Running head: PROJECT REPORT GEORGIA HABITATS WEBQUEST 1

Transcription

1 Running head: PROJECT REPORT GEORGIA HABITATS WEBQUEST 1 Project Report Georgia Habitats WebQuest Sterling Hope Kennesaw State University Multimedia & Web Design ITEC 7445 Dr. Julie Moore Summer 2013

2 PROJECT REPORT GEORGIA HABITATS WEBQUEST 2 Project Report Georgia Habitats WebQuest Project Report Georgia Habitats WebQuest Sterling Hope Product URL: Analysis This WebQuest has been designed for the third grade to meet the science standard of S3L1. Students will investigate the habitats of different organisms and the dependence of organisms on their habitat. a. Differentiate between habitats of Georgia (mountains, marsh/swamp, coast, Piedmont, Atlantic Ocean) and the organisms that live there. The student has been asked to become a park ranger. The student will develop a Windows Movie Maker or Picasa photo story to give a tour of the five regions of Georgia. Students must be able to complete simple research on the topic using graphic organizers as scaffolding. This is the first major project for the school year in third grade. As new third graders, they are still very young. This project will have students of a wide variety of abilities learning how to research, how to collaborate, how to use technology they may have never seen before. Before the project starts, the class will have made a group movie maker and a group Picasa to give them some back ground knowledge. From past experience with Power Point presentations, I like to let the students figure things out and teach each other. Both programs the students are being asked to use are fairly intuitive. Other technology that could be used in the project is programs like SOLO. SOLO is a reading and writing program that allows struggling learners to hear what is on the screen and when typing it will make suggestions and read them aloud. How I group the students becomes important. I like to use heterogeneously grouped pairs so both students feel like they are learning. I also make sure that they are evenly matched so one doesn t end up doing all of the work. A teacher taking on this project needs to be comfortable embedding the videos or photo stories on to the website that has been created. As the author of the website, I can always add pages for teacher who would like to participate. The NETS-S standards being covered here are: 1. Creativity and Innovation - Students demonstrate creative thinking, construct knowledge, and develop innovative products and processes using technology. (a) Apply existing knowledge to generate new ideas, products, or processes (b) Create original works as a means of personal or group expression. Student should walk away being able to answer the following essential questions: The student will be able to research the five regions of Georgia. The student will be able to differentiation the five regions of Georgia based on basic characteristics. The student will develop a Windows Movie Maker or Picasa highlighting the five regions of Georgia. The student will work collaboratively with a partner on the project.

3 PROJECT REPORT GEORGIA HABITATS WEBQUEST 3 Since this is the first major project of the school year, the teacher will be supplementing the unit with instruction. Overall this project should be a great way to start off the year with an authentic technology based learning task. It has lots of scaffolding to support the learners as they embark on a new type of learning. Design Overview As I began thinking about this project, I was already developing a project from the end of the last school year. We had gone to the Ron Clark Academy and I was bouncing around a few ideas for this first science unit in the third grade. So as one project progressed, this project came into focus as a supporting piece of a larger project. Students will learn how to find information about the five regions of Georgia. I have given them ten links in the WebQuest to learn how to dig for information. Then once the students have filled their graphic organizers, they will produce a presentation as Park Rangers giving a tour of the five regions of Georgia. The links are cited in the reference section of this document. As well as the two YouTube videos used. All pictures were taken by me. I designed the assignment to work in pairs so students will have someone to bounce ideas off of but won t feel overwhelmed with a larger group situation for their first large scale, graded project. The project itself is inherently differentiated. The use of graphic organizers will help scaffold the project for struggling learners. It will also keep unorganized students on track. Specific pair grouping will help lower level learners but pairs will not be too far apart so one students does all of the work. There will be teacher assistance as needed. I have tried to give the students a variety of web resources, on a variety of reading levels. The computer will read to the students. We have a program called SOLO that I will have taught the students to use for this purpose. I have embedded audio into the WebQuest. It reads the directions to the students. There is a video that I created to introduce the project and there is a YouTube, narrated power point for the students to watch and listen to. I use the UDL guideline worksheet to help me with the universal design elements that I have included. They are alternate to visual information. I have audio files for the directions on each page. I used more than one method of information videos, there is one song, and pictures. I used graphic organizers to help students organize the information. Development In the development of this WebQuest, I started by looking at other WebQuests. From there I decided to use my Weebly account to create another web site for this project. I did have a learning curve with Weebly. But I know feel fairly comfortable with what I want to do. There are still a few things I haven t figured out but I just find another way to do it. I figured out how to embed my YouTube video, make and import audio files, and make and import video files. This gave me experience with Windows Movie Maker so when m students go to use it for the project I will have working knowledge of the program. I will be working with Picasa after class is over

