Creating “Algebra 1B Academy”!
Posted: May 14, 2012 Filed under: Tech Projects Leave a comment »For last tech project of the year, my Algebra class is going to create our very own version of Khan Academy!
a.k.a. “Algebra 1B Academy”
Guidelines:
Students will create a screencast explaining 4 different examples from Chapter 11(Rational and Irrational Numbers).
• 1 example must be from 11- 5 (Square Roots of Variable Expressions)
• 1 example must be from 11- 7 (Multiplying/ Dividing/ Simplifying Radicals)
• 1 example must be from 11 – 8 (Adding/ Subtracting Radicals)
• 1 example is free choice of anything from chapter 11.
All 4 problems must be worked out, step-by-step, and submitted for approval. Students will then use the website 
“Screencast-o-matic“, along with Microsoft Paint, to record their writing. Next, students will save and convert these screencasts and import them to Windows MovieMaker. In MovieMaker, students will add a title slide and an ending slide and appropriate transitions. Students will then record your voice over the video explaining each of the problems. (I tested a few online movie making websites but they didn’t allow for a narration of an existing clip.) Students will save and export as movie file and upload to our conference.
Here is the rubric.
The students seemed excited when I announced this today! I am looking forward to the final results. This assessment replaces the chapter test.
CAIS Academic Tech Retreat Never Disappoints!
Posted: May 2, 2012 Filed under: Professional Development Leave a comment »
For the past seven years, amidst the craziness and mad dash to the end of the school year, there is a bright light. This light is called the CAIS Academic Tech Retreat and it is the most amazing, relaxing, and rejuvenating 2 days for me, both professionally and personally. It is held at the Trinity Conference Center in West Cornwall, CT. The setting is beautiful, the food is spectacular and the company is second to none. (I wrote about this last year too!) The retreat is an “un-conference“, which lends itself nicely to attendees getting exactly what they need/want out of the two days.
We always begin with a keynote. This year’s was fabulous thanks to Ann Befroy from Miss Porter’s School!
| Keynote: A Communicative Approach to the Flipped Classroom Ann Befroy, Miss Porter’s School How do current technologies allow teachers to structure a flipped classroom that promotes effective language learning both in and out of the classroom? Can students really learn grammar on their own outside of class? What critical thinking skills are encouraged by using the flipped classroom? Watch as Ann Befroy teaches us how the flipped classroom can enhance best practices for language instruction, then take some time to figure out how this approach might work best with your faculty. |
Here are some of my notes/ tweets from her talk.
Up next was a Web 2.0/ App SMACKDOWN. Here is the list we came up with for recommended, must-have apps and web tools. Some great resources here curated in under an hour. Feel free to add to it if you have any to share!
Then… on to the unconference. Here is our session board. As you can see, there was a wide variety of topics and a lot 
of learning/ sharing / exploration took place. I love the fact that we could put a topic up on the board, with no “expert” in the room, and have time to dig into it. We did this with QR codes, Google+, Pinterest among others. One group even had a session to explore Garage Band. They created an original song using a blend of traditional and digital instruments. Check it out! LMAO BYOD Hysterical!!!
Other highlights of the retreat include academic technology guitarists having a jam session, learning how to play the ocarina and tech charades/ pictionary. This year, it was a little chilly so, instead of sitting on the porch, we sat by a roaring fire. Here are some photo highlights. (and check out this iCade– use your iPad to create an arcade!) COOL!
Here is an archive of some of my other tweets throughout the retreat. Here is an archive of #caisct tweets since the retreat.
Thanks to everyone who attended, shared and learned with me. It’s just what I needed to get to the finish line!
Swain Library: Redesigned FOR students BY students using Google SketchUp
Posted: April 4, 2012 Filed under: Tech Projects | Tags: geometry, googlesketchup, library, math, PBL, project, sketchup Leave a comment »
About a month ago, I launched a project with my geometry class to redesign our school library. In trying to keep this project as authentic as possible, Sarah Ludwig, our school’s Academic Coordinator/ Librarian presented the library’s needs gleaned from a student/ faculty survey and from her own observations. I also asked our school’s Facilities Director, Jim Hunter, come to class to present the original architectural drawings of the building. He was very excited to share those with us. We also were extremely fortunate to have Christiaan Dinkeloo, our school’s consulting architect, meet with the class several times over the course of the project.
