ETC-Final Project

Relevant and Innovative Learning Scenario

Christine Shikenjanski

1.              Target Audience 

My target audience will be my 14 & 11-year-old sons, Jesse and Alex. Grades 9^th and 6^th respectively.  My son’s are homeschooled.

2.             Materials – The materials needed for this activity are

·      Web 2.0 Tool called StoryJumper

·      a computer

·      the Internet

·      a creative mind

3.             Objectives – The objectives behind this learning scenario are Cognitive.

·      This learning scenario is designed to help Jesse and Alex analyze, evaluate and synthesize new mental skills. 

·      Each child will be required to demonstrate a concept in a new situation as it applies to his instructions.

·      Each child will be required to follow directions, identify and analyze a past president’s performance and policies for successes and failures, and will need to effectively make an assessment that will help them to determine which animal that president would be.

·      Each will need to demonstrate their creativity in order to express their individuality.

·      This will serve to assist each child with identifying his creativity, which will ultimately help them to be more focused and motivated.

4.             Procedure – The procedure’s I will follow for this learning objective will be:

        Step 1) Each child will be given a set of instructions. 

Step 2) Each child will be required to research a former president. 

Step 3) Each child will need to interview an adult or family who can add to their research on their president.

Step 4) Then each child will be required to take that information and create a children’s story about that president’s place in history. 

Step 5) They will need to include dates in office and at least 2 successes and 2 failures of that president.

Step 6) They then will need to equate that president to a animal of the child’s choice.

Step 7) Once the president has been transformed into the animal each child will be required to rewrite that president’s place in history from the animals point of view.  

5.             Web 2.0 Tool – The Web 2.0 Tool that I have chosen is called StoryJumper. StoryJumper is a site that gives parents, kids, and authors a fun set of perceptive tools for writing and illustrating kids stories. The goal is to inspire anyone that's ever wanted to write a kids story to get started.

The web address is http://www.go2web20.net/app/?a=storyjumper

6.             Social Participation/Social Learning – This lesson will include the interaction of each child as it is from their research and prospective that each story will be told.  Additionally they will be required to interview at least one adult or family member about their chosen president for additional perspective.

7.             Making Connections – This lesson will be perfect for both children.  Both enjoy the challenge of creativity in writing.  In addition, each child will take on the task of researching a past president, which will be useful to them from a historic point of view. As this is the first year each child has been homeschooled they both have had previous opportunities to conduct research via the Internet.  As such this assignment will offer each the opportunity to connect with previous knowledge (researching), and be beneficial in creating new knowledge, (learning about the presidents).

8.             Create/Produce – Once each child has completed this lesson, they will be able to publish their book. As such, they will always have with them a published product that they can share with an authentic audience.

9.Reflection – Once each child has completed their project I will give them an opportunity to reflect on this project through a 4-question survey. I will ask them:

1) Did you enjoy this project?

2) What did you learn from this project? Please name 3 things.

3) If there were an option to do this project again, what would you add or  change?

4) Do you feel this project challenged you?

I also feel that this project would be very beneficial to each child.  It gives them not only the opportunity to learn about past presidents, to practice their skills in researching and interviewing skills, it also gives them an opportunity to assess their president from a their own point of view. The step of connecting their president with an animal allows them additional creativity which helps round out this assignment. It also allows the child to express himself individually.

Assessment - How will you assess whether or not your students and you have met your objectives?  Design your assessment and include a detailed description of how it will work.  

In assessing whether or not my son’s have met my objectives it is my belief that their end work will be the determination as to whether they have met my objectives. 

                            Rubric for StoryJumper Assignment

Following Instructions	10 points
Picking a former president	10 points
Interview with Adult	10 points
Creating story	20 points
2 Successes, 2 Failures	2.5 points per – 10 points
Choosing an Animal	10 points
Completion of story	25 points
Completion of survey	5 points

If each child follows my directions and completes the assignment as laid out, they will have successfully met my objectives.   I am looking to see that each child has gained new knowledge, has demonstrated their creativity and stretched themselves in assessing each presidents past performances.  Further I want each child to feel proud of this end product. Before a final grade can be issued I will collaborate with 2 other adults to read the story for accuracy regarding the chosen presidents.  Once it has been determined that the information is accurate then I will assess each project.

Final Video: Documentary

PE5_StoryJumper

I really like this tool! My kids will too! So here are the first two pages.  I have used a scenery template but added the photo of my grandson and a text box showing the date he was born.

The neat thing about this is your first page is also part of your cover page.

I think this tool has so many advantages. In addition to adding my own pictures I also chose to use some of the tools props.   For the book I am creating, I am doing it on family.  I have always believed that kids who have a connected family will do better in school.  Their focus can be on their education, rather than all of the negative things going on at home.  What more of a positive thing can having a new baby join the family be for a connected family.  I am posting the book as well as the URL for the finished book so that you have the option of going directly to the site to read my story and to look around.  

Here is the link for my finished book!

http://www.storyjumper.com/book/index/1540644/Today-is-The-Day-

I hope you enjoy this as much as I do!

