Cell Project--Day One

I went down to the Bio class for day one of the cell project. Some of it didn't go well, some of it did.

An overview of the project--we are having students create "my space" type pages using a wiki. Each group will create a page for a certain part of the cell. They will have to include bffs (the student names) hangouts (where its found in the cell) links (resources used) pictures, etc.

Today the kids signed on and began basic editing. In the first class for some reason creating pages didn't go very well. I would have liked to have tried a different method of page creation, but the teacher said she wanted to create the pages. It didn't take long to do. I think that had I been the teacher, that is the route I'd have taken, too. The first failure was a hassle, although we did overcome it. However, in that situation, with limited time, the last thing you want is to waste more time in another class trying to do the same thing in a slightly different way that might also fail when you have a perfectly valid fool-proof alternative.

I spoke with the teacher who is a little of the opinion that the children are more focused on editing things to make them look nice than on the actual research and info involved in the project.

Its a valid concern.

I've done projects with a fun or "irrelevant" element to them. I think I've found that even though kids will focus on the fun bits, they will get to the information and "meat and potatoes" of it. They just do the fun eye catching stuff first.

She has expressed that she originally wanted to have the students do the research--with old fashioned pen and paper--and then have them create the wiki from it. She has also said that perhaps next year she would have them fill in a pre-created format--with the information--and then let them play with and edit the visuals.

I also think that the "irrelevant" part of this project is not so irrelevant. Teamwork, collaboration, communication, basic computer literacy skills such as editing text and saving often, introduction to wikis, taking responsibility for their own learning, multitasking. None of this trumps the actual biology, but is it on the same level?

And more importantly, is this helping? Is anyone going to get anything out of this project? Are any of the above skills going to be taught or strengthened by this project. Will the biology info be conveyed? Will it be conveyed more effectively, or will children learn it any better, or even at an equal level, than if it had been done in the form of notes?