Here is the info presented to students:
You are trying to win the architectural bid for the Swain Library redesign project. You must use Google Sketchup to meet the requests from the school’s librarian.
- Your design must include an accurate, to scale, 3D model of Swain Library. Be sure to include windows, doors, fire exits.
- Your library design includes room for 5000 books.
- Your library design includes a creative, well planned space for quiet, individual study
- Your library design includes a creative, well planned space for group study/ collaboration.
- Your library design includes a creative space for class visits (with the potential for technology)
- Your library design includes a creative space for reading for pleasure.
- There is a space for a more prominent and central display of the young adult collection.
- Your design includes at least 2 of the following wishes.
- Wish list:
- Remove all high shelving and put shelving along the walls and in low shelves (might be used to divide up space)
- Accommodate technology everywhere – more outlets, etc.
- A librarian station that is central, visible, and accessible to students, which allows for student/faculty conferencing
- A second classroom that can also serve as a meeting room or technology lab
- Your library design is adaptable and can accommodate occasional events without changing the design of the library.
- Your design was submitted by the deadline agreed upon by the team.
We began with a day of measuring the dimensions of the library and talking about how the symmetry of the building could make the measuring even easier. We also calculated the number of books (on average) that would fit on a shelf. (Our designs needed to fit 5000). We compared our actual measurements to the architectural drawing and learned about scale. What a perfect tie in to a lesson on ratio and proportion!
With only one student having prior experience with SketchUp (and with having little experience myself), we all watched videos together, helped each other and worked through all of our issues as they arose. There were many days I couldn’t get students out of the classroom at the end of the period… they were INTO it!
Mr. Dinkeloo came to class weekly to answer questions, to help students with design challenges and to show us what a presentation to potential clients actually looked like. What an amazing resource he was to our class. You added a dimension to the project that could not have otherwise been achieved. Thanks Mr. Dinkeloo! 
I have to be honest, I was a little scared when we started this… was this project going to be too much for us to handle? With having little “expertise” in the room with SketchUp, would we be able to figure it all out? How much time was this all going to take? So many questions… I’m a planner, so this was a little uncomfortable for me. I decided to just let it ride and see what happened.
Last Friday, the class presented their amazing library redesign models to me, Ms. Ludwig and Mr. Dinkeloo.
Here are some photos of their presentations:
The student’s designs were creative, thoughtful, accurate and solved many of the problems articulated in our original discussion. Mr. Dinkeloo, Ms. Ludwig and I all gave feedback to the students and the students had a chance to ask and 
answer questions of each other. It was a truly authentic experience and the icing on the cake was that I got to announce today that the school has received a major gift to fund the actual redesign! Mr. Dinkeloo will begin work very soon on the project. Our class looks forward to hearing about his progress and to seeing if he uses any of our ideas!
Additional Resources:
Here’s the rubric for the project.
Click here for article in Hamden Hall Happenings
Ms. Ludwig’s notes from presentation about the Middle/ Upper School Library
Beauty and the Book: Libraries in the digital age raise the question about the place of books
School Library Redesign from the National Institute of Building Science
Google SketchUp video tutorials
My Fake Wall/ Diigo v. 2
Posted: April 1, 2012 Filed under: Tech Projects 1 Comment »
While I do like to try new projects each year, one of the best things about repeating one is that you get to make it even better. Last year, I had students research mathematicians (and use Diigo to manage their research and share resources with each other) and then create a Fake Facebook Wall for that mathematician. Here’s my original blog post.
This year, we started out on the same path. On the first day, we set up our Diigo accounts, joined our class group, and talked about good research techniques. We also talked a bit about tagging and about the types of sites that would be useful to share with our class group. Learning from last year’s experience, (see blog post here), I reiterated that the students would not be able to “google” Blaise Pascal’s friends and come up with a list. I really focused on HOW to figure out their friends and what their mathematician might say on his/ her wall. I definitely was more pro-active with this!
The students were off and running with their research. Diigo was working great. They worked at home and in school (on any computer) seamlessly. Many students remarked that they wished they had this tool earlier in the year! Others brought in their iPads or laptops the next day and showed me how they downloaded the diigo app or installed the diigo toolbar. YAY!
