projects. I found it was much easier to facilitate and trouble-shoot with students working in groups rather than individually and will focus on creating more cooperative group projects such as this.

By Wednesday, all the pen pal e-mails from Japan had arrived and almost all of the technical difficulties with students’ e-mail accounts, usernames and passwords had FINALLY been ironed out (two students are still not able to access their accounts), so today was perhaps the beginning of a more smooth-running pen pal project! It only took five weeks! The kids were SO excited to get e-mails individually addressed to them and wanted to start right away on their replies. I gave a group lesson using the LCD projector on how to access their accounts, open their e-mails, reply to them and use the all important “save draft” button! Then students each got onto their own computer, with one on my laptop because we needed one more computer, and began composing their reply letters to their pen pals. Because our magnet coordinator had worked on fixing access issues for about half the class, I heard a lot of excited, “I got in! I did it!” shouts from the students. There was a noticeable difference in the amount of troubleshooting I had to do with the kids. It seems they have already come a long way in locating the necessary letters and punctuation marks on the keyboard and maybe have a little more confidence in trying to figure things out themselves or ask their peers before coming to me. Success!

Week Four

November 20th – 22nd

Monday

At the end of last week, the Flat Stanley photos began arriving to my inbox from one of the contacts in Japan. They had taken their flat kid, Flat Bob, out for a Sunday afternoon in Tokyo and sent 22 photos of their adventure in the big city. The photos were sent as individual images, so over the weekend I made them into a slideshow to make it easier to show the kids during Monday’s club time. The kids were thrilled to see their flat kid in Japan and to watch the slideshow, but had a hard time getting their heads around the fact that their “kid” was actually in Japan. One of my students asked, “He’s really there? He’s really in Japan?” The slideshow provided the opportunity to talk to the kids about a lot of the similarities and differences between the U.S. and Japan, such as differences in food, architecture, transportation, etc. I observed that the students might be a bit young to truly understand and appreciate the differences, but they’re all about the similarities! They were thrilled to find out that they have McDonald’s and KFC in Japan and when I showed them the pictures of the candy at the kiosk they immediately started to pick out the ones we have here, too. When I showed them sushi pictures, several of them were quick to say, “I’ve had that one before.” As I reflect on this right now, I think the kids have got it right…looking to see what’s similar between two countries rather than focusing on the differences.

After the slideshow I let the kids know that I will be teaching them how to make their own slideshow with their flat kid’s photos. We will start that project next week; hopefully the other flat kid pictures will have arrived by then.

I also taught the kids some new Japanese phrases and had them practice in pairs along with the animations on the “Quick Japanese” link on KidsWeb Japan.

Wednesday

Due to the Thanksgiving holiday, most of the parents decided to take their kids home after school today so I only had 8 students for Japanese/Computer Club. So, after our usual warm-up games and a new game to learn some new vocabulary words, I took the opportunity to introduce them to all of the Japanese links on my webpage and gave them some free time to explore. We read one online Japanese folktale together, from KidsWeb Japan, then I sent them on their way to explore the various websites and see what they could find.

This turned out to be a fabulous idea and they found a lot of stuff on those websites that I hadn’t even found yet. It provided me the opportunity to take advantage of a lot of “teachable moments” in a very relaxed atmosphere of discovery. Two of the kids found a link to the atomic bombings in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, so I talked to them about World War 2, the bombings, the peace memorial in Hiroshima, and the thousands of paper cranes that are sent there.

We had just read a story called “The Paper Crane” in our language arts unit, so the students were excited to find origami links on one of the websites. The students navigated through sites about Japanese fashion which led me to promise that I’d bring in my “yukata” and “geta” to model for them. But I also had to inform them that the trend of insanely high-heeled boots has well passed in Japan, thank goodness. A couple of the kids found a link to a McDonald’s menu in Japanese and had decided that they definitely couldn’t afford to eat there since a combo meal cost at least 500! This led to a discussion about the difference between dollars and yen and when they learned 500yen was just about 5 dollars, they decided they could eat there after all.

Perhaps the best moment of the day was when one of the boys found a page with the numbers written in Japanese. He was so excited, he yelled, “Hey, it’s the numbers in Japanese!” His partner on the computer responded with, “I’m going to write them down!” The idea spread like lightning across the room and within minutes all 8 kids had found the link on their computers and were furiously copying the numbers in Japanese so they could take them home and practice.