PE4_StoryJumper

StoryJumper is a Web 2.0 tool that allows students to write and publish a book.  For my post I am going to take a look at this tool.  The first thing I will do after I sign up is to register my class!

Then I will take a look at the tool's features.   I clicked on the home page first.  From there I am given several options.  I can create a book, purchase a book, or read a book.  I chose to create a book.

The first thing I see is that I can either start a story from scratch or use one of the many templates that are provided.

I decided to create my own from scratch.  This way I can include my own photos and personalized my story.

PE3_iMovie

Here's my video!

This project was actually a lot of fun.  I learned far more from the video than I realized I would.  I still have some work to do on my daughters project, but I have gotten a good start. I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed putting it together.

I am also including a copy of my Lynda.com Certificate of Completion for this training. This was a valuable training video and one I am glad that I was able to view.

PE2_iMovie

Now that I have created my slides for my video using Keynote, I have used the drag and drop feature from imovie to create the project.

From here I will add music and put the final touches on my video project.

PE1_iMovie

For this assignment we were required to watch the iMovie 09 Essential Training Video.  It was approximately 2 hours and 22 minutes long.  As I began to watch these videos I kept thinking about how I already knew what iMovie was about and how the training was not going to be very helpful.  After all we have had to make several movies already through the course of this program.   So I set out to show what I knew.  My daughter is going to be turning 21 in March. So for her birthday I am going to create a biography of her life.   I decided I would create her video on Keynote.
First thing I did was to create her pages.

Once I had her pages added, I chose to export them as images.  I went to file and selected export. 

Once the export window opened, I was able to save the pages as individual images. This was helpful as they saved as jpegs.

From there I was able to add them to iMovie from , and then begin to create my video for my daughter's 21st birthday!

BP7_Zefty.com commercial

BP6_Link to another's blog

Follow this link to my comments on Pam's blog: http://journeyofpam.blogspot.com/2011/02/bp4.html

BP5_Link to another's blog

This is the link to Bill Shoup's blog:

http://rhythm-n-rime.blogspot.com/2011/02/bp4goanimate.html

BP4_Web 2.0 Tool Review: Glogster

For my CBR project I am focusing on motivation in terms of homeschooling and teaching to Howard Gardner’s Theory of Multiple Intelligences.   I am incorporating technology and collaboration. With that in mind I decided I wanted something fun and creative.  So I am choosing Glogster as my Web 2.0 tool.  When I first saw this I didn't know what a Glog was. Well what I found out was a Glog is a fun creation used to express ones self. This tool is an interactive poster, which is great for individual expressiveness or collaborative class projects. 

Glogster provides the tools to add graphics, text, images, videos, sound, data, and drawings.  With the text feature you can tell the world about who you are and what you think.  You can write a letter, write a poem or write about the first president of the United States.  With the Images tool you can add pictures from your own files or from the Internet.  You can be creative by adding pictures of famous people, such as George Washington, cartoons, cars, and/or clipart.  In case words or pictures aren’t enough with Glogster you can also add music and video to your posters. With this tool creativity can be endless. Creativity in the classroom, whether in a traditional classroom or a home school class environment is a great motivator. 

Glogster is an innovative way to tell the world and your classmates who you are and what’s important to you.  With Glogster you can reply to other people’s glog’s, get creative with your own and enjoy your individuality.  

BP2_Zefty: Online Allowance and Money Management for Kids

The web 2.0 tool that I choose is called Zefty.  It is an online allowance and money management tool for kids.  Parents and/or teachers can deposit virtual money into each child’s account.  This can be household allowances or reward points given by parents or teachers.  This tool allows each child to see the value of money and or rewards points.  The balances are virtual and the teacher or parent is the bank.  The kids can write and print checks that they then present to their teacher or parent for “funds” withdrawal.   

As in the “real” world the kids can see their balances increase with each deposit and decrease with each withdrawal.  Parents and teachers can monitor how the kids spend their money or points.  Kids can set up multiple accounts, ie) checking or savings, so they can set personal goals and learn how to manage their finances.

I chose this tool because I feel that teaching money to our kids is an extremely valuable concept.  In the public school system money as a subject is not really covered, leaving many kids on their own when they begin to have money to manage.  I am homeschooling my two sons and as such, feel that I have the perfect opportunity to impact their financial education.  This tool will be the perfect learning tool to teach them about how to have a bank account, manage funds, and set financial goals. 

Each child will start with a checking account.  Currently the balance is at $0.00 but will grow weekly by having their allowances virtually deposited.  Then each child will have access to their own accounts, set up with a security password and the ability to write checks.  I will hold their allowance in my possession.  As they want access to their money, they will need to write, print and present a check to me so that I can “cash” it and give them the actual cash.   This exercise will help to teach them how to keep track of their own money.  

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Blogging can be a very cathartic experience. One that opens new doors and give us new direction. One that is MOTIVATIONAL*INSPIRATIONAL* and creates SUCCESS!

The purpose of this blog is to create and share ideas. This is an excellent opportunity for us all to explore new areas of creativity. To get a look into the ideas and minds of one another in a way that may open new doors for all of us.