Sunday, April 14, 2013

Challenge 15


Challenge 15: Take the survey at http://www.flatclassroombook.com/final-book-survey.html.  Share your best story of learning and global collaboration with other teachers through a blog post or other means.  
Flat Classroom Book Final Survey
Thank you for the time you took to enter and complete this survey. You have completed challege #2. Please share your best story of learning and global collaboration and feel free to let us know you finished the book by tweeting to @coolcatteacher and @julielindsay - Thank you and good luck collaborating globally. You may find out more about our projects at http://www.flatclassroomproject.net
Optional:Edit your response

My favorite project that I completed is my wikispace.  I love it and I will continue to use.  I like that it can be used to a webpage.  I love posting assignments on my wikispace with links that the students can use.  This makes it so easy for students to complete and assignment when all of the information is in one place.  Parents can also access the wikispace and they are able to see what their child is expected to do to complete the assignment. 

I also enjoyed working with Mrs. Hackett on the global shape project.  In teams of 4, students will collaboratively use the program to create a "house" using different sizes and colors of polygons. Once the picture is complete, they will create a wiki and write a concise description of their picture. Completed descriptions will be traded among teams, and the cooperating teams will redraw the picture based solely on the description provided. The redrawn pictures will be uploaded to the official website for the project. At the closing ceremonies, originals and redrawings will be matched, and the winners will be chosen based on the closest depiction of the original.  I love that they will work with students from around the world to complete this project. 

Sunday, March 31, 2013

Challenge 13

Do:  Through your personal learning network, suggest or join a group of people to pursue a plan for a global collaborative classroom project in a content area that interests you.  Using the strategies learned in this book and the material from the chapter, design your project.

http://srobinson3.wikispaces.com/

Look on the right hand side of my wiki and click on Challenge 13.

Sunday, March 17, 2013

Challenge 12


This challenge was probably the most difficult for me to complete.  I am hoping that I understood the directions and completed the assignment correctly.

Do:  Participate in a summit for your learning as a part of your course or in one of our learning summits as shown in the schedule at www.flatclassroombook.com/ch9.  The summit should be recorded and should have a graphic to present in the online classroom as you reflect on what you've learned.

I did try to look at the learning summits on the website but the link was not working.  I decided to record a summary of what I have learned so far through these challenges using Voicethread.  I created a graphic tool on the website www.tagxedo.com.  This website is similar to wordle.  I used the image of a footprint since we are all creating a digital footprint through this course.

Click on the link below!  Let me know what you think!

Digital Footprint

Challenge 11

Using the project you created in Challenge 10, revise the project plan based on what you have learned. Align the project objectives with your course or another set of standards such as the ISTE NETS standards.

Challenge 10 Revised

I added the ISTE NETS standards to my biography assignment.  I also added a requirement for students to reflect bout their project on my class blog.

Saturday, March 2, 2013

Challenge 10

Directions for Challenge 10:  Write a project plan where students are given a choice in their outcome and topic for a project.

I chose to use the biography project that we are currently completing in my classroom.  My kids are absolutely loving this project!  You can view the directions for the project at http://srobinson3.wikispaces.com/.  Click on the link "Why are they famous?" on the right side.


Sunday, February 24, 2013

Challenges 8 & 9

Challenge 8

My wikispace link:  http://srobinson3.wikispaces.com/

A wiki editing project allows students to work collaboratively on a project in the classroom, in the library, or at home.  It does not matter where the students are they can still go online to the wiki project and complete the assignment.  Members of the group can go to the wikispace to check the work at any time as long as they have internet access.  They can manage the progress of the assignment easily. With the traditional in-class group work technology will not be used as often.

What is the difference between collaboration and cooperation?  Collaboration is a relatively new concept and is supported by tools such as wiki.  Collaboration requires for students to work together to achieve a common goal using higher order thinking skills.  Cooperation is the act of working together.  Students must learn how to work through their differences in opinions and come to a conclusion together.  Students look to the teacher for help during these situations and cooperation is something that should be modeled by the teacher.

How can collaboration be taught?  Collaboration can be taught by allowing students to work in groups. Students need the opportunity to work with others and allow the teacher to help to guide them as they talk through their differences and come to a conclusion.  Students should also be placed in different groups often.  They do not need to also work with the same people.

Challenge 9
I used the following rubric 2 (link below) while assessing the three wikispaces.  I looked over the following wikispaces:  Lori Ann Gibson, Nicole Hackett, and Stephanie Blackburn.
Rubric 2
All were engaged and communicated with team members.  They were also very organized.
Rating; 7


Sunday, February 17, 2013

Challenges 6 and 7

Challenge 6 
This is the link to my Netvibes page.

http://www.netvibes.com/stephrobinson#General

I like how you can create a private page and a public page.  There are several widgets to choose from in each category.  Next week, I will allow my students to go to this page to search for information they can use for their biography project.


Challenge 7

I spoke with my colleague Nicole Hackett about how we could use "reverse mentoring" opportunities to stay abreast of digital citizenship.  We both teach third grade at L.E. Willson Elementary School and we often work closely on projects for our students. Next week, we are having our students complete a biography of a person of their choice.  We read a biography about Gertrude Ederle last week and we want them to create an extension project. Our students have used Storyjumper and Storybird in technology class.  We are not very familiar with either of these tools.  Since our students have used and created items using them in technology we are assuming the will be "reverse mentors" during this project.  My students recently created a Storykit on the iPad about a natural disaster.  We have an iPad cart at our school so the students were able to work on their own iPad.  They were able to act as "reverse mentors" and show me and each other several tips and tricks about using Storykit.   Next week while working on our biography projects we will use an iPad again to conduct their research.  I am looking forward to learning more tips and tricks they will show me while conducting research.