Project Based Learning Approach

     When I signed up to take this course in project-based learning, I didn't fully know what to expect. I had done some projects in high school and during my time teaching at the high school and middle school level but I was not sure how the course would improve my teaching. I envisioned looking at several examples of projects and how they worked or looking at a variety of different technologies (such as smart boards, etc) and becoming educated on using these devices. While this would have been a useful course to take, I'm not sure that it would have benefitted me terribly in my present teaching since my school doesn't have a lot of resources or money available for such pieces of technology.
     However, once we began to delve deeper into the course and I found the the class was designed so that we could become more familiar with technologies and resources that were already available to use through the internet, I got excited. Many of the activities that we designed and readings that we did, dealt especially with things that I can use tomorrow. I instantly saw the benefit of the course.
     One of the technologies that I learned about was website building. I hadn't really thought of ways to use these in my classroom and I didn't know that there were tools available to me that would allow all of my students to create their own product. Since learning about site-building, I have already used Good Sites and Weebly in my classroom in mini projects that my students have done.
     There are many other technologies that I have used that I find to be extremely valuable to my teaching in the future. A number of these resources - such as podcasts and screencasts - allow a teacher to show a skill or give information and not have to repeat themselves over and over again! It makes assigning and creating projects that much easier.
     Through this course I was able to create a project that I will use in the very near future. However, the more valuable part is that I gained skills with new pieces of readily available technology that will help students becoming more interested in history and help me become a more effective teacher.

Using Surveys

     For this project, we were required to use a survey as part of the learning process. At first, when thinking of a survey, I thought of all the surveys that I have taken in my life. Most of these surveys are just asking for my opinion on a product, event, or lifestyle and really have not asked me to display anything that I have learned. Yet, after some time thinking about and creating my own survey for this project, I have come to realize that surveys can be an interesting and useful tool for teachers to you in assessing student learning.
    I have realized that surveys can be a great way to assess how the class as a whole is learning. While other forms of assessment - paper/pencil tests, essays, speeches - all have students show what they have learned while being held accountable for what they get right and wrong. However, a survey can be used to assess all students and get a broad view of how the class is doing as a whole while not having students take a test with the accountability and pressure that other assessments pose.
     Even though the accountability to students is a valuable part of the education process, students often either don't perform well in pressure situations or choose not to perform at all in those situations. This makes it easier to get students in a comfortable environment. Also, an anonymous survey also allows a teacher to get honest opinions from their class about the topics that they enjoy learning about, aspects of projects that worked for them, and things about activities that they really don't care for. Even though teachers are not always going to take this information and design lessons around it, it may help them design lessons or units that appeal to students better.

The Usefulness of Screencasting

   Last week's assignment was to create a screencast about a portion of our project and then post it onto our project webpage. I didn't know a whole lot about screencasting before last week and had certainly never created one but after doing the assignment I can see many of the benefits to screencasts and the variety of ways they can be used.
    For the screencast assignment I created a screencast to show my students how to create websites using Weebly. Through the screencast I was able to show my students where and how to log in and my students could see exactly what the page they would be logging into would look like. I was also able to show my students around the website and highlight some of the tools that the website offered. I also liked that I was able to show my students directly how to use the tools on the website. The ability to show students HOW is important in teaching and having a tool like screencasting is extremely valuable. One of the best things about screencasting is that it allows me to show students how and those directions can be given over and over and over again without me having to repeat myself. Students can simply watch the video and review important instructions.
     I did have some trouble uploading my screencast to YouTube and to the website but after a couple tries I found some success. I definitely plan on using screencasting in the future to give directions and help students develop skills using certain Web 2.0 tools.

Using Weebly

     As the course as gone on, I have began to explore a variety of tools and tried to use some of these tools  every now and then in my classes. One tool that I have become acquainted with is the website making tool Weebly. When I first became interested in having my students build websites, I tried to use Google Sites in order to accomplish this. However, I soon found out that the school that I'm working at blocks Google access for my students. This made it nearly impossible for my students to create websites on Google unless they did it all at home - and this created other issues of whether the students had internet access or not.
     I then browsed through the Weebly site to figure out if it was something my students would be able to use. After several hours on the site, I found that it is a very useful tool for students and myself. I like Weebly because it is tremendously easy for the students to use. They can easily add descriptions, headings, and pictures to there sites. It also has tools that allow students to embed YouTube videos as well as Google maps and a variety of other multimedia resources. Students can also easily change the format of their sites as well as add a variety of pages in different formats.
     The one major issue that I have run into while using Weebly is one that is common among "free" services. I have found that Weebly limits the number of pages that a student may create and publish. Now there are obviously ways that students and myself can get around this dilemma, however, it makes it more difficult and inconvenient when working on some projects. I have yet to find another site to replace Weebly for free website hosting. It will have to do for now...

