Looking back at everything that I have done while working on my Wicked Project, I find that a few things didn't go as planned. Since it was over summer that I began trying to implement this it was a bit difficult to find an appropriate audience for me to use. Because of this I wasn't able to 100% implement the project the way I planned. I had to pick and choose the settings. For example, while working with a few of my students during summer school I would poll them and try to implement as many aspects of the project as I could. A plus side of trying to implement the project with a small group of students during the summer is that I was able to get all the small "bugs" and glitches out of the project before going on a larger scale with all 150 of my students. This allowed me to really see what worked and what the students could relate too.
To show the success of addressing the problem of responsible social media and digital citizenship was a bit of a challenge because I wasn't sure at the very beginning how to do this. After completing the project, I decided on a new way of evaluation. I have drawn from my experience in actually creating the project: a blog tracking progress. By having the students document their thoughts and reflections while completing the project (over the entire year) we can see really the progression and the understanding of digital citizenship. By doing this exact thing for this project I have personally experienced the positive effects of blogging. This is a change to how I evaluated my small group of students. Originally for the assessment, I was having the students just take simple pre and post test. This really wasn't an acurate evaluation of the students learning and growth because they were simple questions that did not require the students to truly evaluate their learning and see how important the content was.
One thing I learned that I shouldn't be scared to try and implement technology, such as blogs and twitter or something like that, or overly commit to using too many forms of technology. This was something that I began with. By having too much technology and trying to really incorporate technology I began to get frustrated myself. Really the lesson is, take it slow. I was afraid that I wasn't going to be able to use all the new technology I discoveredin this course and wanted to make sure that I was using it. Instead of thinking that I had all year and multiple lessons to use different forms of technology. I had to tone myself back from using too much, realizing that I have more opportunities to come. All these things will be put into effect when I begin implementing this in my classroom. One thing I will have to do is really spread out the lesson. Instead of doing this in a few weeks, I have all year and can really drill in the importance with a variety things. I would keep most of the implementation the same but change the assessment. I would also try to bring in more aspects of digital citizenship. What I focused mainly on for this project was the use of Twitter and Facebook but there are so many other aspects of digital citizenship that need to be addressed. By including the blog reflection, I am showing the students another aspect. This is something I will have to think about more as time goes on; the ability to incorporate more into the students learning in a sneaky way.
Your feelings of frustration and hesitation from trying implement too many technologies is common. When this happens I ask myself these questions when integrating technology. What is my purpose? If the technology does not fit and does not lend itself toward the purpose then I scale it back and sometimes even start over. I always try to do one thing really well instead of trying to do everything at once and failing. You are on the right track by taking your time and spreading it out over the course of the year.
ReplyDeleteI'm so glad that you were able to roll out your project this summer with a small group of students. What a great way to pilot the project and to "work out" some of the bugs and glitches prior to a fall launch=8-). Something to consider would be to have (read: use) more than one method of evaluation. The pre/post test, plus the reflective aspect of their blog posts. That way students who have a difficult time with expressing themselves would be able to shine when taking the actual test. Another reason for including the pre/post test is that the results can be used by you, the teacher, to modify what content is taught/covered during the course of the year. Great way to build differentiated instruction into the mix.
ReplyDeleteIt's great that you were able to implement a part of your project this summer, i totally understand that summers a very restrictive due to not having students. But, as you mentioned this afford you the opportunity to work out the bugs. I too had a similar challenge this summer with my project, but my goal is to keep working on this project until its final roll out in late October. I expect there to be bumps and challenges with implementing technology, but this should not keep us from trying, as long as we keep making changes to our plans and modifying accordingly, we will come ahead. Make sure that you set realistic expectations for projects and use one of your classes as the trial group that you use to get feedback on your implementations. You'll be surprised how willing students are with feedback if they think that their voice will make a difference!
ReplyDelete