Creek Connections Symposium

I haven't been able to blog for a good long while.

A few weeks back, I went with the Science teacher to the Creek Connections Symposium. This was the culmination of the Creek Project the students have been working on.

The best projects--the ones that did the best job of asking and answering a question relating to fresh water in Western Pennsylvania--were invited to attend. The Science teacher made an observation that was a little disheartening. She mostly invited students that had done computer based projects. Of those who were invited that did not use a computer, none chose to attend. That was a little bit upsetting.

It could have simply been a matter of coincidence. Many students who were invited could not attend because of conflicting schedule (specifically a track meet that day). And, many of the students who did not use computers were more unwilling to make the suggested corrections that they needed to actually attend.

The symposium itself was a great experience. Our students, as freshmen, were amongst the oldest there. There were quite a few "billboard" projects on display. Not many of our students had turned in projects that did nothing more than list facts because of repeated warnings not to, and because of the frequent check up the teacher did to keep them on track.

There were a few excellent and interactive projects, too.

We were the only school that had any technology at all. That did not make us a better school, nor did it make our projects better. I think we were an impressive school. We were also a resource heavy school and had barely enough outlets to run all of the laptops.

I think we were also a brave school. Because of having the computers, I opted out of one of the afternoon activities to pack up and generally keep an eye on things. This was the first time we had been allowed to take the laptops out of school, and I was very invested in making sure things went well.

I did have a chance to do one of the afternoon hands on sessions. These were a series of workshops held by environmental and other science majors of the sponsoring college. It was a great way to make learning more fun. The sessions were hands on, interactive, and, best of all, outside.

Things overall went very well. Our students were well behaved, and may have taken something away from the symposium. Hopefully, they took away that a) hard work has its rewards and b) creating a more interesting project will make it more likely to generate that authentic audience that makes it all worth while.

Sight Project--Assessment Day One

Even though the schedule was a bit tight, the English teacher wanted to show everyone's Photo Story in Class. Monday, the first day of watching the videos, was short because of a 2 hour delay. We didn't get through as many as she would have liked. But, we both understood that it was important for the students to have an audience for this project. Part of the incentive we had given them to do well was the idea of sharing these projects with the class.

Unfortunately, we didn't make a rubric until the project was underway. We didn't even finalize it until after watching the first round of videos.

Being that this was the first time through the project, watching the videos, and critiquing them (we both took notes for later use) helped us put together a rubric.

After watching videos in all three classes, we worked through her study hall finalizing the rubric. We re-arranged some categories, and played with point values. By the end, we had a web-like drawing with numbers all over it. We then experimented with one project. We both determined what we thought the grade should be, then graded it using the rubric, and compared.

The one thing we were both most dissapointed with was that we had told students that they did not have to use music. After viewing finished projects, though, we found that some students had long stretches of video that were just pictures of friends. It was boring. But, since we had told kids that they didn't have to have music, we didn't feel that we could make "use of music" a catagory. Instead, we settled on including it as part of flow. Most stories that lacked music had less of a flow.

And even though we reminded students of it several times, some still lost focus and made stories that seemed like they were dying, not going blind. We covered that in a catagory called focus. Most students did a decent job of remembering for most of the story that this was about sight. Some just failed to explain why some of their choices would be things they wanted to see rather than do. The worst catagory for this was family and friends. Most students had an entire section about wanting to spend time with family and friends. Very few remembered to explain that they wanted to see--to rememeber what their friends looked like, or memorize mom's face. Another common area that this came up was in reading, movies, and tv shows. I think a casual observer might have thought some of these stories were about the last days of life.

At the end of study hall, we had agreed on the final catagories and points values for our rubric. The English teacher had another class, and was a bit weary of grading projects. So, she planned to type it out and let me make copies, and we would meet up again to compare the first round of coments with the rubrics, and grade the projects.

I'm hoping to be able to put some student projects up on my student project wiki. I'm not sure how many I will be able to use, though, since most of them contain pictures of friends and family, and most have student names as part of the footage. I'll have to talk with the teacher about that. For now, though, I am posting the rubric we used. Any suggestions are welcome.

Sight Project--Day Five

There really wasn't supposed to be a day five. But, the English teacher set aside the last twenty minutes of class for students to begin silent reading on their new novel. She decided to give students the option of using that time to finish up and save their Photo Stories since most students would have to read at home one way or the other.

The bulk of my job for the last day of this project was saving projects to my jump drive. Photo Stories take a very long time to save. They take even longer when students decide that having five or six different music tracks is a good idea. I'm curious to see some of the ones that took so long to save. I often lament at the general lack of aesthetic sense among students. I somehow imagine I will be lamenting again soon.

But, hodgepodge of poorly selected and erractic music aside, I think most students had fun with this project. We are showing them in class tomorrow. I've offered to help the teacher work on a rubric, and have sent her a link for rubistar. I don't want to step on toes or be too pushy, so I'm not going to be any more insistant that I be let in on the rubric. But I do worry. A lot of teachers are still in the "oh wow" factor when it comes to grading digital stories. I hope that she includes the use of the technology--making it flow, having good design--as part of the rubric. After all, a student essay with no flow or logical organization would not get a high grade, so why should a Photo Story?

And, that goes back to my point from my last post. If students were working with this same project on multiple projects, they would get used to it. They would get used to having an audience. And, they would get used to being an audience. The students would develop a sense of connoisseurism and would start to differentiate between what they thought was good or bad. That might help them to determine if their own stories were well put together, interesting, and well designed. And, with enough time to get past the bells and whistles, and time to figure out how long doing certain things takes, they would be able to make stronger stories.

Creek Project

One of the science teachers is having students create a creek project.

This is based on year long research that the students do in this class. The collect data on the creek, and do research based on it.

In April, students from all over the state meet to share and discuss their data, research, projects, and experiments. The Science teacher takes several of her classes every year.

This year, she wants to have the students have a little more freedom in what types of projects they do. She has given them the option of creating a photo story, running an experiment, creating and recording music, making a website, or coming up with their own project.

I like this project a lot because it involves creativity and student choice. It also has a ready made audience that students know they will be sharing their work with.

I'm starting working with the teacher today. I will be visiting her classes at the end of the period today, after she has given the assignment. Students will be working with their groups and discussing what types of projects they want to do. By being on hand, I'll be able to help students come up with ideas, understand the work involved in using certain tools, and recommend tools that they might not be familiar with.

This is a long term project that students will mostly be doing outside of class. Because of that, I will not be working with the students much during class. However, the teacher asked if I would work with them during their study hall. I feel that I'm supposed to be working more with the teacher than the students, but this is a way to help students strengthen their tech skills. Also, because there will be so many different tools being used, I'm hoping for the chance to work with the teacher, so she will have a better grasp of those tools, and how to assess these projects.