Presidential My Space--Day One

Yesterday we started the Presidential My Space Pages.

One of the common complaints, of course, is that we aren't using real My Space pages. I should probably rethink/rename this project so that kids are not left thinking that they would rather do real My Space pages.

For the most part, the teacher went through directions with students. As a time saver, he went through how to navigate through the page to the student pages while kids were still booting up their laptops. Since the student laptops do take so long, I agreed with this decsion. However, a lot of students didn't pay attention. It led to problems later. I had to help about half the students 1-on-1 to find their pages. I had to explain to many students that there was already a page, and not to create one. And, one students edited the front page, and another deleted and edited over the rubric.

The rubric is fairly simple:

For this project, you will create a mock 'My Space' page for one of the former Presidents. You may choose any former President you wish. Barack Obama is not a former President. You will create this page as if you are that President, living today. That means you should write in the first person, using 'I' instead of 'George Washington said...'. The page should contain mainly biographical information about that President. You should include at least the following sections:

Title: 'George Washington's page' The title should include the name of the President. (3 pts.)

Pictures: Include at least two pictures of the President on the main page. (2 pts.)

Background: Include Dates of birth and death, and dates the President served. Include place of birth. (5 pts.)

Biography: This should be 2-3 paragraphs about the President's life, from birth until they became President. You can include information from 'Background' instead of making a separate section for it. Be throrough. Include educational background, military experience, and any previous political experience. Talk about why these experiences prepared the man for the Presidency. (15 pts.)

Presidency: Include 2-3 paragraphs about what happened while this person was President. Include any important events, wars, scandals, etc. You can talk about what life in America was like during this Presidency. Remember, write as if you are this person. If something negative happened, try to explain why. Include at least 2 events and how the President handled that problem. (15 pts.)

Retirement: Include a brief description of the President's life after the Presidency. (5 pts.)

Creativity: A more creative page will receive additional points. (5 pts.)

Total points: 50

When picking your President, be careful to look at when they served. Picking a President who died after 2 days in office is a bad idea. You don't have to pick a famous President, like Washington or Lincoln, but skim through the bios to find someone who did something interesting, or served during an interesting period of history. Remember to make this a first person account, and use your own words. DO NOT COPY AND PASTE. That is plagarism, and will result in a zero for the entire project. This project is due Tuesday, February 24.

Most students didn't have much trouble navigating to their pages. A few got confused because, although I had provided links, they still had to click on a "create page" button after clicking the link. Many students immediately went to the "create a page" button from the home page, and started creating and editing pages there were not linked from anywhere. It was pretty easy to find and correct those students (they would loose their pages, since they weren't linked from the home page) and have them copy and paste their work onto the appropriate page. In later classes, I made every watch as showed the difference between the "create page" and "create a page" buttons. I think this should have been a more predictable problem.

The teacher has even provided three approved web sources for researching info (although a small handful of students went directly to google anyways.)

Students only worked on the project for about half of class for the first day. Everyone had picked a president, and most had a picture and a little bit of info by the end of class. Some only had a picture.

There is definately a large varience of comfort and ability when doing web based projects. Some students understood right away when I suggested they open the rubric in a seperate tab or window, so they didn't have to keep using the back arrow. Others were very confused and needed to be shown multiple times. Others needed to be shown only once before catching on.
And some students have trouble just navigating a single web page.

I was able to teach students the short cut key for pasting (ctrl + v) because the right click they are used to doesn't work in a pb wiki. One thing almost all students seemed very good at was finding a google image.

Kite Runner Blog Project--set up

We've hammered out the last of the details to go with the Kite Runner blog project.

Unfortunately, I now have to make sure that at least the four blogs being used are unblocked by tomorrow. I had forgotten that students cannot access blogs. I find that fact frustrating, yet understandable (our current fair use policy is in the process of being re-written). I've come up with plan B and am working on a plan C. Hopefully neither is needed.

We hammered out the details of the initial project. Each student has to respond to the teacher and at least one other student. The question is a multi-parter, so the initial response has to be five sentences. "Additional discussion is encouraged."

I'm going to walk the kids through signing up with google. Then, I will remind them that all in school conduct/behavioral rules (including language and bullying) rules apply. Then I will remind them to post twice (using a mock entry that I will mock respond to). After that, I will strongly encourage students to write their response in Word (where it can be saved often). Then, I will direct them to the blog in question.

The English teacher has said she wants to have at least one more blog entry for this project. She's taking a wait and see approach before deciding if this is a two entry project, a once a week entry project, etc. We discussed having students blog in the lab again, or having them responsible for blogging within a given time frame.

I agree with her decision to not decide until she sees how tomorrow goes. I hope it goes well. I anticipate the mechanics going well, and I hope that the students are able to generate engaging discourse.

Kite Runner Blog Project

So excited, another project.

Before break, I had a teacher ask me a question about the online course I facilitate. While I was in her room helping her, we somehow got on the topic of blogging.

She didn't know what it was, exactly. So I explained it and showed her a few examples. Her kids were in the room, so I did a quick, informal survey of how many blogged or read blogs. Not many hands. But quite a few when I asked about myspace.

After so follow up conversation, she decided she wants to do a blog for the kids for their current book, The Kite Runner.

We're going to use blogger because it is what I'm most familiar with. I tried to encourage her to use a ning, but she really seemed more comfortable with blogger. That being the case, I didn't want to scare her off by pushing ning. So, we're going with blogger. That is probably easier all around since I'm more familiar with it. It also tells me I ought to set up a ning so teachers see that as a viable option in the future.

On Wednesday we'll be in the computer lab. I'm going to walk her kids through setting up a google account (most probably don't have one). The current plan is to have an initial start up question already on the blog so that the kids can start commenting right away.

The project has a fairly simple structure. She will maintain four blogs (one for each class). That is logistically easier for her to keep track of since the students will have a requirement for commenting at least x number of times per post. We also talked about having her participate in the discussions in the comments, and she seemed to like the idea. After all, a teacher doesn't start a conversation in class and then leave.

I asked her if the kids tend to interact with each othe in class discussions. They don't. She told me it is mostly her asking a question and then one student responding, and no one responding to that student. I'm hoping this project will create more dynamic discussions. I predict that at first, students will be annoyed with the posting requirements and try to get all two or three out of the way at the same time. But, since this will be an on-going assignment throughout the book, I'm hoping that the conversations will have a bit more back and forth as the book progresses. That will be most likely to happen with more engaging questions.

We haven't talked about assessing the project yet. I'm a fan of rubistar, though, and will most likely suggest that.

One of the other important parts of the project will be online citizenship. I don't think I'll use those words. I'll just point out to students that all school rules about language, conduct, bullying, etc., apply online. And, with the teacher involved in the discussion, she will most likely be able to redirect if things get too off topic.