Creek Project--Update Three

This post is going up very late. I haven't had a lot of time to get to it.

Monday was the first day of presenting projects for the Creek Project. The Biology Teacher and I weren't 100% sure what to expect. The projects today were all from her honors students.

There were some very well done ones. One student recreated a salamander habitat (using craft store eyes as eggs). It was not the most engaging presentation, because the information was put on posters around the scene, but it was visually appealing. And, based on the info, it was clear that the students had learned something about the salamanders.

Students did infuse technology into their projects. One group wrote an original song. The execution was not great--the audio was poor quality (fortunately they provided a lyrics sheet for listeners to read along), and their refrain was a bit long. But, they lyrics showed a good understanding of their question, and the animations that went with it were an engaging mix of scientific and funny. One group did their project in the form of an episode of "House." In it, a fix owner brings in a fish that was harmed by pollutants in the creek, and Dr. House has to diagnose what the pollutants were, based on the fish's symptoms, in order to create a treatment to save the fish. The teacher eventually had to ask for their script because some parts the audio was good, and others it was bad. Another group did a series of sketches with a "water safetey lass" (basically a friendly eco cop) explaining to different people in different scenarios how what they were doing was having a negative effect on creek water.

One of the big concerns was the Photo Story projects. A lot of these students had done Photo Stories for the Helen Keller 3 Days of Sight project. So, feeling comfortable with that program, used it again. However, with laptops were reimaged, and Photo Story was removed. Fortunately, the students were easily able to access non-reimaged laptops to use. However, some of them did not remember the step to convert from a Photo Story to a WMV file. It was easy enough to deal with because the teacher still had Photo Story and I was able to help students convert during the period. I am more concerned because I would like to see student retaining more of the tech skills I am trying to impart. That being said, I did see improved file management.

Another concern was that some of the projects got more caught up in trying to be impressive or interactive, and strayed from the overall idea of teaching something and answering a question. Several of the games did a good job of testing knowledge but a poor job of presenting that knowledge ahead of time. Other projects simply presented research, with no context of an overall question.

We had discussed the idea previously, and came back to it again. The Biology teacher and I both felt that, if the students had been given more structure--been responsible for first coming up with a question, and then doing research, and then being introduced to the idea of being able to display their research/learning in a way of their choosing--more of the projects would have retained focus.

It was encouraging, though, to see students being creative. A lot of them used programs that they were not formally introduced to in school. Others used programs that we had taught them, but were able to discover and use some of the more advanced functions. And, so students who did not use a lot of technology did some very creative low tech things. Next year, going about this project in a more structured way, and still allowing for that creativity, will create even better results.