Chapter 6 RR: Marshall

1. Discuss how technology tools can encourage students to be reflective and evaluate their own strengths.

Using a self-evaluation before and after a project will assess the students strengths based on the learning outcomes of the project. SurveyMonkey and Zoomerang are two great websites to use an online survey. A blog can be used as a reflection tool throughout the project and students can keep track of how they are doing and what they are learning. Another tool that can be used is ProfilerPRO which is an online survey tool that can be used to track individual or group progress. This also allows students to acquire badges as they make progress on skills throughout their project.

Describe several ways in which you can get students’ minds ready for a project.

A K-W-L can be used to introduce a topic and can also be looked at throughout the project and as a follow up. Also bringing up the topic a few times after it is introduced to get students minds thinking and build anticipation about a week before the project is actually launched. 

Discuss the elements of teaching fundamentals first.

Assessing a students prior knowledge and building on that by teaching the fundamentals of what they should know before starting on a project is key. Using students basic understanding of a concept and having them expand on it by planned investigations will help teach the fundamentals.

Describe the important steps in preparing students for using technology in project.

1. Introduce the technology that will be used.

2. Show step by step guiding of how to use the technology.

3. Allow students to explore the technology on their own to become familiar.

4. Have students demonstrate how to use technology.

Discussion on how concepts in this chapter relate to your topic/project.

Our students will be communicating with pen pals over the course of their project and will need to utilize technology in order to keep in touch. They will also be creating blogs to use individually and collaboratively. We will utilize ProfilerPro in order to survey their skills and help keep track of skills they accomplish them.