The video, learning in hand, gave me a lot of good idea about project based learning in the classroom. Tony said that projects allow for children’s voice and choice, which personalizes the lesson and makes it more meaningful for them. There are three major online learning tools, apps, podcasts, and websites. He recommended several apps like SonicPics, Storyrobe, ComicTouch and DoodleBuddy.

The first step is to develop a Driving Question for the project to explore. His example was “What make s a good VP?” The second step is to set the perimeters of the assignment. He recommends letting the students help develop the grading rubric so they can agree on what a successful project looks like. He uses the Website rubristar to design his rubrics. An Anchor Activity is a podcast, video or class project that you do before individual projects in order to spark interest and knowledge about the topic. Since projects are designed to be shared, make sure students use images that are homegrown or labeled for reuse. Also, talk about audience and who this presentation will be shown to.

I don’t think most classrooms would be fortunate enough for every student to have a palm pilot or other handheld device but most classrooms have at least one computer designed for student use so I could assign a group project and have students take turns working on them during centers or when they finish an assignment early. I could see a history or science research project done on the computer strumming up a lot of excitement and new ideas in an elementary school classroom!

For my screencast I explained how to make a sprite move in a square loop in Scratch. I explained what controls to use and made a short presentation of moving the default sprite in a square with the pen down.  The assignment really impressed on me how easy screencasting is with Screenr and inspired me to use it in the classroom.

Our group consisted of Amanda Walters, Sarah Summers and Megan Maxwell.For our flip camera scavenger hunt, our group chose the thematic category. We interviewed three random UCO students about the topics of stress, nutrition, and UCO pride. We chose these three categories because we felt they all centered on life at UCO. Our interviews revealed that the life of a UCO student can be stressful, on-campus food options make healthy eating difficult, and that UCO students have a lot of pride and knowledge about their school!

 We each took a turn at being the interviewer and camerawoman. We found some friendly interviewees and just had fun with it! We hope you enjoy our videos. =P

Uploading our Videos to PixelPipe

A Pecha Kucha presentation is a PowerPoint of 20 slides, timed to last 20 seconds each. The slides are a sounding board for the talk given by the speaker. Because each slide is timed to last only 20 seconds, the talk is driven along at a quick clip. An outstanding PK project has visually stimulating images, a relevant topic and the talk is interesting and easy to understand. A “so-so” PK presentation may have some stumbling or faltering, or images that are irrelevant to the talk.

The PK project taught me that I can survive giving a public talk without note-cards! If  I think through what I am going to say for each slide, it is almost easier to speak  naturally then to have every word written down, and it allows me to be more attentive to my audience. At one point, I even made an off-the-cuff joke about not dating Ronald McDonald. I may have come off as flustered and talked faster in front of the class than I did while practicing but, overall, not a horrible experience.

I think that a third grade elementary class could use a PK presentation to summarize a book for a digital book report. Adding pictures/illustrations might help them remember the plot and key points in the story. Practicing using PowerPoint would be a good educational experience and having the spotlight in front of the class would be fun for a child of that age.

http://bjovanovic.files.wordpress.com/2008/10/pecha-kucha.jpg

For my final Scratch project, Curly Care 101, I got inspired by my wonderful dog! I wanted to animate him, tell a story and be interactive with the user. I also wanted the project to have multiple backgrounds, hiding sprites, and learn how to insert an mp3 file from I-tunes. Thanks to online researches, I accomplished this.

I’ve learned a lot from my 3 scratch projects but there is still much to learn. Originally, I wanted this game to score for giving Curly the right thing but couldn’t find out how to link the sprites so that different actions created different results. I KNOW there is a way to do this. =)

I spent many hours on this project. I hope you at least get a chuckle out of it. Curly is a REALLY good dancer!