What to grade? AR #7

This week we were asked to put together an assessment rubric to evaluate the overall performance of our students and their digital storytelling project. We were to create an analytic rubric, which is one that addresses each component of a student's project. I was a little worried when I created this rubric using irubric, but was pleasantly surprised to see how many sample rubrics were available for my viewing pleasure. I did a basic search for science K-5 rubrics on animal habitats. I found numerous rubrics that addressed science in both the primary and intermediate science category. After reading about both holistic and analytic rubrics I was pleased to learn that we needed to create an analytic rubric. I like the idea of assigning points to each aspect of what was expected from my students.

Due to the grade level and real expectations I had for my students I really wanted to look at whether or not they could provide at least 2 good examples of animal habitats. Did they include sentences that included good detail about the animal habitat they were describing? Were pictures used to support their writings? I was particularly focused on the aspect of their abilities to work with their partners in creating their presentation on Prezi. I had to decide what criteria I was going to grade and I went from there. I really felt that it was going to be pretty clear cut in my criteria because we are talking about assessing what a firstgrader can do. After looking at some of the rubrics on irubrics my mind was changed. There were so many things I didn't even think of that I could use for grading criteria. Did they work well with their partner? The difficulty came for me when deciding what was excellent, good, and poor. I did not include a criteria for my students writing for this project. I felt like the writing part is so subjective, so instead I will use a criteria of did they include important details from their writing in their presentation.

Other components include: did they gather information as a team? Did they work together as a team and help each other? What was their overall teamwork like? Were they positive, supportive, and respectful? After looking at my rubric I am happy that some of my focus was on the social aspect, as this is an important skill I think first graders should be held accountable for. Enjoy the rubric and please let me know what I can fix.

AR#6 A look at animal homes

This week we were asked to create an example of a digital story to show to our students that will help them to understand what we are looking for in their digital story projects. In past postings you can see that I've done much of my digital story telling using Prezi. I've decided to stick to this program and create an example through this. My model project relates to animals and their homes. The project will require first grade students to create a digital story using pictures from a field trip we will take for science and they will have to reflect upon a book that was teacher chosen. Knowing the ability level of my students I decided that I would pair students together (one high student with one low) and also have parent chaperones and dividends available to help students.

This project is one that would definitely need a lot of adult help because of the age of the students and where they are developmentally. I am requiring students to use digital cameras to take pictures of any animal/animal homes that they found interesting and they learned a lot about. The students are allowed to use a search engine (yahooligans) upon returning to school to find additional information. I had a lot of concerns with this project because of my students' abilities, but when I showed them how to use Prezi, my concerns were eased just a little. I was floored at how much my students could do and how capable they really are with this technology. I started them off with using Prezi to tell the beginning, middle, and end of our weekly story. We worked for about 3 days on the logistics of Prezi, but after that they picked up fast. I know it is also helpful that I have already shown my students how to use and do powerpoints. So they already have some backgorund on how to use and navigate these programs.

When I started my Prezi I really wanted to make sure that I put in as little text as I could, but still make sure that students knew they had to to tell us all about what they learned. With this age group I often find, especially with writing, that they can go on and on about a topic and then eventually veer from that. I didn't want this to happen and I had to stress to them that you don't have to write down every word you have written. I wanted to base their grade on the ability to use the Prezi program, but I also needed to include their ability to convey information about what they learned. You will see that in my Prezi there are a lot of pictures included. When working with my students I found that teaching them to present from a picture was helpful when it came to the amount they wanted to put in. For example, instead of including 10 sentences about a beetle, they would put up a picture of a beetle and take the information they have from their writing and read while they present. Most of them did well with that. This Prezi by no means is perfect and keep in mind when you view my example that my students are only 6-7 years old and they are really doing the very best they can. I've learned to appreciate the little things they create, especially when it comes to technology. Enjoy!

AR#5 Curriculum Page

This week we were asked to create a curriculum page for our class and base it off of a digital story. After much thought, I came up with the idea to do a science project that deals with animal habitats. As I created my wiki I thought this would be a wonderful place to start my curriculum page. I honestly had a lot of problems with navigating through my wiki page. I did a lot of edits and still could not get my page the way I wanted it. As I browsed through other examples from our module, I saw that many people that created a wiki page and did a great job.

The main problem that I encountered had to with the widgets. Half of the time I couldn't figure out how to place things etc. I tried for hours to figure out how to get the different links for a table of contents and gave up. I'm sure it is something very simple, but I couldn't get it. I viewed almost all the tutorials wiki offered, but none talked about table of contents. So after all this I began to navigate our module and found some webquest websites that I thought were very easy to create. So I decided to create a webquest and place it on my wiki page. I used the wiki page to relay parent information about the project and I put a link on the page to the webquest for both student and parent use.

I love the wiki page that I created and know that there are lots and lots of things that I can learn about making a great page. I felt a little overwhelmed because I've never had to do anything like this. It was a great experience for me because I've learned about so many different programs that are available to use with wiki pages. I plan to explore wiki much more because in education I ahve been hearing a lot of people say, "Did you check wiki?" I think this is going to be the next wave or is the next wave in educational technology and I hope I'm up to the task.

Here is the link to my wiki page http://curriculumpageeme5050.wikispaces.com/