Standard 2.1
Standard 2.1 Narrative Content Standards and Student Technology Standards
I feel that best artifact for standard 2.1 is the webquest
artifact that was created for our multimedia and design course. For this project, I created a webquest, using
Weebly, on the 13 colonies. I divided the colonies into three sections and sent
students on a quest gathering information and creating a presentation in the
end. It is what the students did with the presentation that I enjoyed. Students
were to take their presentations and teach the class about the region they
chose. In the end this is what made the assignment worth-while. I was able to see the students creativity in
the presentations and get a bit of information about how the groups like to
learn. In the webquest I placed videos
and links to guide student research and modeled credible websites for research
purposes. This project was done
exclusively in the classroom so that equitable access was available to all
students. Having it done only in class helps with the quality of the presentations
because of the available laptop carts in my classroom. The webquest was created for my 10th
grade US History class, but I ended up using it for my 9th grade
World History class as well later in the school year.
During the creation of this webquest I closely followed the Alabama High School Course of Study to align it with standards that students were to master. Colonization also happens to be one of my favorite topics and settling the original thirteen colonies is a huge standard for 10th grade students to master. I also used the ISTE website to help align the webquest with the NETS standards for students. This quest was aligned with the student standards that emphasized research and information fluency, digital citizenship, and technology operations and concepts. Since colonization is a large chunk of the standards for the fall of tenth grade I felt that mixing the curriculum standards with the NETS standards would serve my students well in the research department. Students when they get to me still have little training on how to research topics and receive educated answers to questions. To make sure I reached these standards for both the curriculum and the technology I spent a good deal of time finding credible websites and modeling their effective use. After using my sites, students were able to branch out and find their own to finish the project. I think that this advocates safe, legal, and responsible use of school provided laptops as well as home use. With these standards I was able to model effective use of technology in my classroom as well as make sure content standards were being covered. Before the students began the webquest, I reviewed the directions and the rubric so students were clear about what was expected. During the assignment I was constantly walking around and helping students who needed it. I was also keeping students on task. Group work can sometimes lead to students getting off task so me walking around helping students acted as a deterrent for behavior.
I learned that a project like this can create some problems with the schools infrastructure. My hallway only has one Wi-Fi hub, so this lowered the bandwidth a good deal which created slower computers. I am definitely glad that this was done in groups, because if it were an individual assignment we may not have gotten it done in time. This Problem helped the school realize that the infrastructure needs to be upgraded (or expanded) to support this number of laptops on the network. I also learned that most 9th and 10th graders have no been trained properly on how to research. This has led me to make sure that teaching research becomes part of my yearly plan for students. The more technology rich assignments I give, the more I have to model these practices. I think that if I had to do it all over again I would have the students be a part of the grading process during their lessons they were given. By making students a part of the grading process, I feel that students will work harder to create quality projects. Sometimes, students value the opinions of their classmates over teacher input. This would add a collaborative feature to the lesson. Technology is a great attribute to any lesson in my opinion, but teaching our kids how to use technology properly is the key. I think that this is how we as professionals can impact school improvement in the long run. We can add these standards (NETS-S) into our lessons and teach real research as well as digital citizenship. With these types of lessons we should see an improvement in student presentations and research papers. School improvement can be assessed with through higher scores on the ACT which is Alabama’s test for graduation now.
During the creation of this webquest I closely followed the Alabama High School Course of Study to align it with standards that students were to master. Colonization also happens to be one of my favorite topics and settling the original thirteen colonies is a huge standard for 10th grade students to master. I also used the ISTE website to help align the webquest with the NETS standards for students. This quest was aligned with the student standards that emphasized research and information fluency, digital citizenship, and technology operations and concepts. Since colonization is a large chunk of the standards for the fall of tenth grade I felt that mixing the curriculum standards with the NETS standards would serve my students well in the research department. Students when they get to me still have little training on how to research topics and receive educated answers to questions. To make sure I reached these standards for both the curriculum and the technology I spent a good deal of time finding credible websites and modeling their effective use. After using my sites, students were able to branch out and find their own to finish the project. I think that this advocates safe, legal, and responsible use of school provided laptops as well as home use. With these standards I was able to model effective use of technology in my classroom as well as make sure content standards were being covered. Before the students began the webquest, I reviewed the directions and the rubric so students were clear about what was expected. During the assignment I was constantly walking around and helping students who needed it. I was also keeping students on task. Group work can sometimes lead to students getting off task so me walking around helping students acted as a deterrent for behavior.
I learned that a project like this can create some problems with the schools infrastructure. My hallway only has one Wi-Fi hub, so this lowered the bandwidth a good deal which created slower computers. I am definitely glad that this was done in groups, because if it were an individual assignment we may not have gotten it done in time. This Problem helped the school realize that the infrastructure needs to be upgraded (or expanded) to support this number of laptops on the network. I also learned that most 9th and 10th graders have no been trained properly on how to research. This has led me to make sure that teaching research becomes part of my yearly plan for students. The more technology rich assignments I give, the more I have to model these practices. I think that if I had to do it all over again I would have the students be a part of the grading process during their lessons they were given. By making students a part of the grading process, I feel that students will work harder to create quality projects. Sometimes, students value the opinions of their classmates over teacher input. This would add a collaborative feature to the lesson. Technology is a great attribute to any lesson in my opinion, but teaching our kids how to use technology properly is the key. I think that this is how we as professionals can impact school improvement in the long run. We can add these standards (NETS-S) into our lessons and teach real research as well as digital citizenship. With these types of lessons we should see an improvement in student presentations and research papers. School improvement can be assessed with through higher scores on the ACT which is Alabama’s test for graduation now.
multimedia_project_report_1.docx | |
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File Type: | docx |