Final Education Portfolio

 

 

Digital Storytelling

Digital storytelling is an exciting way for students to learn. Students are able to create a multimedia project explaining what they have learned showing that they understand the topic. It is also a fun way to get them involved. As a student, I would have gotten much more involved, had more fun, and retained more information with a project like digital storytelling.

This is such a wonderful way to get students to learn because they are so immersed in media everyday. Students today are growing up in an age where media is everywhere and everyone knows how to use and create it. Today's students consider technology a part of their everyday lives so a project like this is natural for them and something they would enjoy. "Digital stories provide powerful media literacy learning opportunities because students are involved in the creation and the analysis of the media in which they are immersed." They are able to be a part of the creation of the media that is in their lives everyday.

Digital Storytelling: Social Studies 7th Grade

This is a history project of a 7th grade student talking about George Washington Carver. You can tell that the students really learned a lot during this project and were able to use the pictures and audio to relay what they learned to their audience.

Becoming a Zookeeper WebQuest

Becoming A Zookeeper

What makes a good webquest?

A WebQuest is a wonderful tool for students to have a different way to go about learning something. It should use the internet in as many ways as possible for the student to research and create a final product. It should teach them how to collaborate and use reasoning skills and problem solving to think deeper about a topic than just what they read on the internet.

1. A Scaffolded Learning Structure: "We ask students to do what expert writers do—brainstorm, draw pictures, compile lists, or make free associations—and then help them think about an audience and descriptive details." In our webquest, we ask our students to take on the role of a zookeeper and as they choose the animal they are the caretaker of, they have to learn everything about it. They learn what it eats, where it lives and anything else they would need to know about it to take care of it. When they have got it all, we ask them to present the animal in its habitat and explain it to zoo goers that have never heard it.
2. Use of Essential Internet Resources: "A teacher’s gentle orchestration of Internet experiences like these helps students develop their active understanding of the problem." We have given our students resources to find information about their animal, but also fun activities that will help them learn about it in a different and exiciting way that uses internet resources.
3. Authentic Tasks That Motivate: "The best way to address attention and relevance is to choose a topic that students find compelling and then create an authentic learning task related to it." For the age of the students we made this webquest for, animals are a fun and exciting topic that will be something they want to learn about. Giving them the role of the zookeeper makes the project come alive and something they will really enjoy and want to participate in.