4 PROJECT REPORT GEORGIA HABITATS WEBQUEST 4 for working knowledge of that program. I outlined what I wanted for the program and just began putting it into the site. I would publish, check what I had done, and make changes accordingly. I asked for help from classmates to double check and find problematic areas and made changes accordingly. All links, audio, and video have worked so far. Implementation I can t wait to implement this project. This will be my first large scale assignment in my science curriculum. We will have done engineering design projects and other smaller assignments whole group but this will have them working on it themselves. I hope to have this started right after our fall break in September right up to report card time in October. By then we should have a class routine for how to use the laptops, manage voice level and how to treat each other when working together. I have a laptop lab of 8 plus 5 stand alone computers; the whole class will be working on the project for 45 minutes a day for the two to three weeks I will give them. I will also help them manage their time since this will be a new experience. I am hoping to share the videos with the other third grade classrooms plus video chat with another STEM academy for questions and answers. All of the project will be completed at school, any work done at home will be student choice. Evaluation I will be grading the project with a basic rubric. I will know if the students have learned by watching and listening to their projects. I will also be floating in the room during the project informally assessing their progress. In addition to the project, there will be class room instruction about habitats. I will talk with the pairs as they complete the research and guide them if they are on the wrong track. I will know if the product works if we have very few questions or concerns. We students ask well what do you mean, then I know that I have to make changes. I will take notes and since Weebly makes it very easy to makes changes I will make changes as we go if needed. I completed a usability test. I was only able to round up one child who is going into the second grade, so slightly below the reading ability of the target audience. The test subject had the following to say: That it was ok. That it was about the regions of Georgia and she would have to make a movie for it. The student was able to navigate the site easily with a few missteps. When asked what order to complete the project in the students was able to accurately follow the step by step instructions. From there I asked the student to try all of the links and open all of the documents. All seemed to be in working order for the students. I also sent it to another teacher not in the class to test it and send back feedback. Here is what was said: That she thought it was just right for our students. She found so capitalization and plural mistakes and those will be fixed. She felt that it was easy to navigate and the embedded video and audio made it easy for students. She also had questions about the

5 PROJECT REPORT GEORGIA HABITATS WEBQUEST 5 rubric but did not elaborate at the time even when pressed. This will be something I go back to tweak as well. I enjoyed the usability test. I found it very helpful. I definitely will be using it on other projects throughout the school year. It gives you that different perspective and catches things that you don t after spending so much time with a product. Reflection My personal reflections of this project are that I had fun and worked super hard on creating it. I know that there will be tweaks as I take it into my classroom. But every year there are always changes made to any lesson just based on the class dynamic. The first area of reflection is on the project development. I learned how to embed code and have a better understanding of what is really means and why you would choose to put videos in a website like that. I feel like most everything worked well for me. I would really like to have my students try developing a class WebQuest on a topic that they can agree on. What better way than to let then build a task for their peers and since Weebly is free after CRCT we may give it try. The second area of reflection is in instructional design. I like the structure of a WebQuest. I think it scaffolds that process well. I think it is hard to make choices about multimedia just due to copyright. That takes time and a fair amount of digging to make sure you are using items that you can use. In my case I tried to make as much of the video in the locations as I could. That way I will develop a large amount of pictures and videos that I can use freely and without worry. I will reserve judgment on what other choices could have been made. I try to take an idea and run with it. If I what-if myself, I ll never get it done. The third area of reflection is in personal growth. There were definitely a few assignments I was very worried about but I mustered the courage and pushed through. I m not one for giving up. I learned that in order to be a good instructional technology coach you must struggle with your own learning on order to help others from your mistakes. Mistakes are the only way we learn sometimes. I should have a doctorate with that philosophy. I learned many things from my mistakes and most of the time I don t make the same mistake twice. The final area of reflection is for others. I would always suggest to people, if they feel ready, to try something new. It doesn t have to be creating a website WebQuest just go out there and find one you like and have the kids try it out. They need to know it is ok to say I don t know and it is ok to take baby steps. I would be there to guide them and not do it for them. Overall, I really enjoyed this project. I was overwhelmed and it felt great to get it done even though I know there will be things to fix. I have a starting point where I can take my students to the edge and say let s jump. Airborne!

6 PROJECT REPORT GEORGIA HABITATS WEBQUEST 6 References Georgia Department of Natural Resources State Parks & Historic Sites. (2013). Georgia Habitats. (n.d.). Georgia Museum of Natural History. (2009). Hope, S. (2013, July 15). Video webquest assignment [Video file]. Retrieved from Mrs. Dandy s 3rd Grade Classroom. (2013). Mrs. Thompson s Third Grade Class. (2009). Sawnee Elementary Georgia Habitats. (2013). Slideshare. (n.d.). The Five Regions of Georgia. (n.d.). The New Georgia Encyclopedia. (2012). The University of Georgia Museum of Natural History. (2008). kelntony1664. (2010, February 27). The habitats of Georgia [Video file]. Retrieved from