4/6/2014 April 6, 2014Follow up on the March 26 post. There are 2 grades entered for the third quarter. One for part 1 (first 4 slides) of the infographic project, and one for part 2 (last 3 slides) of the infographic. I will not repeat comments from that last post except to say that only 3 students took advantage of the re-score option There is a third grade that some students received. This was an "extra credit" based on adherence to deadlines. If both the Feb. 28 and March 28 deadlines were met, then ten points shows in the bonus column. If one deadline was met, then five points are entered. If neither deadline was met, it was not an additional penalty as the penalty came on the actual score sheet already. For those students, no extra points were earned. On April 2 and April 9 we will be discussing techniques for evaluation the validity and usefulness of websites, with a practice exercise on that. After that we will be discussing Digital Footprints (Internet and Social Media Safety). By that time those students who needed to complete sections of the infographic should be caught up and we can go on to publishing the finished projects. 3/26/2014 March 26, 2014I would like to provide some commentary on grading for the third quarter. A grade has only recently appeared for most 7th graders due to the fact that we have been working for several weeks on building an infographic. We are doing this using PowerPoint and there are several phases to the project. Students were expected to complete the first four slides of information, based on a required list of data compiled by Miss Smith relating to the study of African countries. I created my own project for an assigned country to model the process and give visuals to supplement the written directions. Students were to email me the PPT file as an attachment to demonstrate completion of the first four slides. Some were hastily emailed with many of the requirements missing, some were done well, and some were very late with still many requirements missing. One very big problem that many of our students face is time management, which is definitely a learned skill. There is not much time to spare for walks to the bathroom and getting a drink, or dawdling with getting something just right when that something is not even one of the required elements for the project. We barely have 40 minutes in the lab after transitioning from one location to another. Another source of lost time is not paying attention to directions, which are posted in a step by step format online and also reviewed orally on the Smart board. Yet some students think they can barrel on without paying attention to directions and just guessing or trying to figure out what comes next, only to find out they have wasted time doing the wrong thing. I have spent a great deal of time going over each element of the first four slides that were submitted by each student, offering corrections or just advice on improving even though no points may have been deducted. It is, after all, a learning experience and I am the guide on the journey. For any number of reasons, some scores on the first four slides were very low, and students today were asked to review the many comments I made on their efforts. They were then offered this option, as hair-raising and draining an experience as it likely will be for me: 1. Required: Submit the entire set of slides including the last three for the project no later than Friday, March 28 (the due date for the first four was Feb. 28, an entire month ago.) The score for the last three slides will be the second graded assignment of the quarter. 2. Optional: In the same email also attach the Word document found in the network folder that contained the first score and my comments, and in the body of the email request that I re-score the first part. (These directions were written step by step on the Smart board and reviewed orally.) This must be done no later than Friday, March 28, as that is the last day of the quarter. I said today that many students have an S "on loan" as their current score is not really equivalent to an S but I am loaning it to them with the hope that improvements will be made. Already in checking email, I have found several students who have submitted the request to please re-score, but did not attach the score sheet, or others who have attached the document but no message in the email body. -Sigh- There will be open lab during Thursday and Friday recess. After these two sections are completed we will take a break from the infographics and do some work on website evaluation and Internet safety topics. Then finally the infographics will be published. The whole focus of this assignment was to use technology and design skills to put together a snapshot of an African nation and how that nation may or may not be progressing with the Millennium Goals. There are citizens of some of those nations who have visited our class blog in the past. We want to be mindful of presenting factual information to the best of our ability and demonstrate respect for cultures that may be different from our own even as we seek to know more about them. Time Passing by FRITS AHLEFELDT is licensed under CC BY ND 2.0