While the rubric for the final project was very similar to last year, I decided to add a planning sheet, with a writing / reasoning component. I wanted students to complete this sheet BEFORE they went to MyFakeWall to start entering information. I did this for a few reasons:
1) Students last year did not organize their information before they jumped into the MyFakeWall site. They were all over the place and they had a hard time figuring out if they met all the requirements.
2) Students created their wall posts “on the fly” and it was difficult for them to explain why they chose to “say” what they did. This planning sheet had them list the posts, and the research that supported it. In meeting with each student and reviewing their planning sheet with them, I was able to question students and force them to go back to their research and improve their work BEFORE it was due.
NOTE: While this “planning sheet” process added about 2 days to the project’s timeline, I felt that it made a huge difference with the quality of the final products.
3) Throughout this research stage, I kept checking MyFakeWall, and I realized it was no more stable than it was last year. I was a little stressed about it. By having students bookmark all websites in Diigo, upload all images and fill out the planning sheet, it forced students to be completely ready, if (and when) myfakewall.com decided to cooperate. In the meantime, I started looking for a different option.
“D-day” came, and everyone was ready to start entering information into MyFakeWall. Lo and behold, the site was completely down, which was extremely frustrating, especially since the rubric was created based upon the features of that specific website. I, thankfully, found two other options for the students. I left it up to the students to explore both tools and see what they wanted to use. I adapted the rubric to match the site they chose. It’s all about flexibility!
Here were the additional choices:
1) Fakebook – This worked pretty well for students who chose it. The glitch with it was that students needed to enter a fair amount of information before it would allow them to save it. Two students didn’t get far enough on the first day when class ended and they lost their work. It was also very difficult to edit information once it was posted using this site. Be sure to select “manual upload” for pictures. The auto-find function did not work as it should have for many students. Having the planning sheets really helped because they had it to work from. I also didn’t love the ads. They were distracting.
2) Facebook GoogleDoc Template- This option worked well and allowed students who had not used googledocs before to explore an additional tool. Students really liked the stability of it. The drawback was that it required that you delete the JFK info as you go. It was also based on an older version of Facebook. The kids seemed to think that it was totally fine.
The last thing I changed in this project was the format of the “sharing day”. Instead of each student getting in the front of the room to, basically, read their facebook wall, I had them peer-share as I walked around the room. Here’s the peer- share form they had to fill out with their partner. It was awesome to hear them explaining their walls to each other. I then had students switch and share their wall with a different student. For the final share, I had each student go around the room and tell one interesting fact they learned about someone else’s mathematician. It was a GREAT class!
Overall, even with the frustration of myfakewall not working again, this year’s students also said they LOVED this project. I am hoping that someone updates a template or creates a website to mimic the new Facebook timeline format. If anyone knows of one, please share it! That will be fun to use next year!
Tech Addict or Learning Addict?
Posted: March 25, 2012 Filed under: Professional Development Leave a comment »
Creative Commons
I have been called a “tech addict” by some of my family, colleagues and friends. I have my phone or some device very close to me almost always. On the rare occasion that I forget my phone, I am one of those people who spend a little bit of time shaking. I can be seen on my device during any “down” time I have…waiting for pick up at my daughter’s dance class, while waiting in line at Space Mountain, sitting at a gymnastics meet (which is where I was when I started this post. Note– there are hours of down time at gymnastics meets), and sometimes even while waiting at a red light. People say: “Can’t you just sit and do nothing?” or “Can’t you just look around?”
So… Here’s my answer….
Why am I always on a device?
Now, I can’t lie. There are times I am texting a friend or I’m on Facebook, but MOST of the time, I am on twitter looking at the latest resources from my PLN (Personal Learning Network) (or sharing some!), or I’m checking out some recent bookmarks posted to one of the Diigo groups to which I belong, or I’m reading the latest educational/ technology/ e-learning and edu blog posts via zite (a customized magazine feeding me topics I choose!), or I may even be in evernote jotting down a few notes about an idea for a future blog post or an idea that has just popped into my head about a project for my class OR… most recently, I might be on Goodreads, which is connected to my Twitter account, checking out what my PLN is reading and what they thought about their latest book. Sometimes, believe it or not, I’m even reading a “real” book, digitally.
