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Doris Dickerson

Meet Middle School Science Teacher Doris Dickerson

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Greetings!

I’m Doris Dickerson and I teach middle grades science at Otwell Middle School in Forsyth County which is a suburban community north of Atlanta, Georgia.  In May of 2005 I completed my fourth year of teaching and prior to that I was in healthcare. Listen to my thoughts on Nortel LearniT here.
 
When I first came into the classroom both my technology and classroom management skills were at a novice level and my confidence to attempt technology based learning was low.  I was hesitant toward integrating technology into my lessons; after all, it appeared as though the students were more tech savvy then I.  Occasionally, I integrated use of the Internet for research, but knew from a technology stand point that these limited skills were not even coming close to meeting the students needs. 
 
I often stop and think about the technology I am currently using and what, if any, I used when I was the age of my students.  The technology in my short life time has grown exponentially.  What will the technology world look like for my students when they are into their professional careers?  I had to do something to better help prepare them for these changes, hence my discovery of Nortel LearniT.
 
Incorporating Nortel LearniT into my classroom has provided both support and facilitation to me, the educator and the students.  Nortel LearniT is user-friendly, presents technology skills in an easy to understand format and allows for seamless integration to an existing lesson plan or better yet provides a relevant, state standardized lesson to meet content requirements
 
One of the best benefits of Nortel LearniT is that it not only expands technology skills but it has enriched my student’s engagement, learning and performance levels, while providing opportunities for them to assimilate and create authentic products.
 
Embedding Nortel LearniT technology tutorials, lesson plans and resources into my teaching has provided mw with the skills necessary to facilitate team work between the students and myself.  This unique learning environment has generated awesome learning opportunities for my students yielding products that encompass PowerPoints, digital videos (capture and editing) and web page designs.
 
Nortel LearniT has allowed for my professional growth by providing a very valuable, free, step-by-step technology based resource that is user-friendly.  Additionally, my students have showcased phenomenal growth in technology skills over time; say nothing about how their understanding of the content has comes to life. 

My First Use of Nortel LearniT- A PowerPoint Project

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In one of my first attempts to use Nortel LearniT I used a lesson plan with my 7th grade classes that investigates the basic components of cell structures.

I downloaded the lesson plan from Nortel LearniT and was able to edit it in Microsoft Word.

The student project within the plan was to create an analogy to some other common organizational situation, using the  parts of the cell, .to define their function. See some examples of my students work.

Student #1    Student #2     Student #3

As you can see, my students really got creative in developing their menus. Not only did the projects demonstrably show what they had learned, I was able to use the Nortel LearniT PowerPoint assessment rubric to evaluate their final projects.

Gaining Confidence by Fueling Creativity

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After my first foray into technology integration I realized that by combining the Nortel LearniT resources with my students enthusiasm for technology, that I could tackle even more complext technolgies, like digital video.

With my 7th and 8th grade students I used the Kingdom Lesson Plan to explore our natural world.

This time, I let my students choose what application they wanted to use for their final project. They had the choice of doing either a PowerPoint presentation, produce a digital video, create a web page, or for the less adventurous, a traditional written report. Although I was pleasantly surprised, every student chose to do a technology-based project as opposed to the old standard. Where I was truly surprised, was in how wonderful all of the final projects turned out. The evaluation rubric helped the students target their projects and it made my grading review straightforward.

Be sure to take a peek at several of the final video projects here: Real | Windows Media | Flash Video