3/2/2014 March 2, 2014Seventh graders should have composed an email with their PPT infographic file attached so I can check on progress on the first four slides of information. The next part of the project involves summarizing the status of progress toward 3 Millennium Goals of your choice (example shown in class and posted on the Eyes Have It 2 tile). There are some students who did not yet email their file attachment which was due on Feb. 28. What remains to be done as far as research is to find out some current events about the African country according to Miss Smith's directions. Remember to keep adding resources to the resource slide. Then comes the construction of the actual infographic, which will involve saving our slides as jpegs and inserting them into one long slide. Your slides must be in their best and final form before that step is completed. Work on gathering your information for the MDG connection and current events. The lab will be open this week for anyone who feels they are behind in the project (and there are several) or anyone who has questions. 1/20/2014 January 20, 2014The second quarter has come to a close, and due to holidays and weather issues seventh graders will have only two scores making up their technology grade this quarter. The first was our preliminary exploration of infographics in which students found an infographic of interest to them, evaluated it based on a set of criteria, and then shared their findings with the class. We also participated in the Hour of Code activity to inspire students to experiment with coding and consider it as a potential career, or even a high school elective. You can find my post about the activity on our CougarTech 7 blog page. Featured posts for this assignment were Julia, Gianna, Joe, Connor, Paxton, and Magdala. At the conclusion of the coding activity students saved a screen shot of their progress and then we "optimized" the image for use on the web but cropping and re-sizing it. We began the post to write up the activity before Christmas, and some students had it finished before the holiday, but those who did not were asked to have it completed by December 31. Too many students had to be called into the lab, even after January reminders, to finally get the very short post completed. Assignment details for the post are found here. High school is not so far away, and I know of many situations where teachers will not accept a late assignment at all; it is either on time or the grade is a zero. Time to pay more attention to deadlines, especially for assignments that are not labor intensive sch as this one! Tying together our study of infographics and the Millennium Goals earlier this year, and the topic of Africa in social studies class, research is now under way to develop an infographic on an assigned African country, comparing economic and health conditions with other countries and also the country's progress on the Millennium Goals. The first part of the assignment for technology is to create the first 3 slides of a PowerPoint presentation using embedded Excel charts. Details on part one are found here. I am also building a project of my own as we go through the steps so students have a concrete example of what the expectations are. We will be turning these finished slides into jpegs and then into one long infographic. It is a step by step process. You will be amazed with the results! 11/13/2013 November 13, 2013We are now in the process of sharing part one of infographics project, in which each student is choosing an infographic of interest to analyze and share with the class. Some students have spent too much of their time searching instead of choosing one and getting the write up completed and so their presentations are being done past the deadline. Assignment details for Infographics 1 are found here. Some of the infographics shared include The History of Superman, 8 Things Successful People Do and Why They Work, London vs. Paris, and The Psychology of Music. To prepare for creating their own infographics that will tie together our work with the Millennium Goals and their study of Africa in social studies, students will learn about the CARP principles of good design, and review creating objects using shape tools in Microsoft PowerPoint as well as embedding charts and graphs into a slide. They will be receiving specific requirements from Miss Smith regarding the project requirements. 10/14/2013 October 14, 2013I have recently scored the completed posts on the Millennium Goals project. The details of the writing assignment called for three distinct sections: an introductory paragraph with a link to a reliable information source, paragraph that contained a list of the 8 goals, and a third paragraph that named a specific program or organization that was making a difference in helping a country or group of people make progress toward the goal, with a link back to that program information. I have written my own post about the project and showcased posts by three students for this assignment: Kaitlyn, Alex, and Jacob. For other assignments, other student writing will be showcased. This most difficult part of this assignment was actually looking for an example of some specific program or practice that is making a difference. Many students repeated generalizations from the UN site, and some re-listed problems without any evidence of progress. To state that the poverty rate is down in this country or that does not indicate what it was that brought about that change. This is a cause and effect scenario. Another important concept was a review of advanced image searches that would yield non-copyrighted images. It is important to use Creative Commons and Public Domain images for most published school projects and to give proper attribution. Eight students completed the assignment after the deadline, meaning after October 9 even though the deadline was really October 2, so 1.5 of the 3 on time points were lost. The remaining