I can do all of this ANYWHERE at ANYTIME. I have unquestionably learned countless, remarkable things from my mobile devices while in some “unconventional” places.
So, maybe I am an “addict”. But what is it that I am addicted to? Is it to technology or to learning?
If Walt Disney was an administrator…
Posted: March 23, 2012 Filed under: Teaching and Learning Leave a comment »Disney World– you either love it or hate it.
The fact that we just came home from our 13th trip of my 14-year-old daughter’s life probably tells you which side we are on. We have been driving, and camping, in Fort Wilderness for most of these trips and we never get sick of it. WHY? What is it about Disney that keeps us coming back?
- Is it because the rides are so much fun?
- Is it because everyone is so happy all the time?
- Is it because it is so clean?
- Is it because the mathematical part of me is so fascinated with the queuing theory?
- Is it because there is always something new to see?
Those things definitely contribute to it, but I REALLY think it is because there is a distinct feeling I get when I’m there. It doesn’t happen in any other place. Why is that?
This trip, it hit me right in the face as I was walking through the Magic Kingdom.
Walt Disney had it! A mission and a vision. It was a clear, articulate mission from the start (“Make People Happy” -Walt Disney Co. original Mission Statement) and he had a very clear vision to carry out his mission.
Walt is quoted as stating the following :
“I believe in being an innovator.”
“The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing.”
“Times and conditions change so rapidly that we must keep our aim constantly focused on the future.”
“When we go into that new project, we believe in it all the way. We have confidence in our ability to do it right.”
“Get a good idea, and stay with it. Dog it, and work at it until it’s done, and done right.”
“It’s kind of fun to do the impossible.”
(Note: More than 40 years ago he was talking about innovation! )
Some of these quotes are posted around the parks for all to see and when I saw them, it “clicked”. I am drawn to all of these words. They excite me. They make me come back again and again. Dream Builders! I love it.
Imagine if Walt Disney was an administrator. What if all administrators/educators had vision like this? What would our schools be like? Can you imagine the experience our students would have ? Shouldn’t we all view ourselves as “dream builders”?
Check out some of Walt’s other amazing quotes here.
Ten Things Walt Disney Taught Me About Innovation
When the network is down…
Posted: February 19, 2012 Filed under: IT 1 Comment »Here’s my list of 10 things I learned when the network was down.
When the network is down…
http://www.techsling.com/2011/03/5-reasons-to-develop-a-disaster-recovery-plan/
1)…having a good, well tested (and often), disaster recovery plan is BEYOND necessary!
2) …even if you don’t have all the answers yourself, if you surround yourself with the people who do, the job gets done!
3)… there is a weird sense of “quiet” on campus.
4) …some educators can be flexible, creative, go with the flow, adapt lessons and pick up another tool. Yes, it might be less than ideal, but the students will still learn each and every day. These educators, without even realizing it, seized the opportunity to model essential 21st century skills to their students.
5) … some educators seize the opportunity to say: ”You see! This is why we can’t go to e-texts/ use blogs/ wikis, etc. This stuff NEVER works”. Imagine if we said this about cars when they broke down. We’d be walking a lot!
6) …some people understand that sometimes these things happen. Others don’t.
7) …it’s very easy to be a “Monday morning quarterback”. “Shoulda, coulda, woulda” doesn’t really help.
8) …some students are able to adapt. They used the resources they had (ex. their home email, texting, Facebook, cloud based applications, etc.) to complete what was asked of them. YAY!
9)…some students are NOT able to adapt. They used the network being down as an excuse to do NO work, which gave the teachers mentioned in #5 another reason not to use technology.
10) … you learn that money can’t solve all problems, but it helps with a lot of them!
“Bad things happen in 3s” …???
Posted: February 18, 2012 Filed under: IT 7 Comments »Whoever said this, I hope they were right. Here’s a peek at the network woes that have plagued Hamden Hall in the past month.
The mice at Hamden Hall must have needed some more fiber in their diet!
1) Bad network hub caused a broadcast storm that took down our network. After a few different methods of troubleshooting, we were able to locate it the “old fashioned” way… we unplugged the troublesome ethernet cord from the port on the switch and waited until someone yelled. We replaced that darn little NetGear hiding in the Art Cottage. (Yes, I know we should know better … NetGears are famous for that!)
