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Assignment 1: Use the internet // __Introduction:__

This project is designed to be the first lesson of the semester or school year. It can be adapted and used for different subjects or grade. It was conceived with a high school level US history class in mind. I would use this lesson to introduce the many topics and genres that can be tied to US history. Ideally, it will get the students excited and ready to learn. It will also make them aware that they will be able to tie their interests to their coursework. Both the teacher and students will benefit from this piece in a couple ways. The teacher will benefit because they will have an opportunity to find out their students' interests, there is a potential for them to learn new things, and they can see how the students in their class respond to being given choices and projects. The students will benefit from this assignment because they will get to bring their interests into the classroom, they will learn something new, and they will find out how exciting history can be. This project also has the potential to bring technology into the classroom in a hands on way. The students and teacher will be able to experiment with all the different things the internet has to offer.

__Objective:__

To introduce different ways of studying, understanding and learning about US history

To incorporate technology into a classroom activity

To learn how to find historically relevant information on the internet and in books

__Lesson Plan and Project Assignment:__ This activity will probably span over the course of three to four days. The first day will be an introduction to the course and an introduction to the project. The next day (or two) could be a work day for students to continue preparing their project. On the project due date each student will present what they found. The presentation will probably span to two days (in order for each student to present). To cut time you could assign each time period to pairs or cut the parts of the assignment to fit the topics you want to include. I would recommend having the students draw their time period out of a hat; this way there is no question about how fair the assignment is. Then have the students present in chronological order. Also, if there are particular periods that offer a plethora of information, you may assign more than one student to that period.

A possible additive: -Have a class on how to find biases and a class on how to tell if an internet site is "good" or not- You could do this at the beginning of teh second day so students could start their projects with this information.

__The Project Assignment:__ Each student will be assigned a ten year period. They are then required to find things (specifics listed below) that relate to that period. They should provide the link to the site or the citation for the book where they found the information and explain its relevance. They are required to use at least one of each source (ie. at least one internet site and one book). The explanation must be at least one paragraph. If you have any questions or would like any help please come see me.


 * //Specifics://**

Each student must find-

1. A piece of music- this can be music that was composed during this period or music that was written about this period. It must in some way relate to historical events that occurred during their assigned time period.

2. A piece of art- this can be a movie, a video, an ad, a piece of artwork, etc. Again, you must be able to explain it's relevance to your time period in some way.

3. A piece of literature- this should be something (a novel, a poem, an article, an essay, a speech, etc.) written in or about this time period.

4. A significant historical event- this can be a court decision, a presidential election, a war, a shift in technology, etc. This is something that changed the world from that point on.

5. A discovery- This is any significant discovery that happened. It can be a scientific, historical, mathematical, environmental, anything as long as it produced a new piece of knowledge that did not previously exist.

6. Something I think you should know is- This is anything you found that you thought it would be important for myself and your classmates to know. It can involve a significant sports event, a change in fashion trends, an idol or hero who was born during that period, or a fun fact. Anything you want to offer the class.


 * //The Presentations://**

Each student will give a five minute presentation to the class. In my class, I will have each student create their own page off the class site and present that page to the class. You could go one step further and assign one page to each decade. So, from the homepage there would be a link to each decade and each student with that decade will present their information there. You can then add class material to those pages as the year progresses. Doing it in this format allows the students to present their material to the class from that page and they can embed the internet sites within the page. If you are going to ask each student to create a page, teach them how. Do what works for you and make this facet of the assignment fitting for your population, but again this is what I recommend. There is an example of each below.

Please cite EVERYTHING. It's better to be safe than sorry.

//*On your honor: I expect for all of the sources you use to be appropriate and valid. If I ask you, you must be able to explain why you thought that site was relevant or providing you with valid information. I also expect all the songs and images you present to have a G or PG rating. It should be something you are comfortable sharing with your parents and/or grandparents. As I have indicated, this is on your honor, if you choose to break my trust there will be repercussions which we will handle accordingly at the time and the severity will depend on the offense. I know this will not be necessary, but I wanted to have the warning in place.//


 * //Grading://**

//Each topic section (music, art, literature, historical event, discovery, you should know) is worth ten points://

-5 points are will be allotted for finding the information
 * Is the requested information present? Are there links to sites that contain that information present?

-5 points will be allotted for the paragraph explanation
 * 1 point clarity
 * 4 points content: 1 pt. the information is on topic/relevant, 2 pt. it relates to US history (Why is this important in a historical context? Where does it fit in a historical context?), 1 pt. there is a connection drawn between the finding and history (What makes this important?)

