Student+Audience

Located in an expanding area of Lafayette, Indiana, Wea Ridge Elementary School is very large for the area, at more than 680 students. Because of district lines within the school corporation, Wea Ridge Elementary school uses portable classrooms for its third grade classes while schools less than a mile away have empty classrooms. This K-5 school has an average student to teacher ratio of 18.8. While most grades have typical class sizes (third and fifth grade class sizes average 25 students per class), fourth grade classes are larger than normal. At 33-34 students per class, each class has its own aide and the school is close to needing to hire a additional fourth grade teacher.

Many of the Wea Ridge Elementary students come from middle class suburban families, although starting in the 2010-11 school year students from a government housing apartment complex are bussed in. As a result of this and the current economic climate, approximatley 30% of students are eligible for reduced or free lunch. Approximately 80% of the students are White, 15% are Hispanic, and 5% are African American.

In third grade students start learning about the research process during their History Fair. Students research famous Americans, and come to the fair dressed as this person. the students write a brief paper and give informal talks during the fair. Fourth grade students are introduced to the inquiry process during Invention Convention. Students research famous inventors, then find a problem or annoyance during everyday life and invent a tool, gidget, or gazmo to fix it. During fifth grade students improve their research skills during a National Parks project where they research National Parks across the US.

While most students have computers and internet access at home, approximately 5% do not have a computer or internet available to them after school hours. Starting in the 2010-11 school year, classes have computer lab as a special for 1/2 hour each week. During computer lab third, fourth, and fifth grade students use a math skills program for the first 20 minutes and then work on other computer skills and software for the last 10 minutes. Students have been improving keyboarding skills, learning how to use the media center's OPAC, learning to make animations, and being introduced to a variety of free Web 2.0 tools online.

Students enjoy using software and freeware that enables them to be creative, and they love to personalize their work. Many of them happily work at home on programs that are introduced to them during computer lab because they enjoy the opportunity to create. However, the students do not enjoy their required math skills program, likely because they don't get to make anything or think outside the box in any way, they just solve math problems.

Because the students are so motivated by and interested in projects and programs that allow them to be creative, I have taken an approach that allows the children to make many of their own choices and use a variety of creative programs and tools. In this day and age, Web 2.0 tools have allowed internet users to be extremely productive and creative, reaching vast numbers of people all over the world. Individuals, companies, and governments are reaching target audiences through facebook, websites, email, and more. It is important for students to begin to learn to publish their own works and how to communicate with people over the internet in order to be successful in their future careers!