My goal, at a technological level, is not to teach skills. Rather, I want students to become technologically literate. This means, they will learn to analyze how technology is used, evaluate its effect on society and blend it in creative ways. I'd like students to be cybergeeks, who are experts in using technology and technogurus who can criticize the dehumanizing elements of technology.With that in mind, here is how I organize my quarter-long class:
Weeks 1-3: My Life
A project where students create a blog telling their life story. They do a multimedia poem, a picture-based study of their geography, a slideshow presentation of their culture, a life philosophy, a "this I believe" blog post, a life narrative using the border as a metaphor and an ethnographic study of language in their life.
Weeks 4-6: My World
Here they explore an issue, create potential solutions to the issue (and engage in a short service learning activity with it) and develop either a socially ethical business or a nonprofit solution to the issue (on a website). They get into research, develop a website, create a video and complete a community Needs Assessment on a spreadsheet. In the end, they have to compare the difference between their charity or company and the charity where they volunteered.
Weeks 7-9: My Future
Here students do more research on potential careers. Someday I'd like to have a job shadowing element to this. They go through some personal finance and goal-setting activities as well.
Students also work on a bi-weekly article to go on our Social Voice website and they participate in our class social network (where much of the online interaction takes place). Each child has a personal and a class blog in addition to the three main projects and the four Social Voice articles.
What I'm trying to do is to get them to use all the technology tools in a cyclical way, so that they build upon what they used in the previous unit. My reason for posting this is that I'd love feedback on how I could build upon this or change it up somehow.
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About This Blog
This blog consists of the individual thoughts of John T. Spencer. They do not reflect the ideas, philosophies or practices of the Cartwright Elementary School District. Furthermore, the blog criticisms are aimed at overall educational trends rather than any one individual or institution. The goal is to start a conversation regarding how to fix professional development.
I too build upon the knowledge I'm giving the students in my multimedia class by increasing the number of assignments that make them think and do on their own. These are not my academy students and they hate it. They have been spoon fed in their previous 3 years of high school and then I come along and spoil it by making them work in a more real-world way.
I start with teaching target market, fonts, colors, layouts. We progress to Photoshop and Indesign assignments where I give them all the materials, then fewer and fewer materials until now where they have to build a brochure with all of their own photos, logos, text, etc. They aren't real happy with me.