How ‘collaborative learning’ is transforming higher education

Baby steps in our Masterpiece Project... and you invented it!

How ‘collaborative learning’ is transforming higher education | eCampus News:

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Graduate Programs Embracing Games

I'm not sure if I've recommended We Are Teachers... it's a newsletter/website with stuff for teachers.  Subscribe for periodic updates on interesting and sometimes useful education news and resources.  Endorsed by Dave, I approve of this message.

WAT Bulletin: Graduate Programs Embracing Games:

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ED Tech 2300 Final Project

Note: This assignement is for ED Tech 2300 students only

ED Tech 2300 Masterpiece Project

Assignment:

Overview: 

As a team, create a multimedia presentation that showcases what you have learned and discovered this term in ED Tech and perhaps have applied or connected to other classes.  The purpose of this project is to consolidate your experiences into a ‘package’ that adds meaning to your classroom experiences and translates into knowledge that will benefit your teaching prowess.

This is a team experience and all members of the team are expected to add value to the final product.

Specifics:

Create a 15 minute (depending on the size of your team… figure 3 to 5 minutes per team member) multimedia presentation that showcases what you have experienced in ED Tech.  Topics such as blogging, website construction, wikis might be mentioned.  Tools such as Xtranormal, Prezi, Jing, Animoto could be used as part of the presentation.  Still photos, video, screenshots, screencasting are all sources of material that might be used in your team’s presentation.

Your Audience:  Teachers and future teachers

Process suggestion:  Choose a single team member who will coordinate efforts and set up communications between team members.

Step 1.

The team chooses one specific topic from the list below (and be sure to make the specific topic clear to your audience).

1.    A subject area such as math, language arts, science, social studies.

a.     First choose a subject area, then each team member choose a subsection.

b.     Each team member could then be responsible for a subsection of the subject area.

c.      For example:   Social studies is chosen as the subject area.  Then each team member chooses a topic in social studies.  One member may choose first grade and a neighborhood study, another member may choose forth grade Ohio History, etc.

2.    A grade level. 

a.     Choose a specific grade level: First, second, third, etc.

b.     Then each team member prepares examples of tech related tools and materials related to and appropriate for that grade level.  Content could include activities, tools, websites that are age appropriate for students in the chosen grade.

3.    A multidisciplinary unit of study

a.     Define a unit of study that might not be grade level specific but could be used across grade levels and involve multiple subject areas. 

b.     For example:  “Inventions’ could be a multidisciplinary study that would be appropriate for many grade levels.  The study would have social studies, math, science, reading and writing components.

Step 2.

Each team member chooses or is assigned to a portion of the chosen topic.

For example:  The Team topic is multidisciplinary unit on inventions; Team member #1 chooses to showcase appropriate tech resources for introducing an ‘Inventions’ study to second graders.

Step 3.

The team puts it all together. 

Each team member’s contribution is put into a presentation that will be shown to the class.  The team as a whole will create an introduction to the project that explains the topic, the name of team members and what each person has contributed to the project.  The team will also create a concluding statement/event/demonstration that makes the case for using what the team has created with elementary students.  There will be a question and answer period after each presentation.

When it is all due: 

On 0ur last class is Wednesday December 5.  All team members must be present and participate in the presentation.

Wiki.com

This is a cool Wiki Site  take a look


Wiki.com:

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Pinterest Tutorial - YouTube

A Pinterest tutorial if you are interested... you'll find some teaching ideas on Pinterest.

Pinterest Tutorial - YouTube:

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Blog Prompt 11.6.12

Technology and Creativity

When I taught sixth grade in a galaxy and time far, far away we always did lots of projects…often building objects, large and small, for science, social studies, literature, even math.  One of theprojects we did at the end of the year for several years was math related.  The challenge was to design and build a model dream home given lots of specific directions related to procedures, scale, materials, tools, etc.  Teachers supplied materials and even an Exacto knife (can you imagine giving 25 squirrelly 11 year olds box cutters and turning them loose in a classroom today?). Some of the images I hold in my mind of those times are of kids who had the grandest ideas of what they believe they could build and what that project could do and look like when they finished it. The finished products, especially those that were not heavily ‘coached’ by parents fell quite short of what children envisioned.  Sometimes the student reactions were especially palpable resulting in half-done models destroyed in frustration or finished houses left behind in the classroom at the end of the school year because the builder was embarrassed to take the project home.   This particular project was done by all sixth graders in the school where I taught and was a ‘tradition’ with lots of instructions and limits on creativity. It was not my favorite project (in part because it was not MY project).

MY favorite project integrated literature, scale and ratio as well as artistic, engineering and presentation skills.  The project involved creating a “wax museum” to retell the story of the Hobbit a book that we read in class.  Instead of using wax we created paper maché life-size characters from the book and placed them in tableaus throughout the classroom.  We invited other classes to tour our room as each team of students told the portion of the Hobbit their tableau represented.   The project was always messy, somewhat dangerous (chicken wire, wire cutters, dragon suspended from the ceiling, etc.) but wildly successful, even if I do say so myself.  Part of the success of this project was due to high peer expectations and the availability of age appropriate tools and materials.  The expectations were simple… as a team build a scene that tells an assigned piece of the Hobbit story using an appropriate scale and tools that did not require a lot of fine motor coordination (unlike the precise drawing, cutting and gluing required in the house building project).  The products of the projects were the creations of teams of students.  Each individual on the team was able to contribute according to his/her skill, interests and talent.  All felt pride ofownership and accomplishment.

Where am I going with this story?  In MY projects we were lucky not to have any serious injuries except for some wire punctures(no lost eyes) and there was that time that a candle making project resulted inan electrical fire and some spilled hot wax (fire department not called and no skin grafts were required).  The key concept in the first paragraph of this post is that kids have great taste when it comes to projects… it’s the execution of the vision that often fails them.  The lack of motor skill, the inaccessibility of materials and tools, the constraining directions all contribute all too often to a sense of disappointment if not failure. 

Finally, my point:  Technology enables kids to do what they dream and practice leads to perfection.  The perfect poster:  Glogster.  The perfect 3-D fly-through drawing: Google Sketchup.  An animation: XtraNormal.  A professional grade presentation: Animoto, Prezi, Powerpoint.  A movie: MovieMaker, iMovie.  When schools get around to ordering them: 3-D printers, MakerBotis now available and not too expensive, it will allow kids to make three dimensional models of just about any thing they can dream up.  

Also, where do good ideas come from, anyway?

The blog prompt:  First, click on and review the above links.  Then riff on the connections between and among the topics of teaching, project based learning, educational technology and creativity. Draw on your own experiences as a student or as a professional participant in schools.  A paragraph or so in your blog should do it, longer if you wish. 

Do it before our next class, please.

Finally, comment to this post with your name so that I can see that you read it.