Chapter 5 Reflection

1.             Discussion on the items that should be considered before starting a project with students.

Teachers first need to consider what materials they will need. You can begin this process by finding out what supplies, tools, and other materials are available to your school. If you don’t find what you need, you can put the word out about your upcoming project and post a wish list of supplies. You can also consider community resources. Next teachers need to consider if the project will involve the use of technologies that are new to them or their students. You need to think about the essential learning functions you need the technology to deliver and then select the tools that will help students meet your learning goals. If students will be using unfamiliar tools, you need to build in time to introduce them. Teachers also need to consider if they need to expand their students’ access to technology. You will have to think creatively about how to make access more frequent and equal. Teachers need to consider if their students will need access to experts to answer their questions that might come up during the project. You will need to get create to come up with ways to engage with experts both in person and from a distance. Teachers should consider who could help with their project. You need to remember to contact the technology coordinator, media specialist, or other specialists available to you. They can help your students complete more complicated project activities like multimedia presentations or videos. Finally, teachers need to consider how they will divide responsibilities between their teaching team. Individual strengths and interests should be considered and everyone should know what tasks they are responsible for.

2.             Discussion on teachers’ and students’ management needs.

Digital tools can help teachers organize their projects and help students learn through their projects.

Teacher’s project-management needs:

• ·      Tools for communicating with students about the project
• ·      Tools for making milestones visible and for notifying students when changes occur
• ·      Methods for getting resources to students
• ·      Systems for managing work products
• ·      Structures that support a productive learning environment where teams and individuals are engaged in a variety of learning tasks at the same time
• ·      Assessment tools and strategies, including:

o   Ways to gage if students are working productively and accomplishing project goals

o   Ways to assess the load balance within a team so no individuals are doing too much or too little work

o   Way to give feedback on students work as it develops, not just when it’s completed

Student’s project-management needs:

• ·      Systems and tools that help them manage their time and flow of work
• ·      Systems that help students manage materials and control work drafts
• ·      Collaboration tools
• ·      Methods for seeking assistance
• ·      Ways to get and use feedback on their work, through self-reflection, team input, and teacher advice
• ·      Ways to work iteratively and to see how parts add up to the whole

3.             Discuss some of the technology applications that should be considered for use in a project.

Teachers should consider selecting from an assortment of technology applications to find ones that best suit the needs of their project. Teachers can link these tools together in a wiki, associate them with a blog or use a web-based desktop application. A wiki is basically an easily edited webpage. Users can share content through text, web links, or new pages. Wikis can be open to the public or limited with a password. They can also be reverted back to older versions if something goes wrong. Wikispaces and PBwiki are two wikis that are primarily used with educators. A blog is also an easily edited web page but its structure is more similar to a one-to-many delivery information system. Viewers can comment on others posts but interaction is less than within a wiki. A blog is a great pace for teachers to communicate with students about progress or milestones and to broadcast news related to the project. Teachers could also create separate blogs for their students and have them publish and link to their blog. Even as students write in their own blogs, teachers can keep control of the publishing and help students decide when their work is ready to be published. There are also more sophisticated web spaces that combine content management with a blogging engine. Drupal and Textpattern are examples of this. They allow teachers to create discussion forums and surveys and they offer many functions for web collaboration.

4. Discussion on how concepts in this chapter relate to your topic/project.

This chapter really made me think about the project-management needs of both teachers and students. Our project of making a class cookbook and hosting a class dinner is something that students will be working on both in and out of class. We will need different ways to communicate with students so they can access the information both in and out of class. We will also need different ways to provide feedback to students throughout the project process so they can do their best work throughout. Our students will need methods of asking for assistance, both in and out of class, and they will need tools to help them work collaboratively (especially when planning the class dinner).