2) The following week, a mouse ate through the fiber that connects our servers to the rest of campus… Those darn little teeth! It was repaired and resolved. We were down for about a day and a half. (Email worked from home though, thank goodness.)
3) The last, and most challenging of all the issues: Active Directory DNS database corruption. This problem became noticeable between events 1 and 2. We attempted to repair and “band-aid” the database as much as possible until the band-aid couldn’t hold it any longer–this happened Tuesday (Happy Valentine’s Day) at about 2pm. We worked through the night (literally) into Wednesday morning to rebuild 3 core servers to ensure that the problem had been resolved without any band-aids!
Now– we have had some unique issues at Hamden Hall before. Worth noting is the pipe that burst in the server room on the first day of school three years ago– water shooting directly into our core switch and trickling into the remainder of the undeployed PCs. We put those wet PCs out behind the server room on a pallet to dry in the sun, only to be hit by a car coming around the turn of the drive way. Who can make this stuff up? But never have we had 3 unrelated issues hit us this close together to cause such an interruption in teaching, learning and productivity. (I will reflect a little more about this in a different post. )
The purpose of this post is to publicly thank all of those people who helped to get us to where we are today.
1) My Network Manager, Victoria Helland, who gave 110% trying to support and resolve all of these issues. She truly carried the burden of the network outages on her shoulders and she did everything humanly possible (and without much sleep) to get us up and running. I am lucky to have her on my team!
2) My Husband Jon, who not only was an amazing support to me emotionally through all of this, but was full of what seemed to be unlimited resources when it came to knowing the right people at the right time. I am lucky to be married to him and grateful for his vast experience in the IT field throughout his career. Not only did he hook us up with some great people, he called them to make sure they took good care of us. I also thank him for handling all the drop offs, pick ups, homework, cooking, and for packing me everything I needed to start the day on Wednesday (after the all nighter). The outfit matched (I was a little worried). Thanks for checking on me all through the night, listening to me, asking the right questions to help me troubleshoot, and being a shoulder for me to cry on when I finally lost it. Sorry for missing Valentines Day. I love you.
3) My kids, who listened to my endless conference calls on speaker phone on the way to and from school and who were able to “go with the flow” staying late at school, and coming in early. They are strong and independent (YAY!) and I am very proud of them!
4) Jim Hunter, Director of Facilities, who always goes above and beyond to support the tech department. From coming in at 5am to help the fiber technician pull the new fiber in the dirt basement to delivering endless food, coffee and words of encouragement. He truly epitomizes the Hamden Hall spirit of commitment and dedication. We couldn’t have gotten where we are today without his help. His consistent “bright side” thinking helped us all plow through the issues.
5) Chris Buckley and Sarah Ludwig, who were on the front line supporting teachers and students through all of the ups and downs. You did this with a smile and patience. I am lucky to have such a great team!
6) FiberOptics Plus (a referral from my husband Jon), and especially the tech Matt, for quickly getting to campus to figure out where the break in the fiber was, and for coming back to campus at 5am the morning after the SuperBowl (Go Giants!) to get us working by 9:30am (3 hours ahead of the original projection).
7) Brian Diamond, President and CEO of LANStatus: ”Exceptional Attention. Extraordinary Results”– very true! (also a connection from Jon) Thanks, Brian, for sending us our savior, Nate Ravid. Nate showed up a half hour ahead of schedule this past Tuesday, and stayed with us until 4AM on Wednesday. He was extremely knowledgeable, calm, and got the job done! We successfully restored from backups, rebuilt our Active Directory and two domain controllers, a print server, and manually rejoined more than 50 computers to the domain. ALL before 8am when school started the following day. On Wednesday (February 15th), every class went on as scheduled with the technology they needed. It was my mission to make that happen and WE DID IT! Pretty incredible if you ask me! Thanks again Nate. It was a pleasure having Modern Pizza and cookies with you at midnight. I apologize if you didn’t spend Valentines day with a special someone because of it.
