Take a moment to consider the steps you have taken toward meeting the goals you established for learning about technology and technology resources.
Are you finding the information and resources you need?
In obtaining my goal in utilizing and creating web quests in my classroom, I am finding several resources on the internet. Education World is an amazing resource for creating my own web quest.
Do you need to modify your action plan?
A modification I would make to my action plan is to incorporate self-reflection into my assessment of utilizing web quests. I would also like to include parents in the evaluation process of using the web quest. I would do this by posting this on our class blog, asking parents to post feedback. I think by doing this, I can monitor the success or failure of my goal and adjust accordingly. This would be an excellent way to involve pareents, and also aid in reporting assessment results to stakeholders such as parents and administrators (Cennamo, Ertmer, & Ross, 2009). Parent and student feedback would help me determine if I am on the right track.
What have you learned so far?
I am finding that the process of creating a web quest is daunting, and a lot of work. I may talk to another teacher about collaborating on this project.
What new questions have arisen?
I need to vary assessment based on student learning sytles. I want to make this as authentic as possible, and develop assessment to measure student learning (Cennamo, Ertmer, & Ross, 2009).
Cennamo, K., Ertmer, P., & Ross, J. (2009). Technology Integration for Meaningful Classroom Use. Mason, Ohio: Cengage Learning.
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Well, I must say, Education World does seem to an informative and productive site. I took a look at it myself before I began my reply. It is organized well with information for all those concerned at the school level. It will be interesting to see what I can find while looking the site over in greater detail as the year approaches early next month.
ReplyDeleteSince you mentioned web quests, I did want to say that they can be as difficult or simple as you wish them to be. I have some where students simply need to find an item or two and report back as to a price and purchase place. Then as the year goes along, Their research skills increase and we can do more in-depth topics on perhaps a biome or movie or even market even that has just happened.
All of my new material and people to add in to my game plan revolve around my parents. Without my student’s parents, it will do no good to push the students. They must back me up. The parents must also know that when their children choose to not do homework or refuse to study for a test and then fail, that is what they will see on a report card. I am not here to baby them. Do not get me wrong, I do not want to fail anyone, but it is difficult to when the grades and lack of supporting work are at the root of the problem.
This brings me to another soap box that I try to avoid concerning the basics of math and English. In the early years, students must learn their math facts and sentence structure independent of computers and finger counting. I know many teachers are beginning to believe that students should have unlimited access to technology to help them with such basics, but what happens then when they do not have access and must write or figure up something and cannot do it? This concept boggles my mind. I realize slows down learning, but perhaps that is exactly what needs to happen.
What do you think?
Great ideas Rudy! I really like that you are reaching out to the parents for feedback. It should help you evaluate and modify your lessons. They will be able to articulate what their children are struggling with or what they are succeeding with. Bringing in another class to collaborate with can help lighten the load and provide other insights to your projects.
ReplyDeleteKelly,
ReplyDeleteThat is great that you have found so many resources so far. I have also found that Education World is a good resource to use. I think that would be great to get parents involved in the process of webquests. Too often parents do not know what is going on in the classroom, so this would be a great way for them to stay current with what is going on in the classroom. Good Luck I think your parents would have a great time communicating with their child and you outside of the classroom.
~Michelle
Thank you all for your positive comments. Steve, I completely agree with you about learning math facts. I start multiplication the first day of school while they are excited about it. I have them memorize the facts and when it comes time in our math book to "learn" multiplication, I then show them why 4x4 =16. But first I want them to memorize, so they wont use fingers or hash marks etc to figure out their problem.
ReplyDeleteRudy,
ReplyDeleteGood luck with the Web Quest quest! I think it's a great direction. My feedback on this is to not put too much weight on parent involvement. Their is so much variance in parent involvement, it might be hard to use it for any kind of assessment.
Carey