Kristy Ardinger's 20% Project

My 20% project began with an idea of creating a Moodle site for my students to document their nightly reading.  I actually got so involved into this project, that it turned into my integrated unit and my integrated unit became my 20% project.  So . . . my 20% project is now focused on our new FOSS unit titled New Plants.  This unit is new to second grade, so I wanted to spend some time looking for resources and creating SMART slides that I can use in my classroom with my students.  I wanted to try to make this unit more interactive and i wanted this unit to extend student learning beyond observing their plants.


The first standard and second standards focused on designing and developing digital-age learning experiences and then modeling those to my students.  Throughout this unit I have developed activities that students participate in using the SMART board, and I found online activities they can use to reinforce/extend their learning.  By keeping these standards in my head as I was developing my SMART slides, I was really thinking carefully about how I was going to include my students in the technology/learning rather than just creating SMART slides for me to use.  One example is that students will be creating an online journal using Prezi, rather than their journals.  I thought this would be a great way for students to colloborate with other classmates and it would also allow students to add more of their learning (such as links, videos, pictures, etc.) if they wanted a challenge.


The last standard talks about how I am engaging in professional growth by evaluating and reflecting upon my practice.  I think I really tried to think about how the actvities I am providing my students are going to allow them to extend their thinking and about I thought about what my goals really were for student learning.  I think the standards made me think about how my use of technology was really going to enhance student learning, rather than just providing some "glammer" to the information.  I think we always need to think about our true purpose and expected outcomes, and then think about how the activities we have planned are going to build upon that.  Too many times I see that students can get sucked into using technology and yet it doesn't always help to enhance student learning.


Looking forward, I would like to continue building SMART slides for more of the lessons in this FOSS unit.  I want students to have real activities that incorporate technology and enhance the objectives of the unit.