I decided to provide them all with a notebook specifically for Japanese and encouraged them to write down anything new they learned in their web searches. I will give them a little bit of time each week to explore the internet. I’m hoping that those who have computers at home will be inspired to search to their hearts’ content on whatever topic they find interesting.

Week Three

November 13-15th

This week we continued the pen pal project. By the end of the two sessions this week, almost all the students had completed the letters to their pen pals. For the few who hadn’t finished, I helped them just a little bit to get them done so we could send off all the letters and wait for responses. The teacher in Japan is now working with her students on responses to our letters.

What I have learned this week is that it’s very difficult to be one teacher with 16 students each at their own individual computer. It was much easier to facilitate the initial letter-writing experience when students were working in groups to compose their letters for the Flat Stanley project. When working in groups, students tend to help each other when needed, and their collective knowledge helps to get the projects done faster. When working as individuals, the students tended to use their neighbors less and come to me more for troubleshooting. Despite the fact that I had pre-taught how to log-in to their e-mail accounts, students had a hard time following the instructions. An added stressor was the fact that half of the students e-mail accounts still are not functioning. Therefore whole-group instruction on how to access their e-mail accounts only applied to half the groups.

The other thing that has made this project more time-consuming than I had originally anticipated is that most of the students lack keyboarding skills entirely, so they spend a lot of time searching for letters and symbols on the keyboard and typing with one finger! This has led me to start asking around about software programs for students to work on their typing skills. Two teachers have come through with possibilities: one is called Mavis-Beacon, the other is a Disney CD for typing. I’m waiting for copies from these teachers so I can check them out and see what might work for my students.

Motivation

I just finished reading over some of the draft letters students wrote to their pen pals and they are really fantastic. They expressed themselves easily and wrote much longer letters than they have for other in-class assignments. Providing a real recipient for their letters has given the kids great motivation and a means for them to improve their writing skills in general and their letter writing skills in particular. I need to seek out new ways to motivate them further with real-life situations that will inspire their imaginations and creativity.

Week Two

The first focus for the club this week was to introduce the students to some of the basic differences between daily life in the U.S. and daily life in Japan. I did this by reading them the story called The Way We Do It in Japan by Geneva Cobb Iijima and Paige Billin-Frye on Monday and then reinforcing some of the same ideas on Wednesday through a video called “Children of Japan”. In the video, a young Japanese boy about the same age of my students narrates a day in his life while taking viewers on a tour of his regular school, his cram school, and his home. Produced by Disney several years ago, it’s a little outdated but still really good at capturing what’s interesting to children about the differences between the two countries. I did both of these activities to get the students to start thinking about what they might want to know about Japan and what they might want to ask their pen pals when they start their letters.

The second focus of the club this week was to get the students started on the pen pal project with the second grade students from the school in Kobe, Japan. On Monday, I gave the students a mini-lesson on the “big screen” about how e-mail works. I demonstrated by composing a message in my e-mail and sending it to a student’s e-mail, then opening the student’s inbox to show that my message had already arrived. Judging by the “oohs” and “aahs” and one student’s comment, “That fast?” I sensed the students have little or no experience with e-mail and were quite impressed by the process. I then gave the students their e-mail accounts and had them go practice logging into their own accounts on the classroom computers. Unfortunately, I had to do a bit more troubleshooting than I had anticipated because nearly half the accounts provided by the district did not function. (I am presently still working on resolving this issue.)

Just in time for Wednesday’s club, I received the list of students from the teacher in Japan. The list of names is quite international and the teacher informed me that her students have come to Japan with their families from many different countries. Just a few of the students are from Japan or the U.S. I discussed this with my students to encourage them to ask appropriate questions in their letters.

After watching the “Children of Japan” video, students brainstormed two lists: one of things they wanted to tell their pen pals about themselves; the other of questions they wanted to ask their pen pals about themselves and their lives in Japan. We then reviewed the five parts of a friendly letter (as per California State Standards for language arts for second grade) and students started writing their drafts. Though originally I had thought I would have students compose directly in their e-mail accounts, I decided to have them write a paper copy first. One, because I wanted them to organize their thoughts first and two, because I wanted to provide an incentive to not dawdle (as many of them have a tendency to do). Those who finished their drafts could go to the computers and start writing online. With the incentive of getting on the computer, the students got right to work and most of them finished. (Still having problems with some of the accounts, so those kids are composing in Word and will copy and paste later). There are a couple of students whom I will put on the computer to compose their letters directly without a draft, as they are somewhat challenged in the pencil and paper department and will most likely perform much better on the keyboard.