//The presentation will be worth 40 total points://

- 20 points will be given for the presentation
 * 4 points for active listening and participation during other students presentations
 * 12 points for subject knowledge- 1 point for sharing information and 1 point for giving other students enough information to explore further
 * 4 points for oral presentation- eye contact, elocution, organization, clarity

- 20 points will be awarded for the wiki page or section of a page they create
 * -5 points is it easy to navigate
 * -5 points citations- could anyone else in the class access the information you presented
 * -5 points creativity and visual appeal- Is the page craetive and visually appealing?
 * -5 points planning- Does the layout and order of the page make sense for how information was presented? Are there any connections made between the sections? Does the page flow?

Finally, have fun and I want this to be something you enjoy and that you find relevant. This is your chance to teach the class things you think they should know. __Example Pages:__

Decades Assignment Example 1: Having each student create their own page

Decades Assignment 2 Example 2: have each student add their information to a page for their decade //*There are a some examples within the example pages//

 //**__Assignment 2:__**// //Use Office// __Introduction:__ I prepared a gradebook in Excel. Everything the teacher would need is incorporated into the file. They could change the point distributions and totals to fit their class. I separated each sheet into the different facets of the class, tests, homework, participation, projects, and extra credit, anything else they could easily find a place to add it or they could easily remove a sheet or column. The clear purpose for this piece is to keep track of students grades; I designed it in a way that I would easily be able to navigate and understand all of its parts. I like my own systems and this works to that satisfy that need. I think both teachers and students benefit from good organizational tools. I also think this gradebook would make it easy to make it an assignment for students to keep up with their own grades or to develop a rubric for the class and each assignment. It was an effective use of technology in that I could find numerous ways to use this one thing to assist me in other parts of my classroom instruction. It will make my life easier, and isn't that the essential purpose of effective technology? I believe so.

As I said previously, I tried to take into account any type of assignment a teach might have. I also made it so that things could easily be adapted or omitted to fit each teacher. It is clear, easy to understand, and all the formulas are already put into each cell; these characteristics would allow any teacher to use this to start their own from scratch. They would need a minimum amount of excel knowledge to create their own or they could open this and switch things around to fit their system. I made each worksheet a separate facet of the class and the first page the totals so that it would be clearly navigable. The sheets are each tittled with the assignments they hold and the column headings are very clear. Again, they could change these where they see fit.

I attempted to take advantage of all the given technology within excel that would be beneficial to creating a gradebook. I by no means took advantage of all of excel's capabilities, but they were not necessary for this assignment. In this assignment I was reminded how to fill down, they quickest way to input data into each cell, and the cell formating techniques. I learned some new things as well; previously, I did not know how to input formulas (I learned 3-4 new formulas), I did not know how to get grades from percentages and I did not know how to take a cell from worksheet and put it in another. I also learned a very valuable lesson about why it would be valuable to keep all the worksheets separately and why it would be useful to keep an excel gradebook at all. The break down of the worksheets and the different assignments in my hypothetical class were very much individualized to the type of class I would like to teach. I could see this being a very useful system. I had worked with excel previously, but it was a very long time ago. This was a very good refresher course and I learned what felt like a lot of new stuff. I played with the mail merger for a minute and I think with further research I would be able to use it, but I didn't quite get there. Finally, I learned how to link it to my Wikipage (as you see below).

 I believe that this assignment is complete.

Project 3: Use Photoshop

Ecological Footprint Project- Photoshop Project

I included this because my second performance definitely was not stellar. This is what I spent Monday doing.

<span style="font-size: 170%; font-family: Impact,Charcoal,sans-serif; color: rgb(140, 26, 219); text-align: center; display: block"> Project 4 :

Use I-Movie

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; text-align: left; display: block"> This project was designed to teach pre-k and kindergarten students about emotions. Ashley and I agreed that there is a lack of resources that incorporate real faces and people sharing their emotions in a manner that would reach this audience. Instead of receiving real images, they are given cartoon pictures to associate with the basic emotions. This video is designed to be shown at the beginning or end of a feelings or emotional intelligence unit. The emotions incorporated were happy, sad, mad, and excited. We intentionally included these emotions because they are the basic emotions we thought would be most appropriate for this age group. Eventually, I would like to be an elementary school counselor and I would probably use this as a class opener through second grade at the beginning of the year. The video is self-explanatory and I hope you enjoy.

This project was entirely new to me. I had never used any type of movie making software before. We incorporated as much of the technology as time would allow. The idea was something I had never seen previously which was part of our motive for doing it. The music contained in the video is Happy Boys and Happy Girls by aqua, Fix You by Coldplay, Bodies by Drowning Pool, and I'm So Excited by the Pointer Sisters. We bought the songs at I-tunes and incorporated them via the I-movie technology. All the actors were volunteers.

Here is our I-Movie:

media type="custom" key="1190317" Completed 07/30/08 <span style="font-size: 150%; font-family: Georgia,serif; color: rgb(72, 204, 239); text-align: center; display: block">