students who have yet to submit the assignment will lose all 3 of the on time points.There have been several open lab periods at recess for students who needed more time or extra help, and there will be more this week. This general understanding of conditions under which many citizens of the world live will be a reference point as students learn about the geography and culture of other nations, especially those on the African continent. (Yes, boys and girls, Africa is a continent, not country.) Our last graded assignment of the first quarter will be the selection and transfer of three posts from the old blog site. The student blog serves as a digital portfolio showcasing examples of student learning. They will select 3 (or more if they so choose) and transfer the HTML code from one text editor to the other. Image Credit: Oxfam at the UN MDG Summit by Oxfam International under CC license 9/28/2013 September 28, 2013I have posted 2 grades for work completed to date. The first is a folder organization activity where students had to create sub-folders within their network folders and delete some old files so that they were preserving no more than six pieces of work from grades four through six. Some students did not name their folders correctly, and some did not delete old files, but for the most part it was a simple organizational activity. The second score was for the first part of our work on the Millennium Development Goals. Students had at least two class periods to review information on the given websites, and there were three videos as well to help them understand what the Millennium Goals were all about. The requirements were to list the websites and then come up with five facts they learned for each of the three sites. I gave bonus points to students who completed the video summaries as well. Some students waste a lot of time in class and then find themselves behind. All of the work on the MDG's can be accessed outside of class so if someone needs more time there is no reason not to complete it. I even had several open lab periods for students who may have wanted additional time, and a handful of students did take advantage of that. We are now in the process of writing up the post about the goals. The full details of the research section and the writing section can be found here. The post follows a very specific structure. One week I explained the writing section then gave them time to work. Last week I explained the image requirement and how to credit it, and then they had class time to work. This week was strictly working time. The students will be studying Africa this year in social studies and Miss Smith and I are coordinating projects that will tie the Millennium Goals in with their study of African countries. This first activity is background for projects that will come later. The final post is due at the end of class on October 2. Students were reminded to access it outside of class if they were not close to being finished with the assignment. This post will be their third graded assignment of the quarter. We still have blog transfers to do as well as begin our work on infographics which will be used for the Africa projects.
Image Credit: Fight Poverty by Maciej Glogus under CC License 9/4/2013 September 4, 2013The in class assignment, Digital Space 1, was to organize the network folder, involving moving files and creating and renaming folders. After that students spent time on researching background information on the Millennium Development Goals according to the requirements listed in Global - MDG. The research activity should be completed by the end of class on September 11. Students will earn points for the research part of the assignment and then move on to the actual writing assignment. All parts of this assignment can be completed either in or outside of school.
8/30/2013 August 30, 2013The first technology class took place on Aug. 28. Checking accounts and logging in was the first order of business. In some cases account rollovers hit snags and I need to make adjustments. Students logged into their new blog page on Kidblog and we will be choosing some posts from the old blog site to transfer over so as not to lose past work. Google apps accounts have been reactivated for this year's work, and new students need to be sure to return the Google Apps permission form, along with all students returning the Internet permission form. The image at the left from US Mission Geneva represents the 8 UN Millennium Development Goals that students will be investigating and writing about during the next few class periods. This will involve research and gaining background knowledge from the content presented, working with Creative Commons images, and developing a post that features one example of progress made toward the 2015 goals. Part of our tech curriculum involves communicating using digital tools as well as research. This activity to become more globally aware is tied into the social studies curriculum in which students will learn about many world countries. Specific project guidelines will appear on the class webmix to guide students through the project. The introduction involved visiting the UN page and also viewing the "dinner scene" from "Girl in the Cafe", a 2006 movie that focused on the Millennium goals. Students who miss a class period should be checking the webmix for updates on assignments, or reviewing what is posted here on the 7th grade information page. We pack a lot into each class. I am always available via email for any questions or assistance with projects: [email protected]. |