We’re hoping to have the e-mails finished and sent by next Wednesday at the latest. So far, so good. The students seem to be really enjoying the project and so am I!

The First Week

The response to the club by both students and parents was overwhelmingly positive. We started on Monday, October 30th with 11 participants and by Wednesday the number had grown to 16 students. The kids get a little bit rowdier as the numbers grow, but their enthusiasm is contagious and without the pressure of standards to meet and tests to prepare for, I find after-school club time in many ways much more enjoyable than the regular school day. The father of one of my students made a point to tell me that he truly appreciated my offering such a club to the students, which was nice to hear. I think the response to the club says a lot about student and parent interest, as well as the lack of such after-school opportunities in our area.

After a warm-up Japanese game, I told the kids about the pen pal project and asked if any of them knew what e-mail was. Two kids raised their hands, but only one had actually used e-mail. (The other one just likes to raise his hand for everything.) This reinforced for me the fact that I need to send out a technology survey to the families to see what kind of access they have at home. I found a couple of surveys online which I can edit to serve my purpose and plan to talk to parents about them at next week’s parent-teacher conferences. I feel like I need to get a better idea about what kind of computer knowledge the parents have so I know how much support I can elicit from them. The idea about getting the parents to come in with their kids for some technology training has also started to form in my mind.

We started the Flat Stanley project. I read the students the story (none of them had heard of it before) and then explained that we would be making our own “flat kids” to send to Japan. The students worked in groups of about 4 students. Each student created and named his or her own flat kid. Then each group played “janken” (the Japanese version of rock, paper, scissors) to decide which flat kid would be the lucky one to go on a trip to Japan. Each group then worked together to compose a letter on MS Word to their new friend in Japan who would be receiving their flat kid. They asked their flat kid’s host in Japan to take pictures with the kid and send them back to them.

It didn’t take me long to realize that composing the letters would take longer than I had initially thought/planned. They have very few keyboarding skills. Their experience has so far involved using the mouse and the few keys necessary to read online or play educational games, but they have not had much experience at all in simply typing. While I spent the next 30 minutes or so trouble-shooting, helping students locate certain letters and punctuation marks on the keyboard, and teaching them skills such as “hold the shift key down at the same time as you press the letter if you want to make it capital”, I vowed in my mind to figure out how to give them more keyboarding opportunities during the regular school day. I have also since located a typing software program called “Mavis Beacon” which some other teachers have used, so I will be checking that out for its appropriateness to second graders.

It took nearly the whole club session on Wednesday for the students to finish composing and printing their letters and their flat kids were in the mail by the end of the week. We are looking forward to seeing what pictures come back via the internet.

With just a little bit of time left, I introduced the students to the culture corner on the KidsWeb Japan website and they were able to read some popular Japanese folktales.

Getting started

During the weeks leading up to starting the club, several important details had to be taken care of. On a visit to Japan, I talked with friends who agreed to help out with the digital photo exchange project. In addition, I made contact with a second-grade teacher at the Canadian Academy in Kobe, Japan, who has graciously agreed to join my class in an e-mail pen pal program. As our school is a year-round school, I sent a letter to the parents of my students, inviting them to enroll their children in the club, which would start our first day back at school. The final step was to set up E-Pal accounts for all my students through the Los Angeles Unified School District’s webmail service. All the preliminary steps in place, we were ready to start our club.

What’s this all about?

As part of a service learning project for my Master’s in Educational Technology at California State University, Long Beach, and in continuation of my love of teaching Japanese to children, I have decided to start a Japanese/Computer Club for my second grade students at Montara Avenue Elementary School in South Gate, California.

Though I have taught an after-school Japanese club before (with funding from a foreign language acquisition grant which has since expired), the focus has been on the acquisition of Japanese language skills, enhanced when possible by websites such as this one:

http://web-jpn.org/kidsweb/say/quickjapanese/quickjapanese.html

In my new Japanese/Computer club, I still hope to provide my students with some basic Japanese words and phrases, but my focus will be in developing their technology skills through projects in which they will also learn about Japan, its language, people and culture. These projects will include a digital photo exchange with contacts in Japan, an E-Pals pen pal program with students from a school in Japan and a culminating computer project through which students will demonstrate what they have learned.

Of course as time permits, I will squeeze in some Japanese games, songs, books and toys to make it a more fun and well-rounded learning experience for these very active 7-year-olds! I have found some great Internet resources which I’ve included under “Japanese Club” on my webpage:

http://www.mrs.ngai.meyertown.com

Welcome to the club!