This project is more open-ended, allowing you to explore whatever digital technologies you think might be useful for YOU in your future teaching. The objective here is relevance: Try to consider what you can spend a few weeks learning that you will be able to apply to your own teaching. Following are some examples to get you thinking, and you can also do a second Internet Communication or Multimedia project if you wish by choosing one of the other options available, but you can also suggest other projects to me (just do so BEFORE beginning to work on them). Make this something you can use!
What you will turn in: To complete the assignment you must
1) learn a new technology you are unfamiliar with;
2) write a lesson activity plan (about 1-2 pages) explaining the instructional standard you want to address, and what you and your students will do as part of the activity (include your introductions, group work ideas, instructional topics you’ll discuss, and any assignments you would give to the students);
3) create an artifact with your technology that would be an example of what your students would create with the technology. Occasionally I might accept an artifact that shows what you as a teacher might use, but you’ll need to clear that with me first. The purpose of this assignment is to consider what your students, instead of yourself, could do with the technology.
Because this project is more open-ended and tailored to each individual, I cannot provide a general evaluation rubric. However, the assignment will be graded on whether you:
- Challenged yourself (vs. tinkered with a technology you already know),
- Picked something relevant and useful to your future teaching,
- Created a compelling example artifact, and
- Designed a sound instructional activity.
You can discuss expectations and scope with me after you have decided which technology you want to learn.
Note: The following are not necessarily in order of what I think are the most useful technologies to learn. Discuss with other students from your subject area, or contacts in your PLN, what they think a useful technology would be, and ask me if you still can’t decide.
All Subjects
You can do a second Internet Communication or Multimedia project, choosing a different option than what you did last time, if that is something useful for your subject area.
Language Arts Examples
- Accelerated Reader
- Digital storytelling (click here for resources on doing this)
- Collaborative mindmapping (such as Mindmeister)
- Webquests
- Librivox and audiobooks
- Computer text to speech programs (so students can read and listen to the text simultaneously)
- Dictation software (e.g. Dictate & Dragon Naturally Speaking)
- Discussion boards/Blogs
- Diigo groups
- Adobe Photoshop, Fireworks, or Illustrator as a tool for creating writing prompts or illustrations of writing.
- Collaborative word processing and commenting (Google Docs, Adobe Buzz, Zoho, etc.)
- Electronic publishing on your own website or DIY publishers (e.g. Wordclay, Lulu)
- Interactive whiteboards
Social Studies Examples
- Adventure learning
- Virtual field trips
- Geocaching
- Webquests
- Google Earth
- Stock market simulation (e.g. Virtual Stock Exchange)
- Electronic storytelling
- Digital XPress
- Powerpoint Games
- Interactive Whiteboards
Second Language Acquisition
Many of the options for Language Arts or Social Studies would apply here as well. In addition, you could create a podcast to help students hear language lessons, use Google Earth to explore the countries that speak the language, create webquests to explore other cultures, or gather together (or create your own, if you know Flash or other advanced technologies) games that quiz students on their vocabulary and grammar. Powerpoint games could be a low-tech, but still effective, way of doing this.
Performing/Visual Arts Examples
- Garageband (for Macs)
- Keyboards
- Practica Musica
- Music Ace
- Virtual art field trips
- Eportfolios/slide shows of art performances
- Recording/mixing in Audacity or Garageband and /uploading to Youtube or TeacherTube
- Adobe InDesign/Illustrator/Flash
- Maya or Google Sketchup (strongly recommended for theater majors)
- Record and edit video or audio performances. Create a podcast or vidcast!
- Create a video tutorial to show the steps to demonstrate a skill
- Use Viddler or a similar tool to markup videos of student performances, giving feedback to them
FAQs
