mohamed_hassan / Pixabay

The Water Cycle: How Splish Recovered His Splash is an educational narrative especially designed for a Special Education combined Year 7 and 8 IM and IO Geography class pitched at a Stage 2 ability. The narrative tells the story of a couple of droplets of water, Splish-Splash and Drip-Drop, and their progress through the water cycle. It gives an awareness of the preciousness of water and the importance of preserving it. Learning activities compliment the text such as a pre-assessment activity at the beginning, collaborative activities with another Special Education class, questions assessing learning as progress is made, hyperlinks to sites which contain additional content including an experiment, heavily structured activities (which includes repetition of a task) and an assessment of learning at the end. There is an emphasis placed on multimodal activities created for students with literacy and learning difficulties, including a video of the sea, an audio reading of each page of the narrative, many images to view for better understanding of the narrative and the platform has the option for the narrative to be read to the participant which progresses with highlighted words. There is a permanent School Learning Support Officer permanently assigned to the class and the students are supported well.

This resource is aimed at addressing the following NSW Geography K-10 Syllabus Life Skills outcomes:

• GELS-3: explores interactions and connections between people places and environments.
• GELS-8: communicates geographical information.

The topic, The Water Cycle, relates to “Futures” in the Special Education faculty’s scope and sequence. The content of the unit was taken from Geography sample unit (integrated with Life Skills).

The narrative is aimed at satisfying outcomes and a scope and sequence but I have endeavoured to make the narrative fun and informative as well. Creation of a protagonist the class can engage was a significant consideration. Splish-Splash’s personality and appearance is vivid. He undergoes what Bernard refers to as an “arc” that transformed Splish-Splash from his depressive state back to his bright, colourful self. Being a short narrative it is difficult to include depth but it could be argued that he was re-instated in the natural order thus completing Bernard’s next step of learning from the transformation.

Methods to support students with special needs was an integral influencing factor when choosing the application used to support my digital narrative. The Book Creator software application contains many multimodal features that are useful for a classroom that has diverse needs and has the ability to satisfy multiple intelligences. For viewing, videos and images can be uploaded or drawn using the pen, for auditory, students can listen to sound uploaded or have a book read to them through the “Read to Me” function which also highlights words as they go. Students can participate answering questions by drawing, entering text or clicking on hyperlinks. Therefore, this application can tailored to the students’ needs, assisting them in their learning. It has functions that allow students to progress more independently and allows them to develop their interactive skills. (Rhodes & Milby, 2007, p.255). The Water Cycle: How Splish Recovered His Splash used bright colours for visuals to engage the students, mostly lower level Blooms Taxonomy of knowledge and understanding, practical activities such as links to Make a Cloud experiment, is not too wordy, various modes, interactive methods to “play and learn” with drawing (annotating) allowed on the site and, once in, the teacher can see each student’s individual book. I would have to get permission to access G Suite.

My intention when constructing this digital narrative was to bring additional value to the text so that it is not solely a text that has been produced in the same manner as a codex. This was achieved via its multimodal features but I also wanted to engage the students the opportunity to work at the Modification and Redefinition levels of Dr Ruben P Puentedura’s Substitution Augmentation Modification Redefinition (SAMR) model. However, creativity and the higher levels of Blooms Taxonomy can be extremely challenging for these students. Nevertheless, an activity in the text involves the modification of the steps in the water cycle. It is to be adapted into a flow chart. This is designed to be an activity that they will enjoy. Holt (2012), an advocate for the SAMR model, asserts that if a student enjoys the task, they will remember it better. In a Special Education setting this is important.

The students will derive value from this digital text by capitalising on the structure and quality of the narrative, its multimodal features, enabling the students to experience a more enjoyable and a memorable activity. Effective planning of the context of The Water Cycle: How Splish Recovered His Splash, was essential so that the class this text was designed and created for can harvest as much value from it as possible.

References

Bernard, S.C., (c2007). Documentary storytelling making stronger and more dramatic nonfiction films. Retrieved from https://primo.csu.edu.au/discovery/fulldisplay?docid=alma991013219215402357&context=L&vid=61CSU_INST:61CSU&search_scope=MyInst_and_CI&tab=Everything&lang=en

Book Creator, (2011-2019). Book Creator [software application]. Retrieved from https://bookcreator.com/

Bull, J., (2014). Callaghan College Waratah Technology Campus Support Unit scope and sequence matrix. Retrieved from https://schoolsnsw-my.sharepoint.com/:w:/r/personal/jeffrey_bull2_det_nsw_edu_au/_layouts/15/doc2.aspx?sourcedoc=%7Bdd444146-b1fd-4cf4-ad3e-b9b2bd8f6453%7D&file=scope%20and%20sequence%20draft%202018.docx&action=default&mobileredirect=true&cid=2a2cfe21-0eba-4349-8322-068baba04d30

Hassan, M., (n.d.). (n.d.). Pexels. Retrieved from https://pixabay.com/users/mohamed_hassan/ (The image was obtained under Creative Commons licence).

Holt, T., (3 March 2012). Digital discoveries – SAMR modification. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f48amZYSYYI

Make a Cloud. (n.d.). Sydney Water. Retrieved from http://www.sydneywater.com.au/web/groups/publicwebcontent/documents/document/zgrf/mdk5/~edisp/dd_099223.pdf

NSW Education Standards Authority (2019), Geography sample unit (integrated with Life Skills) – Geography 7-10 Life Skills Course Content: Support Materials Sample Units – Geography K-10 Stage 4 Sample Unit: Water in the World (Integrated with Life Skills). Retrieved from NSW Education Standards Authority website: https://educationstandards.nsw.edu.au/wps/portal/nesa/k-10/learning-areas/hsie/geography-k-10/life-skills/content

NSW Education Standards Authority, (2015). Retrieved from NSW Syllabus for the Australian Curriculum – Geography K-10 Syllabus, https://educationstandards.nsw.edu.au/wps/portal/nesa/k-10/learning-areas/hsie/geography-k-10

Puentedura, R.R., (December 8, 2011), A Brief Introduction to TPCK and SAMR: Workshop Slides, Ruben. R. Puentedura’s Weblog: Ongoing thoughts on education and technology. Retrieved from http://www.hippasus.com/rrpweblog/archives/2011/12/08/BriefIntroTPCKSAMR.pdf

Rhodes, J. M. & Milby, T. M., (2007). Teacher-created electronic books: Integrating technology to support readers with disabilities. Reading Teacher, 61(3), 255-259. Retrieved from http://ezproxy.csu.edu.au/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=27349103&site=ehost-pve. DOI: 10.1598/RT.61.3.6

Travassaros, E., (2019). The water cycle: How Splish recovered his Splash. Retrieved from https://app.bookcreator.com/books