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This cohort used two programs, Kidspiration and Inspiration, to help kids improve their writing skills by helping them organize stories. KU students worked with teachers at Cordley Elementary School to implement the programs into their lessons. Flora Wyatt, faculty leader of the cohort, said, "I...reinforced my belief that technology can't be taught in isolation, that it needs to be integrated into meaningful content."
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"I...reinforced my belief that technology can't be taught in isolation," said Flora Wyatt, faculty leader of the Integration of Technology into the Curriculum at Cordley Elementary cohort. "It needs to be integrated into meaningful content." The cohort exhibited the idea of using technology in meaningful ways at three different grade levels at Cordley. Using programs called Kidspiration and Inspiration, Cordley students were able to have fun with technology and improve their writing skills at the same time.
Cordley, a Professional Development School in Lawrence, was lagging behind in technology integration, which provided a perfect opportunity for the Integration of Technology cohort. Flora worked with two KU interns and six classroom teachers at Cordley. The teachers chose the programs to use in their classrooms based on the needs of their students. State assessments mandate that schools focus on reading, math and writing. After looking at Cordley's improvement data and test scores, the teachers determined that their students most needed support in writing, which led them to the Kidspiration and Inspiration programs. "This is a school that didn't have support for technology training and they really wanted it," Flora said.
The programs helped students improve writing skills by helping them organize their ideas. Kidspiration is designed for early primary levels and Inspiration is for older kids. The students can type in their ideas or choose pictures to represent their ideas and then the programs create an outline that helps them put their story in order. Teachers that used the programs were pleased with the results. "Kidspiration helped them to organize their thoughts and interests and apply it to a written piece. It provided them an opportunity to web their ideas and definitely held their interest and was motivating," said Mary Barke, first grade teacher at Cordley. "It was fun for me to see their enthusiasm and, for some students, a nice by-product was the use of voice in their written piece."
Teachers at Cordley who were not directly involved still benefited from the cohort's influence. Before integrating Kidspiration and Inspiration into the classroom, Learning Generation trained the teachers on how to use the programs. The training was available to any teachers in the school, and so other teachers participated. "I do know that the teachers who took the training did try it in their classrooms and were very interested in it...they integrated it into what they were already teaching," Flora said. "As a matter of fact, they also did training on PowerPoint because that was one of the things the faculty asked for even though it wasn't part of the cohort."
Not only were Kidspiration and Inspiration useful learning tools for the students at Cordley, but they were also fun. Many of the students do not have the opportunity to use technology at home, and so they embraced the chance to write stories on a computer. "It really highly motivated the students because this is a school where many children do not have computers at home," Flora said. "They showed gains and they also were more motivated. Writing is not terribly motivating for kids for whom it's difficult...and so the motivational technology really helped them."
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