My class will soon compete in the first meet in the 2014-2015 WordMasters Challenge, a nationwide vocabulary competition in which students complete word analogies. They are given 25 words to study in depth prior to each phase of the competition. This is my first year using WordMasters and I am trying a variety of strategies to help my fifth graders learn the vocabulary words, many of which are new to them and have multiple meanings. In the evening after the day that we went over the meaning of the word aerie, I was browsing Facebook and a friend posted a blog link with a beautiful photograph of a castle from a blog post titled 20 Enchanting Places in Italy That Belong in Fairy Tales. I knew immediately that I wanted to share this picture with my students. If they saw this, as well as a picture of an eagle's nest, they would definitely remember both definitions.
In addition to being defined as the nest for a bird of prey, an aerie is also defined by Merriam-Webster as an elevated, often secluded dwelling. Thinking about the importance of visual literacy (see Common Core in Action: 10 Visual Literacy Strategies) this castle image inspired me to think outside the "write the definition and use the word in a sentence" task box. Students need to see something tangible to make connections between the words, their meanings, and images. With this beautiful photograph as my inspiration, I created the Vocabulary Slideshow Team Project. You can see a sample of one of my group creations here:
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1eOnif75IRyx1cgr_7lEHJh8nhCkpMw2YYZex0QNjnJQ/edit?usp=sharing
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1eOnif75IRyx1cgr_7lEHJh8nhCkpMw2YYZex0QNjnJQ/edit?usp=sharing
To make it easy for my fifth graders to get started, I created the template for them. Using Google Slides, I created the cover slide with the title and the names of the students who would work on the project together. I didn't think it was necessary for each student to create their own slideshow of 25 words, so I assigned each slideshow to a group of four or five already established teams. I numbered the slides and added the vocabulary word to each slide. I then used the Google "Sharing" feature to share the document by email notification to each of the students on the team. If you are using PowerPoint, the difference is all in the real-time sharing. Google Slides offers collaboration in real time.
I am in the exciting position of having students who each have access to a school email account. We have a computer lab, a laptop cart, and an iPad cart readily available, so I used a computer lab time to launch this project. Accessing the document was as easy as opening their email and clicking on the link to their shared document. For anyone reading this not familiar with Google Docs, all students on the team have access to the same document at the same time. As one student types on slide one, the others are scrolling through searching for other slides to work on. I love that Google Docs saves every change, and we never have to stop to save our work! The students enjoy seeing that they can edit the theme of the slideshow with one click, then look over to their teammates' computers to see the changes occur within seconds!
The beauty of collaboration in Google Docs was very quickly evident during the launching of this lesson. One of my students was home sick. His mother is a teacher in the same school so she was home with him and they just happened to be checking his email for class assignments during the time our class was in the computer lab. He saw the email, clicked the link to the shared document, and was able to collaborate with his partners in real time, from his computer at home! The students on his team noticed his name and picture icon in the corner of the screen, typed a quick note to him within the document to tell him which three or four words he would be responsible for completing, and they all got to work right away. This was the first time we've seen spontaneous, unplanned school/home collaboration, and it was pretty cool.
Since my students have already looked up the definitions, common uses, synonyms, and antonyms of each of the 25 vocabulary words, they needed just a quick introduction to the Insert Image feature in Google Slide. I found this feature to be safer for searching images than simply opening a second tab and searching for images. Digital Citizenship lessons are embedded in all the online activities we participate in, so my students understood that some words could possibly lead them to images they were not intending to see. Our way of handling this was to have students get my attention right away, so I could help them specify their image search using more specific terminology. For example, one of our words in this round of WordMasters is grope, which we have already discussed as having a slightly adult, "inappropriate" connotation, so I went ahead and found a picture to insert along with the definition. Students were told NOT to search for any other images for this word, and they all respected that instruction as good digital citizens. Teachers using this project should think ahead and do a quick search of each of the words to be assigned, just to see what the typical search results will include.
Project Tasks:
1. Divide the words among team members.
2. Each team member types in the definition, synonyms, and antonyms of each word in the text box.
3. Each team member then searches for images to insert which reflect the meaning(s) of the word.
4. Students use the word in a sentence related to each of the images.
Students found some words more difficult to find image depictions of than others. When they came to the words chortle, and snicker, some groups decided to use the Insert Snapshot feature, and took pictures of themselves chortling and snickering.
Both of my fifth grade classes greatly enjoyed this project. It took two forty-five minute class sessions to complete. All students were fully engaged in the process and all took their tasks seriously. They enjoyed finding and creating images, especially the ones that were a little more challenging to find or stage. After our Thanksgiving break, I will give each group time to present their slide shows to the class so we can compare and contrast the work of each team. Students regularly make a point of showing me when they find our vocabulary words in their independent reading texts, and they try to use the words in their conversations. I am excited to see the results of their first WordMasters Challenge in December after completing this Google Slide project.
