Well we've come to the end of the semester. Please post a shore (not more than a few paragraphs) description of your Final Project below (before midnight 7/29) and also post the entire Final Project to the wiki: http://wikidave.wikispaces.com/Final+Projects this way future participants will be able to add to, and improve upon, your project in the wiki--perpetually evolving, forever improving, changing, and growing.
It was a pleasure working with all of you. I will be sending you your semester grade next week.
Good luck, and as always, feel free to contact me if you ever have any questions.
Professionally Yours,
Dave Fontaine
Internet Librarian
National Board Certified Teacher
Educational Consultant
DaveFontaine1@gmail.com
http://professionaldevelopmentcredit.com/
11 comments:
I have created a blog that will facilitate professional development in my building/district for teachers to learn Web 2.0. The idea is to have teachers follow the directions, links... each week and blog about their experiences to their colleagues. As one of the librarians in the district, I will support teacher learning and encourage, support and collaborate on classroom use of the web 2.0 tools.
Here is the description posted on the blog: "Bring 21st Century Learning into your classroom. This fun, easy program will help you explore & expand Internet use & Web 2.0. WG Things keeps you connected to your colleagues as you explore. Simply share your questions, discoveries and ideas for classroom use in this blog. Your librarian will work with you and your students as you implement web 2.0 into your classroom."
I've posted my project to the wiki. Please keep in mind that it is a work in progress.
I have updated a unit that the 9th grade science team previously taught but incorporated the use of a blog as a daily agenda/warmup, as well as offering the students the option of creating a podcast instead of a powerpoint presentation. Also since this is a project that we plan on doing every year, I am going to integrate a wikispace and have the students post a new reference website for each of their projects. The idea being that previous classes will help to add to the research database of future classes.
Here is the overview from my unit:
In this unit, students will research alternative transportation fuels in an effort to find a fuel that might be more ecumenically and environmentally beneficial than our current fuel. The objectives of this unit are to get students to think critically about our fuel usage and its impact on the environment. Prior to this unit of investigation, students had learned about various sources of energy such as Kinetic, Potential, Thermal and Electrical and traced the transfer of energy from a source and through a system. Most students have written reports, but few have an understanding of what makes a source credible. Ideally, the student will be able to use their prior knowledge about sources of energy and build upon that by constructing new knowledge in their own self directed research. There will be some opportunities for student choice in regards to the format of their presentation as well as the two different fuels that they choose to write about for their final assessment. Students will be paired in heterogenous groups for a majority of this unit in order to give the students the experience of working in a cooperative environment as well as allowing the students to build upon each others varying strengths.
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The blog posts are not yet created. (they will be created closer to the implementation of the unit. The idea is to get the students to visit the blog first thing when they come into class. By the time we get to this unit, it should be second nature. (I hope!)
S12:
Being a middle school technology teacher with some predefined curriculum that I must get in each trimester, I decided to do a Career Unit whereby I could incorporate not only some career standards that are becoming increasingly important because of ILP’s, but also some local, district standards of block letter writing and MLA report writing that our students are required to know prior to going over to the high school. This unit builds upon itself and hopefully makes what could be a little boring for the students a fairly interesting unit that will hopefully not only spark some inner questions about who they are and want to become, but also involve community as well as incorporate inner reflection all while using and learning some of the new 2.0 web tools as much as possible.
S12 (continued2)
This unit consists of three broad lesson plans that begin with the internet and more specifically a RI Web-based Site that guides students through various assessments to learn about themselves. Additionally, it will take them through higher educational institutions that are suited to them in conjunction with the personal assessment results and then bring it one step further into what careers might be of interest to them. Since this lesson is geared toward 8th graders, this is not meant to be an end all, but an eye opener to get the students to begin thinking about their skills, academic successes, and how the two relate to possible careers. The students will post their results on our classroom private wiki under their own name (similar to how we posted our deliverables for this class). The post-activities include watching videos of their careers on the WaytogoRI.org website as well as finding other related career videos on-line. A culminating activity will be to create a Glogster showing these videos. Their peers will have to comment on these Glogsters on our classroom blog.
The second lesson in this unit will be to learn the proper formatting of block letter writing. This is a high-school requirement in our district. As a more enjoyable and less boring way to learn this and practice it; students will first watch a video on block letter writing on our classroom wiki. After having learned about Prezis and creating one unrelated to this assignment, they will create a block letter Prezi which requires that they show me the correct format of parts of a block letter in a Prezi and send that to me via email. My classroom has been paperless now for a couple of years and I do most grading via email. This is and of itself is a great learning process of technology skills. The culminating activity in this lesson is that they create a block letter to the top higher educational institution of their choice from lesson 1 and after having sent it to me via email and having had it graded, they make the necessary changes and send it to the institution via email essentially requesting a brochure or catalog. This activity is very exciting to them when they realize the letters are going outside of the school to a real audience and when they receive something back from the school; it really gets them thinking about school. Once they receive something back from the school, they are required to post a reflection on our classroom blog indicating how they felt after receiving the material and what their thoughts are now about this institution.
