Daily Goals 1/17/11

Here are my daily goals:

• Complete Project Planning Form
• Start research 
• Collaborate with my partner 
• Catch my partner up on what I did last week
• Start OHpedia entry/research
• Brainstorm ideas for online lesson

Work Habits

Last week my work habits were very effective. I was very focused on my PBL, and I was self-motivated. I think that I was more focused was because I have been coming in about an hour late. (I'm in physical therapy for my knee injury). Since I have less time than I would normally have, I have to devote all my time to working on my project with my partner. I don't have extra time to get distracted by others. I can try to do the same thing this week while working with my partner on PBL. I can try my hardest to focus on the tasks that I need to get done and I can use my time wisely and not get distracted.  I can also continue to self-motivate myself.

Standard #7

Standard 7: Understand the rise and continuing international influence of the United States as a world leader and the impact of contemporary social and political movements on American life.



The United States, as it rose to power after the end of World War 2, in many ways shaped the world.  The US set the bar for other countries around the world.  There were many rights' movements for the american people. Industries boomed during this times and Americans moved west.  

Reflection 1/12

Today was very productive! We broke up into our separate groups of partners and started to code the information for the OHpedia. Coding took awhile, but we eventually all finished. Then the whole middle and high school got together with Mrs. Amy and we worked on putting the coded information into a rubric to follow for our OHpedia pages. We conversed as a group, threw around ideas, and came up with the first draft for the rubric. We posted a blog with the coded information, (Check out my blog called, "OHpedia Rubric Creation") Mrs. Amy asked us to define metacognition, which is basically the ability to know how one learns( Check out my blog called "Metagocnition") . We had lunch, kickball, music, and then the final thing we did this afternoon was work  on our project planning forms. The project planning forms are for our OHpedia pages. We have to define our experts, state our essential questions, state our benchmarks, etc.

I am feeling accomplished, after all the work that we did today.  I really like having PBL three days a week. It gives we more time to focus on it, and it gives me time to really delve into the subject. I am excited for the OHpedia that we are going to be building. It will take some hard work and extensive research, but I know that the finished project is going to be amazing!

Cale, my partner, wasn't here this afternoon, so I had to start on the project planning form by myself. My next step is going to meet with him and go over what I accomplished. I also need to identify my experts that I will ask to review our project. My partner and I need to meet with the facilitator, too. 

I am excited about this project and I don't really have any concerns. I am only a little concerned about completing my virtual school, because we are now doing PBL three days a week. But I know that if I work hard and I focus I will be able to complete my FLVS. :)

Metacognition

Metacognition is the act of thinking about thinking and thinking about learning. Learner.org defines metacognition as,

 "...the awareness individuals have of their own mental processes and the subsequent ability to monitor, regulate, and direct themselves to a desired end. Students demonstrate metacognition if they can articulate what strategies they used to read and understand a text. ..."

Being a metacognitive learner will be very beneficial to a student and they will be able to learn better and understand how they learn.

OHpedia Rubric Creation

Today, for PBL, my partner and I worked on coding the OHpedia Rubric ideas. We compiled thoughts from different people and put those ideas into this blog. The ideas we coded came from a shared Google Doc that the whole middle and high schools had access to. We also worked with the whole school in coming up with the final rubric. The final rubric is also located on a shared Google Doc. Below is the information that we coded.

Videos:

•      I think what makes a great online lesson is when they are entertaining with videos
•      Videos on how to actually do the problems right. (Geometry)
•     lesson page should include videos
•   A good online lesson also has videos
•      Interactive videos
•      Videos
•     Videos

Pictures:

•      Pictures to help you understand 
•      interesting when there are pictures
•     Having things like pictures make it interesting 
•     I would like to see more pictures
•      pictures
•      Pictures
•      lesson page should include pictures
•      A good online lesson also has many pictures 

What You are Going to Learn:

•     tells about what is going to happen in the lesson 
•      what the lesson is going to be about
•      "what you will learn"

Practice Page:

•      Things to practice on before you do the test/assignment
•      There is a practice tab to help review
•      A practice page
•      a practice section
•      I would like to see that every few lessons there is an online presentation for a review