8) Bob Cashman of CCA and his consultant genius Dana Urban, who answered my dire call for help at 6pm on Wednesday (after our all nighter). Our email server was the last of the casualties and Victoria and I were brain dead at this point. These two men spent 4 hours on the phone helping us trouble shoot our issues and get a plan together for the morning. Their help, along with First Class Support, guided us to the best case scenario possible on Thursday morning. We had our email server up and running by 11am.
9) TechnologyPartners, our online backup company who answered countless phone calls helping us restore all servers with minimal data loss.
10) Andrew Speyer, Director of IT at Choate, one of my CAIS CoT best buds, who answered my “HELP!” text within minutes when I needed a contact for a fiber technician.
11) The many patient students and faculty of HH, whose endless cheers and words of encouragement and appreciation kept us going. Thanks for not “giving up” on technology and for realizing that sometimes these things can happen. (Heck if some of the big companies (Google, Twitter, Facebook), with unlimited funds can have network issues, we’ve done pretty well over the years!)
12) And last (but not least), my Head of School, Bob Izzo, who was also encouraging, patient, trusting and actually joking with me through all of this. I appreciate his support and I feel lucky to have him as my boss. He could have been A LOT less patient. And I thank him, in advance, for listening and supporting our proposal for upgrades to our infrastructure 
So, if you stuck with me through all of these thank yous, I ask that you follow these amazing people on Twitter or LinkedIn, support their businesses, read their blogs, etc. They are an amazing bunch and I am eternally grateful. I hope I didn’t leave anyone out. If I did, please forgive me. I am still catching up on my sleep! It was a wild few weeks (especially this one). I truly hope that bad things happen in 3s. It would be nice if the rest of the year was smooth sailing!
We owe it to our kids!
Posted: February 15, 2012 Filed under: Teaching and Learning Leave a comment »Yesterday, I gave this presentation to the Middle School.
I started with my favorite AdCouncil PSA “Think Before You Post”. These 30 seconds really capture, so powerfully, what can happen with an image online. I then moved to the topic of Facebook privacy settings, and I think I opened a few student’s eyes about what the setting “Friends of Friends” really means. And, as expected, our students are really becoming active on Twitter (we are not using it at HH for academic purposes as of yet, but students are definitely feeling out the “social scene” there). When I asked students about this, they said “We went to Twitter because our parents are on Facebook”. Hmmm… Interesting! This led to a great discussion about how public Twitter is… and I showed them how easy it is for me (or anyone) to see what they are tweeting, especially when they mention specific key words or hashtags (and especially the words “Hamden Hall”). “I don’t have to dig”, I said. ”Hamden Hall is a column on my TweetDeck. It’s our “brand”, we need to protect it.” I think they got it. We talked about how private “protected tweets” are and I also mentioned the situation with a student at Don Bosco Prep (who “protected” his tweets and yet, with 1500 followers, how “protected” are they?). This segued into a good discussion about digital footprints. I showed them 4 ways to check their footprint (from this post (The Innovative Educator)). I used the example of “Hamden Hall”, instead of a real person, to demonstrate the results of these sites. In preparation, I tested this right before the presentation to be sure that no one in the room would be embarrassed by the content. Not 20 minutes later, when I used Spezify, a brand new tweet showed up that was not very positive about Hamden Hall. On the one hand, it was a little uncomfortable that a very inappropriate word was on the screen in front of the students, and I had no idea who tweeted it, and yet… it was a PERFECT example what I was trying to show could happen. I calmly said, “you know what I’m doing when this assembly is over”. I finished up… and the students were buzzing! I jumped onto my twitter and confirmed what I had hoped to be true– the tweet did NOT come from a Hamden Hall student. Phew!
By the middle of the afternoon, the Middle School Dean and Middle School counselor were sending positive feedback my way. The kids were talking about how they were going home to Google themselves and check their Facebook privacy settings. YAY! They were also talking about the inappropriate tweet– (and wondering if we “caught” the person) All and all, a very positive experience.
Next up was a 7pm presentation to the Middle School Parents. While not as well-attended as we had hoped, all the parents who came said that their kids were talking about the assembly when they got home from school. I went through the same presentation with the parents, answered questions, shared resources, clarified some information and we ended with coffee/cookies.
