TCC 4-4 Project Based Learning (PBL)

Intel Essentials Class has begun for Winter 2014, and I was reminded of all the amazing resources that Intel freely provides to teacher-members. Their emphasis on project based learning which adds 21st century tools to unit plans opens the classroom to a world of partners and real world projects. These projects are designed to encompass the standards you would teach but to integrate them into actual work on that over-arching essential question.
Teachers Engage is Intel’s site for teacher collaboration on PBL. We teach the Essentials face-to-face. The SC state department offers several other Intel courses on their elearningscpd.com site for graduate credit.(I believe there is now a rate for out of state.) The Intel site also offers these for re-certification credit. One of the other assets offered on this site is a set of tools for students’ use during the projects: the Visual Ranking Tool, the Seeing Reason Tool, and the Showing Evidence Tool. There is also an assessment library. All of these are available to the logged-in teacher. Intel also has a DLD page in their community. This is a specialized set of projects related to 21st century skills.

Another site with projects related to February 4. Digital Learning Day has 3 pages of project based learning links. Some best practice samples check out Australian site Digital School Solutions. 

Buck Institute for Education (BIE) also has many resources which teachers can use for PBL units. Another version of PBL is CBL or Challenge Based Learning. Their projects are challenges and the students are to find solutions Teachers are members with a support community.
The TCC 4-4 Tech Classroom Infusion post has three other sources for PBL.
One of the components of projects of this type is a real world connection. Google, NASA, NBC, and Skype provide a way to connect classes with others for collaboration, interviews, or field trips at minimal cost. Please see that article for details.
Another component is related to writing CCSS which ask that publishing be part of the product. The Essentials course provides ideas for publishing like: a wiki, a blog, Prezi, Glog, Sympaloo, Voki. or Google Drive as well as the more common Power Point or Publisher.
And don’t forget our own Teacher’s Toolbox. They have a newish Common Core Thinking item which is a PBL (week long) Project. This has supplied activities and plans.
PBL is an answer to the question, “what am I going to use this for” since the uses of the information are woven into the project. These are not your “grand-teacher’s” projects...begin with one. You’ll love the engagement.
Enjoy!

TCC 4-5 Making Your Own E-Books

TikaTok makes ebooks simple for a price. TikaTok is software from Pearson who supplies our gradebook/attendance software or portal. TikaTok has templates for students to use to write a book and then publish it as an e-book or hard copy. The basic subscription is only $19/year and there is a free trial. Publishing is a fee also: $3 or $4 to publish an ebook and $15 for a softcover paper book which they ship.

But you can do something similar with either power point or word. You will need to design pages for books and then have students add pictures, drawings and text. When finished save as a pdf file. Any pdf can become an eBook.

There are online converters which will change pdf files to ebooks for specific ereaders. One I have used is Online ePub Converter which offers conversion to specific readers: iPad, Kindles, Nooks, and others.

Since we don’t get these books from online stores it requires some special handling to put them on the reader. Two were mentioned when I learned how to do this:

calibre (cost) and Digital Editions (free). These both allow you to make a library and share the ebooks to ereaders. This video from Goodereaders gives details on how the move the epub books to a nook. The video also used Windows Explorer which is the window on your PC where you look at files.
To bring your project to TikaTok levels you will need to create some templates for your students to use for the genre of book you wish them to produce. I would suggest looking at TikaTok to see what can be done. The kids will love it! Of course you can also print and bind the PPT slides, too.

Enjoy!

TCC 4-5 Infographics and Informational Text

A picture is worth a thousand words and in this case will save that many. SCPASS adds Informational Text to the reading requirements. Although this seems like a glog it actually has a different aim...giving data a more interesting format.

You can find them everywhere, but your students can also make them. There are many tools for making infographics. Easel.ly is one I have tried. Another is, Piktochart, which is mentioned in an Edudemic blog post with an example showing how-to’s by Mia MacMeekin.

The rest of this list come from another blog post from Education Technology and Mobile Learning Please go to the article there for description or follow the links to the sites. Blog links in Cindy’s Links

• Statplanet
• Mapstory map
• Creatly poster
• Heat Map Tool map
• GeoCommons map
• ChartsBin map
• Infogr.am poster (both lists)
• Gliffy (both lists) 
• PhotoStats iPhone app
• Tableau Public
• Visual.ly poster
• Venngage poster
• Dipity timeline

What About Me is an Intel tool which makes a graphic of digital life. This is part of their teacher community and might need membership before you can use it. http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/what-about-me/what-about-me.html, but I can’t get to it since I am not logged in at the moment. We offer Intel's Essentials course in our district, and they have great interactive tools which a project based learning friendly.

Enjoy!

TCC 4-6 Student Questioning or Inquiry

The ability to ask the right question is one which is essential to getting the information you seek. The Right Question Institute has a plan for helping not only our students do this but also adults in health situations. The founders, Dan Rothstein and Luz Santana, offer resources freely to educators as well as books which can be purchased.

This component of inquiry so vital in science education is based on seeking information for study. Questioning leads to the hypothesis which is tested. Asking the “right” questions to begin with is essential to finding accurate results.
Project Based Learning (PBL) is another area where questioning is the foundation for the project.

The Right Question Institute has rules of engagement and procedures to follow in making this change in classes. Their articles explain facilitation and provide templates for teachers and students. There is a Question Formation Technique (QFT) card and rules for use with your student groups in the Question Focus activities. These can be modified to fit your situation. There is a sheet for recording the group’s progress. I don’t think you will find anything missing...there are also explanatory writings so that the teacher is ready to implement the process.

More support for this question building process is found in an article from the founders in the Harvard Education Letter which gives insight into some of the reasons for use and examples of teachers with it already in place.

As we move to a more (PBL) style in our district this looks like a tool whose time has come.