Final Project

Here is a link to my final project: https://busmanager02.wikispaces.com/

The three R’s Reading Reaction Rubric

            The week in our EME 5050 master’s class, we continued to build our curriculum page. This week we created a rubric for our final project. I choose to create my rubric from http://www.rcampus.com/indexrubric.cfm. This is a user friendly site that guides you through the rubric making process step by step. If you have never created a rubric, this is the site for you. Here is a link to my rubric  http://www.rcampus.com/rubricshowc.cfm?code=X494B4&sp=true&nocache=1290126174624         I found this task to be tedious, but in the end, I think the rubric will help both the students and me with this class project.
       The rubric will help the students in many ways. First, the rubric will help the students understand exactly what is expected of them while they are creating their projects. I will advise my students to keep the rubric with them when they are creating their projects so they can refer back to the rubric to see their progress toward an A. Second, this will help the students manage their time while the due date approaches for their final project.
      The rubric will also help me in many ways. First, this rubric will allow me to grade the students work fast while the students are presenting their work. This will allow me to give the students feedback in a timely manner. Second, this rubric will make sure there is not any confusion about why a student received the grade he/she earned. The rubric is divided into five categories with clearly defined point values. Authentic assessments are a great way to check for a students understanding of a particular benchmark without using a multiple choice style test.

In conclusion, I think that rubrics are a great tool to implement in the classroom. I have used many rubrics in my classroom, but none have been this detailed. I hope to make all my rubrics this detailed in the future.

Draft example project

This week for my EDF 5050 class, we needed to create a draft example project from our curriculum page. Here is a link to my curriculum page: https://busmanager02.wikispaces.com/. This was another assignment that we needed to complete that will help us create our final assignment. This assignment provided many different learning achievements for me.

            First, while completing this assignment, it helped me to create a timeline of how long I should give me students to complete the assignment. It took me about twenty minutes to learn Prezi, from a previous assignment in this class, and I already know how to use PowerPoint. It took me about an hour to gather all my resources. Then it took me about half an hour to put the project together. From this timeline I should try to give my students about two hours in the computer lab at school, and then expect them to spend about half an hour at home to finish up any loose ends.

Second, looking ahead this assignment will also help me next week when I create my rubric for this project. I know have a general idea as to what I am looking for in the students’ projects.

Third, I also know the advantages and disadvantages of using Prezi and PowerPoint, and I will not expect my students to produce an assignment that they technologically cannot create. I also know what the students can create with technology.

            Here is a link to my example Prezi: http://prezi.com/xwti0exhnxsb/copy-of-american-history-question/  Please provide me with any constructive feedback.

Curriculum Page

In this week’s assignment for my technology class, we had to create a curriculum page. A curriculum page is a “teacher-created document containing hyperlinks to teacher-selected Web sites that assist in teaching content-specific standards and objectives.” (Gunter, Gunter, Shelly, 2010, p. 418) Here is a link to my curriculum page, busmanager02 curriculum page. Please understand that this is a work in progress and not my final assignment or something I am going to give to my students anytime soon. This is an assignment that I hope to use at the end of the school year, so not only will this help me in this class, it will also help my students at the end of the year.

            First, I continue to realize how important it is to plan out everything in advance. Even the little things like using computers in a computer lab are sometimes not the easiest things to do. I wanted my students to use Windows Movie Maker, PowerPoint, or Prezi to create a digital story. After creating my curriculum page, I realized I need to check and see if PowerPoint and Windows Movie Maker were installed on all the computers and check to see if Prezi would run properly. Luckily all three programs will run efficiently on the computers in the computer lab. I have been teaching for five years, and the best advice I could give any new teacher would be to make sure you plan for every little thing you can think of to make your life easier. Of course always be flexible when turbulent situations arise in class.

Second, I think is very important to continue to learn new ways of engaging students. I hope to be able to create several more of these projects for my students to use in the future. These types of projects clearly keep the students more engaged and help foster learning compared to a traditional teacher centered approach to teaching.

            Over the next few weeks I cannot wait to add more to this project and use it to help my students learn.

Resources:

Gunter, G. A., Gunter, R. E., & Shelly, G.B. (2010). Integrating technology and digital media in the classroom (6^th ed.). United States: Course Technology, Cengage Learning