Overall, I think it all went extremely well. Honestly, though, I am disappointed that more parents didn’t attend the discussion. Here’s my take on it:
We spend a lot of time teaching our kids how to cross the street safely. We teach them how to look both ways, we practice it over and over again (FOR YEARS). We hold their hands for a long time until we are comfortable knowing that they can do it on their own. We need to do the same with kids online… we can’t send them out there without teaching them, guiding them, supporting them, and answering questions along the way. We owe it to them!
Here are some of the resources that I used for my presentation:
How to Check Your Digital Footprint
Controlling Your Digital Identity
Building an Online Presence is More Important Than Ever
“When Saying No To Facebook Isn’t An Option”
Don Bosco football star gets expelled…
Live and Learn: A post- project assessment
Posted: January 22, 2012 Filed under: Teaching and Learning, Tech Projects Leave a comment »My geometry students just finished their second quarter project “Geometry: Brought to you by Hamden Hall”. Having a post-project review and assessment is all part of learning. So, here goes:
Earlier this year, I happened upon this video on Twitter and it gave me an idea! Using Windows MovieMaker or iMovie, I wanted my students to create a video, “Geometry: Brought to you by Hamden Hall”, with illustrations of geometry concepts around campus. It needed to include a title slide, definition of each of 12 chosen concepts, followed by the two unique images illustrating it. Students then had to add appropriate background music from an approved website. I presented the project and the students seemed really excited. Here are the guidelines I gave to them. Here is the rubric. We had a great discussion on piracy and we talked about using sites like Jamendo or ccMixter for digital music. I sent the students off around campus to begin their quest!
Working during class time, students gathered their photos each day and checked off the concepts on their list. I gave them a deadline to have all 24 photos taken. Some students didn’t meet this deadline and had to take additional photos on their own time. The students were excited to show me the great images they were taking a long the way. The kids worked hard at importing their pictures, and after explaining that I didn’t want them to google each of the definitions of the geometry concepts and copy/paste them into their video (I wanted them to use the definitions we learned in class), things seemed to be on the right track.
I answered some individual questions about MovieMaker and about importing the music, but otherwise, the students worked on their projects independently. I circulated the room looking over their shoulders talking about some of the images and definitions. We even had an admissions visitor to our classroom one day who remarked about how intensely the students were working!
The due date arrives… all projects were submitted on time.
Here they are:
(I know, I am spoiled with a very small section of geometry.)
What I was happy about:
1) Students found some very creative examples of geometric concepts.
2) Students seemed to enjoy the project and be able to apply some of the geometry concepts we studied.
3) This was a good review for the midyear exam.
4) We had a great discussion about music piracy.
5) Students were very comfortable working with digital images, adding text and editing video.
6) All projects were submitted on time.
What I was disappointed about:
1) Spelling Errors! ARG!
2) Some photos didn’t illustrate the concept defined.
3) It was sometimes unclear what part of the photo was illustrating the concept. In George’s presentation above, he took the initiative to outline some of the concepts in MS Paint and THEN import the photos. I will DEFINITELY include this as part of the requirement next time.
4) Students used the same photo multiple times, even though I asked them to find unique examples.
5) Some students did not include the required number of concepts or images.
6) Music didn’t work out for all students. Some songs were too long for the video or some songs ended before the images were done.
I must take some of the responsibility for some of the things that went wrong.
SO… Here’s what I will do differently next time:
1) Have students show me intermediate progress of video creation, checking the definitions, spelling and illustrations along the way. How great would it have been if I sent the student back out of the classroom to find an example of “vertical angles” after the image they selected was incorrect?
2) As I said above, I’d make sure students used a photo editing tool to outline the concept they were illustrating in the photo.
3) Maybe giving the students the choice of too many concepts was overwhelming to them. The students had a hard time keeping track of the ones they had taken photos of, and they kept losing their list.
4) Before publishing the movie, I’d have each student assess themselves with the rubric. This might have helped them see what they needed to change or improve.
5) Before publishing the movie, I’d also have each student have a peer “reviewer”. Then, their classmate could help them articulate what needed clarifying and students would have the opportunity to edit before submitting.
6) Spend a little more time on figuring out timing with the music… what math less that would have been! I won’t miss that opportunity again 
You know what they say…live and learn. I would definitely do this project again, with some adjustments.
If you have any additional feedback, please share!
