Our First Collaboration Assignment

Here is our first assignment as copied from the assignment page of our class:

"in your initial discussion, describe the lesson you are considering adapting or developing as the centerpiece of your Capstone I Portfolio Exhibit and explain how existing learning resources could be designed or adapted to include students' use of technology tools to research and collect information online and to create a digital product."

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Permalink Reply by Christine on October 3, 2011 at 7:03am

Funny! I was the one who posted about museaum box. It has been a year since we used it. I don't like that delay and may have to find something else!

A bluescreen video is a trick with windows movie maker. You add in a little code and have a "bluescreen" transition. Next you film a student in front of a blue or green backdrop. You can then pull the clip into movie maker, and pull any video or movie behind them. I am going to have them dress in period clothing and put battle scenes behind them. THis is similar to the technique used by the weatherman.

Permalink Reply by Rachel Welch on October 3, 2011 at 3:34pm

Oh so like a green screen! Got it :) Thanks for the clarification. I would love to see one that you have already done if you don't mind sharing. This is something that I may be interested in trying for a different assignment. Certainly not right now! LOL!

Permalink Reply by Paul George on October 2, 2011 at 11:18am

I think your museum box tool will work here as well.

Permalink Reply by Christine on October 5, 2011 at 1:06pm

OK - Here is the lesson summary I came up with. I used 2 activities I helped with last year, and added more options for the students to choose from. Too much? Overly ambitious and unrealistic? It is a small class... I am only giving them 2 class periods and homework for research, 2 for their flashcard production, 4 days to put together their mini project and 2 for presentations. Do we need more time? This is only a small project, as they only need to know the major facts about each person.

One of the hardest parts of the Virginia Studies SOL is the memorization of all of the Famous Virginians for the test. Through this dynamic and technology infused lesson, students will have fun researching, sharing and learning about famous Americans from Virginia’s past. To begin the unit, students will be given a pre test using Qwizdom, a personal response system. That quiz will enable the teacher to gauge the prior knowledge that students have as they enter the unit of study.

Students will begin their part of the activity by selecting the historic figure of their choice. Students will be required to use various online databases and texts to conduct research on their characters. After research is completed and cited, students have 2 assignments.

All students will create a power point “flash card” about their famous Virginian. The teacher will transfer these flashcards to mobile devices for the students to use for pre SOL review activities.

The second assignment is the research presentation assignment. Due to the diverse group of learners in this 4th grade class, students will have the opportunity to present their historical figure in one of 5 ways. (1. Bluescreen presentation, 2. Power Point Flash video (Who am I), 3.Historical Podcast, 4.Museum Box activity with written descriptive presentation, or 5.Illustrated Autobiographical picture book using drawings, or art created with KidPix. The teacher will share examples of all 5 outcomes for the students to choose from, as well as grading rubrics for each activity. The project must be approved by the teacher before the student can begin. A student may propose a different format of presentation, but the presentation idea must be written in detail and provided to the teacher by the first day that project preparation begins. All students will prepare a mapped outline of their presentation in Kidspiration before writing their final draft. Approval must be given before writing the final draft.

After the flashcards, research projects, presentations, and flashcard review have all been completed, the students will take a post assessment self paced quiz using the same Qwizdom response tools in self paced mode.

Permalink Reply by Rachel Welch on October 5, 2011 at 7:39pm

So if I understand completely this is a 10 day total start to finish....right?

Commendations:

I like the pretest.

Like the choice in historical figure and what they are producing.

Love all of the technology involved!

KidPix is an awesome program that the kids enjoy working with!

I have never heard of Qwizdom and look forward to checking into it.

Concerns:

It is a lot for one teacher! I love the idea of choice but you may run yourself to death.

If you can get help or an assistant you will save yourself many headaches with so many different projects going on at once.

For our portfolio, will you have to turn in these rubrics? I don't know the answer, just something to think about.

This is a great lesson! Your students will certainly benefit from it :)

Permalink Reply by Christine on October 6, 2011 at 7:46am

Thanks! This is a small class, there will be me, a classroom teacher, a student teacher, and one special ed teacher in the room...so I thought it may work. Who knows I may bring it down to 3 instead of 5 options!

Also Qwizdom is the personal response system we use in our county. We have 6 bags of 30 clickers in each school. If you ever need to observe teachers doing a super cool form of evaluation, you should check it out. I have some cool videos of kids using it as well. I even use it with Kindergarteners!

Permalink Reply by Paul George on October 8, 2011 at 7:07pm

I agree that narrowing it down to 3 options may be more realistic and manageable. Then try 3 other options in the next project. Build over time. As their tech repertoire grows, then expand options and give choice.