February 20, 2009
A Cross-State Collaborative Event
Posted by Lee Kolbert under Classroom Technology, collaboration, Edline, Educational Vision, MediaShare, project-based learning, Web 2.0 Tools[4] Comments
A cross-state collaborative event occurred between one of our teachers here at Waters Edge ES (Mr. Fisher) and a teacher in Chicago (Mrs. Broos) to celebrate Lincoln’s 200th birthday.
5th grade students completed a KWL on VoiceThread and were then grouped in 2’s from partnering classes to conduct research together. They collaborated by creating their own VoiceThreads, adding their documents and leaving each other comments. Classes communicated using Adobe Connect and the links were shared on Edline. In addition, this has all been uploaded to MediaShare (search “lincoln”) for the ultimate sharing experience for all teachers to be able to replicate. As if that isn’t enough, Mrs. Weinroth and Emilie from WOWL and one of the anchors from PalmBreezeCAFE were on the scene to capture it all!
On this final day (shown in the video) the Mrs. Broos’ class in Chicago had an assembly and put on a show while the class here watched and participated.
I hope you will take just a few minutes to watch the video and check out their VoiceThread.
Skills:
American History
Government
Research Skills
Effective use of technology
February 20th, 2009 at 2:48 pm
Hi Lee,
OK, I got the link up earlier than Monday. Again, thank you so much for all of your help with this project. It was a great event to have participated in as both a teacher and a citizen of the United States. I know that the kids came away from this with a new found respect for Lincoln, and the power of technology in and for education. As always, let me know how else I can foster technoology in the classroom.
David
February 20th, 2009 at 11:24 pm
Lee,
I find this project between Mr. Fisher and Mrs. Broos’ very interesting. I am sure the students were truly engaged. Do you know, did the students have a rubric to follow in creating the projects? The reason I ask is that I am working with my pre-service students on Voicethread and Animoto. I would be curious to show them the rubrics students had to follow in creating those projects and completing such an interesting task.
I am in hope that next fall I have more teachers in my district interested in not just projects within their classroom but in a global, collaborative project.
Dean
February 21st, 2009 at 10:36 am
Hi Dean,
When I was teaching I tried to use rubrics as much as possible, so the students knew what was expected of them, but there were always those moments when an inspirational project came up on me too quickly for me to develop a rubric so I went with it anyway. I’m not sure if Mrs. Broos or Mr. Fisher used rubrics, and I will ask them to jump into this conversation to respond certainly.
Do you read Bill Ferriter’s The Tempered Radical? Awesome blog! http://teacherleaders.typepad.com/the_tempered_radical
He writes a lot about using VoiceThread in the classroom and there’s a post I bookmarked where he gives great resources for evaluating students’ participation. http://aecegh.notlong.com
Thanks for stopping by and commenting.
February 21st, 2009 at 11:40 am
Amazing that you would bring up rubrics. I have many “out of the box” ideas about them. First, I demand excellence in the music classroom. Music is quite different from other subject, since I “reward” excellence, instead of “grading” excellence. So, I DO NOT have rubrics, it limits my creative/talented students right-brain students and stresses out my non-creative left-brain students.
After reading “The Last Lecture, by Randy Pausch, it solidified my reasons. When he started his new creativity class, he got projects beyond his wildest imagination. He talked to a fellow professor about the problem and his response was telling the class “It’s not enough.” I start the year with expectations of receiving an award at the end of the year. Since I deal with creativity, and producing projects that have never been done before, I cannot have a rubric. I honestly do not know what I am going to get.
I know when students are not putting their best effort in that is my role of the teacher/coach to inspire the creation process.
The second issue is time. Many students do not have the programs at home and are completely tied to the MIDI lab computers. They only have music twice a week, there are assemblies, pullouts for band, special appointments and the list goes on and on. So, I make sure I have extra time for those who get caught up in creating an incredible project OR have the dreaded “tech” issues. If a project doesn’t seem to be going well, sometimes it is called a “learning” project. Amazingly, almost all “learning” projects are revisited and completed. So, in conclusion, you would say the rubric is high standards and if not, it is a redo until the individual “standard” is met. Here is the link to the fifth grade awards http://web.me.com/carolbroos/Carol_Broos/4th_Awards.html
Thanks for the post:) The Lincoln Project was amazing and it got my students to think, create, and remember.