Music:

•      I would like to see music
•       Music "Bar"
•      It would be cool if there was music involved in our lessons. That would definitely keep me interested

Introductory Page:

•      There is normally an introduction page, and that tells about what is going to happen in the lesson
•      Introduction page telling you what the lesson is going to be about
•      introductory page
•      I think what makes a good online lesson is an introduction that captures our attention

Games:

• 
  
•     Interactive games
•      Interesting lesson activities (like a game after the lesson or something.)
•       Games

Bright Colors:

•      A lot of colors not just one singular color
•      Bright Colors
•     I would like to see more graphics and colors

Links to Modern World:

•      stuff to link it to the modern day world
•     I think that it would be really cool if they didn't just teach it...like teach it through something that puts it into our everyday world
•     external links

Short Lesson Page:

•      Not to long of a lesson 
•      Lessons that are the right length not to long because they get boring
•     I lose interest in pages of text very quickly

Civil War Memories

When I found out that the next project we were going to do was going to be on the American Civil War, I was excited but a little apprehensive at first. The Civil War was so extensive, I was worried that I wasn't going to take in much information or retain anything that I learned. But through this project I learned that PBL work is truly amazing and that I actually learned more than I would have learning about the Civil War in a traditional setting. I learned that "learning" is continually morphing, we have to change and morph our ideas to form better ones. Collaboration with others and technology tools are also essential to learning and with PBL.  


When my partners, Alex and Mira and I formed our essential question, we decided that just focusing on that one question would be enough to cover the extensiveness of the Civil War. Our essential question was, "What were Abraham Lincoln's views on slavery and how did they change over the course of the Civil War." Soon though, as we were doing our research, we decided that just covering that one essential question was not going to be enough to get our standard. We then decided that we needed to cover all the points on the American History Standard; the causes, course, consequences, and the effects of the Civil War on the American people. As we did this we found that we were better able to answer our essential question on Abraham Lincoln. The way we presented our project also morphed and changed. First we started out with a Prezi which we decided was good, but not as in depth as we would have liked. Then we formed that into a video which eventually morphed into a commercial. By changing our ideas, we formed better ones. These better ideas created a final project that we learned a lot from and we were proud of.


Collaboration is essential in the world we live in today. And here at OH Institute we are able to collaborate with others through our PBL. My partners and I did face some challenges while working together, but overall we worked wonderfully together. At first Mira was the only one who was actually working on the Prezi; she was the only one who was putting the information into the project. Alex and I collected, cited, and wrote the information that we were putting into the Prezi. It was hard for Mira to do the bulk of the work. Eventually Alex and I made Prezi accounts and we were all able to work on it together. We split up the information and we were all responsible for our own parts. Collaboration is nice, but sometimes the finished project is better if the work is split up into equal loads--there is less stress on one individual. Jinging our Prezi was a challenge, because it took so much time. We worked through it and created an awesome 20 minute video. I think that collaboration should be used in all aspects of learning.


Technology is a truly wonderful tool. For our Civil War project we used many different technology tools. First of all we used the internet to gather all of our information we needed to form our project. We shared this information of a Google Doc. Prezi was the first tool we decided to use. We wanted to use it because it is very innovative and it worked well for presenting all of the information we had. Jing is a program where you can create an audio/video clip that synchronizes with a website. Our Jinged Prezi is 20 minutes long. We decided that Jinged Prezi was a little too boring. We then used a program called Camtasia Studios--which is a video editing system. We then created a commercial to present for our video. To record this we used an IPhone. To me it is really interesting that simple tools like a phone can be used when we are doing projects. We used Windows Movie Maker and Gmail to form our commercial. The final tool we used was YouTube. I am glad that OH Institute provides me the opportunity to use technology in an innovative and exciting way.


My overall reaction to this project is positive. I gained a wealth of information while working with my partners, doing research, and putting the project together. Even if this project was extensive, and we did cover a lot of information, I realized I learned more through doing PBL. I have realized the importance of collaboration, technology, and how new ideas can from into better ones.