blustering through...

Wow, totally forgot to blog...oops! I guess it's just that time of the year when we are all chugging along trying to make it until spring break...11 school days?

Unfortunately, we've only been using surface level technology right now. By that I mean that technology is primarily being used for word processing purposes, not for the construction and sharing of new knowledge.

Well...I suppose that's not true for everyone. I am doing end of unit projects with my sophomores right now over the play Othello by the good ol' Billy Shakes. For these projects students must complete three types of projects: 1) a creative visual project with a metacognitive reflection that explains rationale behind project, 2) a creative written project withe metacognitive reflection, and 3) a formal written paper. For each of these options, students have several options of project types to choose from. For example, for the creative visual students could create a drawing, painting, collage, comic strip, MovieMaker composition, extensively digitally altered pictures, etc. As you can see, some of the options allow for technology use. The same is true for the other project options. One of the formal options requires students make use of technology in constructing knowledge if they choose the option of researching a topic related to the time period and relating it to the play.

Interestingly enough, my students that really enjoy using technology are finding ways to integrate technology into the project in ways that I would not have thought of doing. For example, many students have chosen to make a collage, and are doing so by pulling images from the Internet. A couple of students have chosen to write a song for the creative written project and have set their lyrics to actual music that they are then recording on the computer so they can turn it into me. I believe one of those students is using that song for his creative visual because he is setting the song to a MovieMaker background of images. Very cool, very creative, and within their comfort level and realm of technology experience--yet still pushing them to think critically about the text of Othello.