Final Project Reflections for course IV

The humanities 7 team has just consulted again to create a meaningful revision/update/upgrade of the existing curriculum. I'm so lucking to be working with a team in which 4 of the 5 are taking this course--not to mention that we all work so well together! No complainers or blockers, and everybody pulls her own weight.

What we came up with is a natural extension of last year's project, based on the concept of Connected World. This year's final unit will focus around one of several work issues. Students will work together, hopefully develop a bit of a PLN of their won, and create a viable, actionable solution to a global issue that can be acted upon at a local level. Last year's guest speaker from Ryan's Well is the perfect example!

An assessment panel will decide which of the student-group's ideas are most "doable" and with any luck, the 7th graders will have time to get started.

How do you manage the use of technology peripherals with students?

Other than when I've "taught" yearbook class, I haven't had much experience managing tech peripherals in my classroom. However, the one peripheral that I have used extensively with the students is the (hopefully soon to be formerly) ubiquitous flash drive or thumb drive. The seemed like such a great idea at the beginning, and there are some very good uses for them, though for many 7th grade students, the small flash drive is just too much of a hassle. Part is the size; small is good, but small is also easily lost or damaged or "forgotten at home." My best advice for using the peripheral is to not use it at all. With google docs and blogs, students have better options for storing and sharing their work. In fact, that's what sold me the most on using google docs in the classroom; I had begun requesting more and more work be submitted electronically, and this often meant having students line up at my computer and transfer files via flash drive. Sharing google docs is so much easier (though of course not without its own headaches!)

Back to teaching yearbook. The single biggest challenge with yearbook peripherals, mainly the digital camera, was that the yearbook department at my former school had purchased two rather expensive cameras--a couple grand US each. These were of course amazing cameras that took beautiful pictures in the proper hands; they also gave me the chance to teach a little photography (or more precisely, let those motivated students figure it out for themselves.) However, the questions were constantly: what to do with the cameras when not in yearbook use? Because they were so expensive, do we want to "share" them with other classes/teachers? Budget issues also arose since the cameras were purchased through yearbook funds.

So, other than that, I don't have much experience and therefore, not much to offer.

These two articles, particularly the first one regarding the "industry pitching" to the classroom really make me cringe. While reading the NYT article, I found myself thinking of how the US has stacked key policy making departments with corporate autocrats looking for nothing more than financial reward from the policies they help enact.

Check out this article.