Week 10: The Last Hurrah!

Welcome to the last week of Learn and Earn! I have thoroughly enjoyed working with you over the course of the past few months. Each week I continued to be impressed with the insightful and thorough comments you offered in response to the assignment and in response to each other. Your engagement in this effort really exemplifies Tahoma teachers as lifelong learners and risk takers. We hope it has been a worthwhile experience for you.

A couple housekeeping issues:
For those of you taking this class for clock hours, soon I will be sending out the paperwork for you to fill out and return.

This week, for your last “assignment” I'm asking two things:

1. Go back to one or two previous posts and take a look at your classmates’ comments. Choose one or two of these comments to respond to by answering someone’s question, providing your perspective on someone’s idea, offering a suggestion, etc.

2. Provide your feedback about the class using the form below.

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Week 9: These Teachers Rock! Literally.

You might have already heard of these fantabulous history teachers through FaceBook--that's where I learned of them (thanks Amy Doyle!). They launched their YouTube channel in early December, so they got a bit of publicity as a result, but it looks like they've been busy making history fun for a while now. Anyway, I couldn't help passing on their fine work to you. I realize that you don't all teach in a content area that would necessarily make use of their videos (re-writing popular song lyrics to explain historical (and literary) events like the French Revolution, Beowulf, The Norman Conquest, etc.). However, I think you can all imagine a situation where you might assign something like this for students and I’d like this week’s post to be about these types of projects in general—whether they involve technology or not.

I can think of many times I've assigned a project that involved hours and hours of work (like cutting, gluing, coloring, making stick figures out of marshmallows, etc.). Sometimes individual projects turned out really cool, many other times they were a disappointment. Grading both the successful and not-so-successful projects was always a bit of a struggle because it often wasn’t until then that I would realize that my rubric didn't truly focus on the learning I was trying to have students demonstrate. In many cases, I ran into the problem of judging the quality of the cutting, gluing, food-morphing, instead of the evidence of learning. Don't get me wrong--producing a high quality product is important, but, as teacher, I had to ask myself, whether the hours of work required to produce a high quality product was really fair, or even worth it. Ideally, I'd want most (if not all) of the time my students were engaged in a project to be time they were practicing or deepening their understanding of the learning. However, without clearly thinking this through at the beginning, we can too easily end up in the situation I describe, comparing David’s marshmallow-man assembly skills with Stephanie’s (or, worse, Stephanie’s mom’s).

With that in mind, this is probably how I'd approach an assignment like this: I would show students a few examples, then we'd craft a rubric together--really focusing on the content/quality of the lyrics and choice of accompanying images/footage. I'd probably only have them create a storyboard of the video with the lyrics and wouldn’t have them go so far as to make an actual video (which would require HOURS of work to produce a high quality product). The process of re-writing the lyrics and planning for the accompanying images/footage is really where the demonstration of the learning is. I would, of course, be sure to clearly communicate this to my students. Discussing how the actual creation of the video could easily turn into busy work would help them better understand what it is they are to learn from the experience. If I gave them the option of going the next step and making a video, I’d make sure the finer points of video recording, editing and production were only a small part of the grade (unless, of course, I had the additional learning goal of producing music videos AND had actually taught them how to do it). How many times have we been faced with grading students on something (e.g. drawing, diorama making, making a game board, etc,) without teaching them how to do so first? Seems a little unfair unless the bulk of the grade reflects the evidence of meeting the learning goal, not the finer points of the product. My guess is that even though making the video wouldn't be required, some students would go ahead and make it anyway.

What do you think? Yep, that's it--that's this week's assignment. What insights, comments, or additions do you want to add? (You can even disagree with me if you want. ;))

Optional Post #2: Tis the Season of Giving

This week's assignment is optional--you only need to complete it if you missed one of the previous weeks' posts. In the spirit of the holidays, I thought we'd give someone who isn't in our class the gift of something you've learned. Here's how it works:

1. Look over the past posts and find something you think you'd like to pass on to someone else.
2. Pick a person on your staff to receive your "gift of knowledge."
3. Visit that person and say, "Hey, do you have minute so I can show you this cool thing I learned?"
4. Show them. (Don't forget, let them "drive." Only in dire situations should you take over the keyboard or mouse of another person--we learn best by doing.)
5. Come back here and tell us what you shared and why, and a little bit about the experience.
6. Enjoy your break!

Week 8: Podcasting with AudioBoo

This week you get to listen instead of read:

Your assignment:

1. Learn about AudioBoo from the Learn It in 5 website.
2. Create an account at AudioBoo and make a sample podcast. Ideally, if you're a classroom teacher, I encourage you to create something you'll actually post to your SWIFT site for students or parents to access. You can watch this little demo for how to embed the podcast on your SWIFT site: Embedding an AudioBoo Podcast into Your SWIFT Site from 10Tech on Vimeo.
   (Also, remember, whenever using your built in microphone, you may need to play around a little with your levels, etc. Here's the link to the demo about adjusting your microphone settings: http://vimeo.com/8228250.)
3. Come back here and tell us about your experience and how you imagine you could use it in your classroom.

REMINDER: This post isn't really due until we get back from break. Next week, I'll post an optional assignment for those who need to "make up" a week they missed.

Week 7: Free Online Test/Quiz Maker

Testmoz is a handy little tool does just what it says it does: allows the teacher to easily make simple tests/quizzes/checks for understanding that don't require a login by either the teacher or the student. Follow the directions--when they say "make a note of the URL and don't lose it," they mean it--it's your only link to your quiz. I used it for the F1 Tuesday Quiz several weeks ago and was, indeed, impressed by  how easy it was AND the best part is that the quiz was scored for me! Yahoo!

This week's assignment: Try it out yourself and use it with your students if possible. Report back here what you think about the tool. Do you think you'll use it? I was happy with how it worked for the F1 Tuesday quiz, but I'll need your feedback regarding use with students.

Week 6: Ready, Set, Read!

This week I'm sending you to a collection of articles that address best practices with technology from the University of North Carolina School of Education. Your assignment is simple: visit the collection, pursue the articles, select one you want to read, read it, come back here and tell us what you learned. Include the link to the article you read as well as what you plan to do with the information now that you have it.

Optional/Make Up Week: Find a Cool Tool

Before we get started: This week's assignment is optional. We'll resume our regular class schedule after Thanksgiving. You need only complete this week's assignment if

• you need to "make up" for a week you missed
• you want to have a spare assignment in the bag, just in case you miss a week later in the class
• you just love learning so much that you can't help yourself

We'll have one more "make up" opportunity during the winter break.

Now, for this week's optional post:
If you took the class last year, you know that I'm a big fan of the folks over at Teachers First. They do a great job collecting, reviewing, and cataloging digital tools and resources for teachers. They are always adding new things to their site so it's worth revisiting now and again. So, for this week, that's what we're going to do. You may want to refresh your memory by reading what I had to say about Teachers First last year. Then, visit the Teachers First site, do some exploring, come back here and tell us what you found and how you think you might use it.