Basic Project Sketch

As we begin to get closer and closer to finalizing our projects, it would probably be a good time for my to start getting some specific ideas down so I can begin whittling away some of the garbage in order to get a solid idea of where i want to go. The basis for my project looks like this:


Driving question: How did westward expansion of the United States affect those areas that were being settled and what challenges/benefits did settlers experience as they traveled to west? Who were important figures that were involved in settling western regions?


Content standards:

8.1.  Evaluate continuity and change over the course of United States history by analyzing examples of conflict, cooperation, and interdependence among groups, societies, or nations.


8.2.  Evaluate continuity and change over the course of Unites States history, by analyzing key people and constitutional convention, age of Jefferson, industrial revolution, westward expansion, Civil War. 


8.3.  Examine social, political and economic factors that caused westward expansion from American Revolution through reconstruction. 


8.6.  Use and interpret documents and other relevant primary and secondary sources pertaining to U.S. History from multiple perspectives. 


8.10.  Interpret maps to identify growth and development of the United States.


NETS Standards:


1a. Students apply existing knowledge to generate new ideas, products, and processes.


1b. Students create original works as a means of individual and group expression.


2a. Students interact, collaborate, and publish with peers, experts or others employing a variety of digital environments and media.


2d. Students contribute to project teams to produce original works or solve problems.


3b. Students locate, organize, analyze, evaluate, synthesize, and ethically use information from a variety of sources and media.


4b. Students plan and manage activities to develop a solution or complete a project.


5b. Students exhibit a positive attitude toward using technology that supports collaboration, learning, and productivity.


6d. Students transfer current knowledge to learning of new technologies.


Student Knowledge and Skills:


     Students will be able to...


… explain which areas of the United States were settled during westward expansion and by which groups.


… compare reasons for moving west by various groups.


… analyze the impacts of westward expansion on groups migrating to and existing groups in a particular area.


… decide whether the risks and rewards of the trip made the journey worth the risk of traveling and settling the given territory.


Elements of Project-Based Learning:


Students work collaboratively with other students and teachers.


Builds on prior knowledge and creates new knowledge via problem solving.


Fosters persistence, adaptability and mindful inquiry to bring about a more sophisticated understanding.


Student centered - student focused.


Enriched by technology.

. . .

This is just a rough sketch of the project but it will give me (and you) a better idea of where I am headed.

Troubles with Technology

During my last blog post I mentioned that I would like to get into Google a little deeper and explore all of the possibilities it had to offer for me and my students when thinking about project ideas. While I was doing research into the technology, I discovered a variety of tools that would be helpful in doing projects with my social studies students. The Google documents feature would allow students to work on material in class and at home and help to prevent issues of students forgetting homework at home or school and not being able to work on it because they do not have it. The Google sites resource is a valuable tool and would allow students to work on websites at school or at home and is an easy-to-use source for website building. Also, Google provides easy access to video that can be implemented into work, Google Maps is a useful resource for making and implanting maps into documents, and blogger allows students to add blogs into their work.
However, as I have begin trying to implement some of Google's technology into my classroom, I have hit a roadblock. At the school where I teach, Google account access is blocked to students to avoid issues with e-mail and chatrooms. So when I began to try to use some of this technology in my classroom I found that students were not able to get into the Google applications. I read of these technologies being used in other schools and classrooms and wonder what the difference is between those schools and mine. Do other schools not have issues with students using technology inappropriately? Are their ways to prevent student abuse that my school doesn't know about?
Whatever the case may be, this denial of access to these resources has made it more difficult for me to use technology in my classroom...

Exploring New Technology

There are a couple pieces of technology that have really struck my interest since we have been exploring technologies to use over the last few weeks. The first thing that intrigues me are wikis. I understand the value of using wikis in class but in a school that has very limited computer access for students I wonder how I might incorporate one into my classes. I think having students discuss projects or answers over the internet throughout the course of the assignment is valuable. I just need to come up with some ways to use them in my class.

The other technology that has really caught my attention, particularly lately, is Google. I honestly did not understand that there were so many uses of the Google website other than searching. I had always used Google as a search engine or for maps and that's about it. I would like to incorporate some of the tools Google offers, such as documents, presentations, websites, etc. in some of my projects in the future.