Web Sites from Summer Camp

In my conversations with others at the ADE Summer Institute I learned about some interesting web sites.

*For those of you uncomfortable with YouTube for educational purposes, check out TeacherTube , One of my project teammates, David, is very active in developing video curriculum in Arizona. He heartily endorsed it. The goal of TeacherTube is to to provide an online community for sharing instructional videos in an educationally focused, safe venue for teachers, schools, and home learners.

*Kutiman produces the most amazing YouTube music videos that I have ever seen. They are intricate mashups of other videos...usually very amateur artists. The results are utterly fascinating. You can also check out his project at thru-you.com

*Animoto turns still photos into movies quickly and creates beautiful results. Lots of options, even at the free, basic level. Robert, an innovative elementary teacher showed me this one. It's amazing and could be of interest to anyone k-12 for classroom or personal purposes.

*My roommate, Joe is involved with the American Film Institute's Screen Nation, which features the best films and videos from young filmmakers on the web as well video tips and contests. 11-19 years olds can to screennation@afi.com Screen Nation. The site is of great interest to film teachers and students, and Best Buy has been sponsoring a cool 64 page download on basic film techniques.

*Brain Honey was another tip from elementary teachers. It creates curriculum mapping customized to state standards. Most interesting to me was the way that it could allow for individualized learning and intervention. A simple, free site for those consumed with making progress toward state objectives.

Project Based Learning (ADE Institute Reflection #2)

When I posted Larry's Queries a couple of weeks ago, I got some helpful feedback. But one area went unaddressed:

Trickle Down Wikinomics
I teach. . .Advanced Placement U.S. Government. . . . I usually require some kind of project . . . .This time, I was thinking of assigning some wiki projects around different portions of the Constitution. . . . But I am not sure how to utilize this kind of resource with the younger students. Any ideas?

The solution came to me at the ADE Institute where we immersed ourselves in Challenge Based Learning. This concept "applies what is known about the emerging learning styles of high school students and leverages the powerful new technologies that provide new opportunities to learn to provide an authentic learning process that challenges students to make a difference." The challenge begins with a "big idea and "cascades" through a process of
*forming an essential question
*devising a challenge
*asking guiding questions
*exploring activities / resources
*determining and articulating the solution
*taking action by implementing the solution
*reflecting, assessing, and publishing.

Pardon the above jargon, but suffice it to say that this will be a huge change for me because I will be placing open ended projects in my students hands. Instead of predetermining the type of outcome I desire from them (a wiki), I will let them arrive at the solution. I'm excited, because I think they could come up with some great things, but it makes me anxious because I know they and I will be venturing far out of our comfort zones.

At the ADE Summer Institute we formed groups and engaged in a compressed version of cbl. We did not have time to produce the greatest results, but the process itself was intellectually stimulating and gave me an idea of how engaging this type of collaboration can be.

You can expect to hear back from me in a couple of months at launch.

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Photo of Summer Institute cbl Group, by ADE '09, Kenneth Shelton