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2007 Innovative Educator

I teach English as a second language and introduced Pixie to my students in September. A group of kids immediately began learning how to utilize and design with Pixie. They fell in love with it and stayed in class during breaks and even began coming in earlier in the morning to learn more.
 
Our first class work with Pixie was our Dad's project. We started out with a brainstorming exercise in order to set the proper atmosphere and then studied the new vocabulary that was related to the project. Then, the children had to write a story or poem about their Dads. Next, they created a Pixie image that enriched the story or poem that they had written. The children then compared their stories to learn about each other’s Dads. Finally, using the Pixie image as a focus, they presented their work orally to their classmates in a creative manner.

With the help of Pixie the children improved their oral and written skills. By learning English together; they were using critical and creative thinking skills and expanding their vocabulary in an active and authentic learning environment. It was a more enjoyable way for them to acquire not only English but also technology and team working skills. As students worked on the project they did so in pairs, helping each other to learn and making suggestions for a better way of getting their message across. What a joy to watch them teaching each other how to use the tools or how to correct their words, or even better, learn new words they hadn’t thought of themselves.

http://www.globaldreamers.org/dad/eg5/index.html

After this project, the kids and I decided to take part in the Snowmen competition that was sponsored by Tech4learning. To extend this beyond a simple art project, we added it to our winter holidays project on our school web site.

Schools from around the world joined our work in a shared learning process about Christmas and Chanukah, and other winter festivals where each country contributed information about their traditions.  The snowmen were the perfect way for a cultural exchange in learning information about the different countries. During this process they studied many lexical items such as vocabulary pertaining to weather, opposites, usage of adjectives and animals. They also wrote beautiful stories using their new vocabulary.

http://www.globaldreamers.org/winter/snowmen.html

In conclusion, the Pixie program has inspired and motivated my students and has had a crucial impact on the learning process.