pacific tech

Project Support

I have built in a wide range of support for each project. Depending on your personal preferences, you can use the kind of support that meets your needs. My goal in this class is to help you develop a set of skills that will allow you to become an independent and self-regulated learner. I want you to feel supported, but I also want you to learn to support yourself which means developing a skill set for the tools, but also a set of professional dispositions for learning. When I introduce a project I will give an overview, identify the important elements, show you some models, and model the foundational skills needed to use the tool.

When you begin to work on a project it’s important to have a plan and budget the time necessary to complete a project that reflects your skills and commitment to excellence. There are no extended reading assignments for the class because I want you to use your time to complete your projects.

When you begin to work on your project, you will be able to rely on a wide range of resources depending on your needs. The best and quickest way to work through a software problem is to use the Atomic Learning Tutorials. These tutorials are organized by software. You can use them to help you learn to do a specific task, or you can move through the series of videos to help you develop a more comprehensive understanding of the tool. This support is available to you 24 hours a day from any computer in the world. Remember your log in is: pacificu, and your password is pacificu.

In addition to Atomic Learning, Jesse and I are available to work with you in the lab on a drop in basis. Jesse is in the lab from 8:30-5 Monday-Friday. He does take lunch and has other meetings to attend at different times, but he is in the lab available to help the majority of the day. I am happy to work with you in the lab during my office hours as well. If you can’t make those, email me and we can schedule a time to meet that works for both of us.

Project Process

Here is a to do list in order for the first project.

1. Read the project description closely and use the online resources that are built into the project description. Pay close attention to the scoring guide. It is the organizing framework for assessment.

2. Budget the time to work on the project using all your resources. Get started early if you can.

3. Select a benchmark from the Oregon State Standards Newspaper that you will use to guide your project. You can download a pdf file of the newspaper or search it online at the ODE Standards web site. The link to download a copy of the newspaper is in the lower left hand corner of the page.

4. When you are close to completing the project use the scoring guide to assess the project yourself. Assessment is one skill you will develop as a teacher. So, it’s good practice . After your own assessment, you will need to get a peer review and complete a peer review for someone else. You can do this online by sending your diagram via email to your peer. They will assess it and sent it back to you with their written assessment in an email. At that point, it’s your choice to make any changes they suggest. When you complete a peer review for someone else your feedback should be done using the scoring guide. For this case you will give them feedback based on the three areas of the scoring guide, structure, content, and appearance. All of this is in the spirit of improving your project before you submit it to me for assessment.

5. Post your reflection on the blog. As stated in the syllabus, your blog post should include the following three elements:

1. Your peer review. Cut and past the peer review you received into your blog post.
2. A description of how you might use the project and the benchmark the project is designed to meet.
3. Describe the cognitive assimilation and / or accommodation you experienced as a result of completing the project.

6. Name your file using your firstname and first initial of your last name plus the number of the project. For example I would name my inspiration file “marks1″ You can send me your assignment two different ways. If your file is small enough to be sent via email (less than 4MB). You can simply email it to me as an attachment. If your project is larger than this (usually because the graphics you inserted are higher resolution), you can use a free service called yousendit. Simply sign up for a free account, follow their set of instructions. It’s pretty basic and easy to use. Your assignment is due at midnight on March 17th.

Let me know if you have any questions.

mark s.