S12 (continued 3)
Finally, in the last lesson of the unit, the students are required to summarize all of the information from lesson 1 and lesson 2 and make it into an MLA Style report. This serves multiple purposess as it gives them time to reflect and pull all of the information together, It lets them learn and practice the MLA format that they are required to know for the high school, and it is a culminating writing piece. These reports are then posted to our classroom wikis where they can be viewed by their classmates. They are also then required to post a blog on their own reflection of what they learned in the unit, but also are required to find some of their peers and post a comment on other students’ projects as well. These comments can be posted via the blog, via a podcast, or via a Voki on our classroom wiki under that particular page set-up for that purpose. I will have a list of all of the members as well as their log-in id’s; thus have the ability to track or remove any inappropriate comments. We will discuss this ahead of time as well and use it as a side lesson for technology safety.
(Sorry, longer than I thought)
Lori Chmelyk and I worked together to create a large thematic based unit that branches off to study two different novels.
The first branch of our unit has been created in mind for grade 7 students and is called Why Can't We All Just Get Along? It focuses on the themes of friendship, perseverance, and differences. The novel studied in that unit is Freak the Mighty by Rodman Philbrick. During this unit students will work with a blog, wiki's and create a podcast as their final project.
The second branch of our unit has been created in mind for grade 8 students and is called A Perfect World?! The novel studied in this unit is The Giver by Lois Lowry. This unit is a study of utopian societies and looks at the themes of belonging, isolation, and differences. It also addresses the concept of what is perfect. During this unit students will work with a blog, create digital poetry using Animoto, and create a wiki page as their final project.
We have created multiple lesson plans that can be used as is, adapted for student needs or teacher wants or a combination of the two. Many of the ideas that are presented in the units can also be applied to other novel studies. Many of the short stories and poems would also fit into other thematic units.
Both units have been posted to my final project wiki page and Lori Chmelyk's final project wiki page.
Please see Karen Rutar's write up for the final project description as we worked collabortively on a larger unit together.
Lori : )
I have modified a unit on genetics and human genetics disorders to incorporate a blog, research focused wiki and web 2.0 presentation tools. I have shared this Unit Plan on Curriki (which is also pretty nifty) at the following link
http://www.curriki.org/xwiki/bin/view/Coll_elsteele/EDC586-921HumanGeneticDisorderFinalProject
I have also posted my Unit Plan to the wiki.
I feel that the culminating project of the human genetic research project always accentuates such a wide diversity of students research skills. The collaborative aspect of the wiki will allow me better able to assist students and share their accumulating knowledge as they work through the project. We had talked earlier in the semester about using technology and having some lessons fall flat on their faces. This is unique in the students generally really like this project and by adding the technology components I believe I can only enhance student ownership and interest.
Since I am a high school librarian, my unit is teaching the research process to ninth grade English classes. The lessons in this unit cover the entire research process except for the actual writing, which the English teacher will do in her own classroom. The research process starts with choosing topics based on a nonfiction book they read, Chew on This, and developing essential questions and supporting questions, which I ask students to share on a class blog. I also ask students to read each other’s work and make comments and/or suggestions on the blog. As we get into the actual searching for information, I ask students to share any interesting articles or web sites they find. I’m always impressed with the quality of the sources students can find when they learn advanced searching techniques and how to evaluate web sites. You can view the unit on the wiki for the class.
I’ve enjoyed following what you all had to say in class this summer. I learned a lot from all of you.
A book trailer is pretty much exactly what it sounds like - a cross between a movie trailer and a book talk/review. The goal is to capture the audience's attention through the use of images, voice-over and movies, while describing the book. The book trailer requires that students display an understanding of the book, are able to integrate graphics and video appropriately to support the tone, theme and content, can write a script for the voice-over that engages viewers, and are familiar with technology in combining these elements.
This unit will help students:
- Select a book for independent reading;
- Identify important elements of digital storytelling;
- Make appropriate use of graphics and music, while respecting copyrighted sources;
- Apply those elements to the creation of a book trailer using Photostory software.
Here is the link to my final project:
http://wikidave.wikispaces.com/921-Wrightson%2C+Jacquelyn+Final
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