Meghan Haselbauer's 20% Project Part II

Meghan Haselbauer 20% Project

            After thinking about what I wanted to spend time with for my 20% Project, I continued to come back to the idea of using Moodle in my math class.  I was nervous to get started because I don’t know hardly anything about it, and it would probably take me a long time to figure things out which means FRUSTERATION for me.  I ended up finding out there are TONS of resources on the web as long as you know what you are looking for and how to make informed decisions on what is good and what isn’t.  The topics below are what I worked on to accomplish a better presence on Moodle.

1.      Students entered data on a Google form and I was able to grade and see trends very fast – looking for ways to connect the Google forms to Moodle.   

2.      Learning about Moodle as a teaching tool for next year – explored Moodle created sites, found out there isn’t TONS on middle school math. 

3.      How to write Math on Moodle – for me and students, writing equations, fractions, and using different math symbols

4.      Diigo for resources in class and what I can use on web site and Moodle – I was getting tired of trying to organize them myself…

5.      Interactive math manipulative to use with sections on Moodle – WOW so much out there and GOOD stuff too.  I hope to incorporate more of these tools as I start working though different lessons on Moodle.

6.      Putting things together between Moodle and Website – making decisions on what to use for instruction and what to use for student resource. 

These projects connect hand to hand with the three standards.  First, designing digital-age experiences and assessments connects to the different quizzes and forms I created through Google Forms and Moodle course.  Students monitor their own learning by retaking quizzes in Moodle and getting feedback on how they are doing after each quiz or lesson. 

 Students see me as a digital teacher.  Some of the lessons will require them to watch lessons from teachers online.  After researching for the best interactive lessons on plotting numbers on the number line, students will have the best lesson I know how to present to them.  Each benchmark will be shown through different media and students will show what they know through the different media.

Finally, as I am learning more and more about how to become a better teacher, I try to surround myself with like peers.  My Diigo account links me into a network of teachers and resources from around the world.  Sharing ideas and resources allows me to bring the best practices to my students.

I love the 20% Project because it allows teachers to create, define, explore, and learn about the different avenues they find important and useful for their teaching and the students in the classroom. 

Meghan Haselbauer's 20% Project

My 20% project consisted of improving my web presence through a classroom webpage.  This project for me enhanced my skills of formatting the website, building links to helpful pages, and setting up the site for updating lesson resources.  I am also working on a moodle site for each unit I teach, so I will have more resources and lessons listed there.  For the classroom website I changed my sidebar to have links which make sense to my classroom.  I created clear and accurate information for parents and students to use.  I also created links for students to use to understand the standards for the class. 

Through this project I learned that learning new technology does take time to learn, but it’s worth it.  After learning how to navigate around the site, I am now able to focus on more of the content.  There were three standards I took away from this project in relation to the content.  The first was I “developed technology-enriched learning environments that enable all students to pursuer their individual curiosities.”  I did this by creating links and resources for each unit’s standards.  This allows all students, with access to Internet, to learn more about the math standards on their own and discover how they would use this math in their world.

The second standard I met was to “facilitate effective use of current emerging digital tools to locate, analyze, evaluate, and use information resources to support research and learning.”  While using websites isn’t an emerging digital tool, I now have the ability to connect students directly with these tools for their learning.  By creating a working classroom website I can encourage students to link into more resources right at their fingertips.  I am also excited to have the site be flexible enough to change things at anytime, making it reflect upon the students in the classroom.

The third standard I met was to show lifelong learning by “demonstrating the effective use of digital tools and resources.”  As I was developing this site and working to make it more user friendly, I would often ask students to take a look and provide feedback on the layout, content, and most often if their like any of the links provided.  As students provided feedback, they would see some of the changes they suggested.  I was modeling for them how to be a lifelong learner.  Always seeking to be better and never perfect.  Always looking for the next challenge.  It was important for me to show this to my students as I hope they will also strive for making things better. 

Overall, this experience was great.  I loved being able to choose what I wanted to devote my time to and how I would do it.  I loved being able to change and flex my idea as it grew.  There is still much I would like to do with my classroom website, but I feel I now have better technology skills to make those changes happen.  


To see my site click here: https://sites.google.com/a/apps.edina.k12.mn.us/haselbauer/