THE PA PALM PROJECT

Palms? Paper? Write!

Students spent the last two weeks before their winter break writing up a storm!!Mr. Mac and I can’t keep up with all the editing!

In order to collect some data that will help us see if we have achieved our project goal we decided to do a control group with the students. They were divided into two groups, we tried to group students according to writing abilities so that they were even amongst each group. For two and a half days one group wrote with paper, while the other used the Palm handhelds. Students were allowed to chose their own topic. Groups switched after two and a half days and used the opposite tool for writing, again choosing their own topic. The third piece of writing was a topic given by the teachers regarding the Palm project and the control group. Students had a choice of which writing tool they wanted to use for this third piece of writing. Four out of twenty six students chose to do their third piece of writing on their Palm handheld. Three of these four switched to the palm because the editing process was quicker on the Palm.

After each day students were asked to journal their experience for the day in order to share their feelings about the Palm handhelds with others that are involved in the project. I also journaled about what I noticed as a teacher during these two weeks. These thoughts will be shared in the final written project.

While students wrote, Mr. Mac and myself edited stories and taught some writing skills. Time was an issue, and fortunately with project funding we were able to team-teach together for 8 afternoons allowing us to collect data necessary for this project. Time has not been on our side and we feel too rushed to effectively assess whether student writing has improved due to the use of the Palms. It is not realistic to accurately show improvement of student writing in a two week period. We do have some samples of student writing from the beginning of the year, however teaching the ‘6 Traits of Writing’ did not occur until January. However, in saying this, we are in the process right now of marking all of these stories using the rubrics from the ‘6 Traits of Writing’ and hopefully we will see some gains in certain areas.

As we continue uses the technology, we are reminded through research and observation that these devices alone will not improve student achievement. It is only through good teaching will we see improvement.  Technology is in this case an amplifier.

Winter break is over and Mr. Mac and myself are using the month of March to collect all the data needed to complete our research action project! I guess it is our turn to write up a storm!!