I’m reviewing our different projects this year to reflect on what really worked well.
First of all, the FlipCams were a big hit. The teachers who used them said the kids were very enthusiastic about researching and presenting their assignments on film. They spent more time and effort getting the backgrounds and costuming just right and we think they will remember what they learned in the World Culture unit on India much better because of it.
The Weebly webpages for teachers were another big hit – the teachers who switched to publishing on weebly found that they could very quickly and easily update their webpages, and consequently began using them as a true classroom communication tool instead of an online ‘all about me’ brochure.
One of the best projects I saw was a repeat of one we initiated last year, but with a bit more refinement. We call it ‘Survivor Math’, and it’s designed for 6th grade math students. Each student is assigned a future job, told where he or she will live (geographically) and then must research what kind of training or education that job requires and what sort of salary they could expect. Then they must go to RealityCheck and research what sort of expenses they will have for housing, food, entertainment and so forth. The students must write a paragraph describing their job and training, and prepare an excel spreadsheet and graph showing their monthly budget. It was a real eye-opener for the students. My only regret is that we don’t repeat this project again every year between 6th and 12th grade (this spoken as a parent of 4 teen agers who don’t seem to have a clue what it costs to live these days!).
We didn’t get much response to the distance learning opportunities til the very end of the year, but I think the two teachers who did participate were very enthusiastic and are eager to repeat the experience again next year, so some seeds have been sown, and hopefully fell on fertile soil.
Also, over the summer some of us are trying to attend First Lego League training, to have a team participate in the First Lego League challenge next year. I say trying because right now we are wait-listed, but hopefully we’ll move up the list as summer progresses.
