School Wide Wiki -Fair

As the technique of "Advocacy" can present some very creative & effective learning activities, designing, assembling, and posting an online advocacy site seems like a tremendous undertaking. While the various tasks associated with an online advocacy site could be very numerous, the potential for a 'live' adocacy site that contains downloadable brochures and documents, powerpoints, video essays, and podcasts is certainly an age & skill appropriate acitivity for high school students.
As I have several students that have just won award medals for their quality presentations at the district science fair, an equally doable and challenging activity would be a school -wide, content specific 'Wiki -Fair'. The challenges in completing this kind of activity would be many. Each 'content area' ( Math, Social Studies, Language Arts, Science, Health & Physical Education, Fine Arts, FACS) would have to establish a "theme" to drive the 'issue' that each advocacy site would address. The school system and building administrators would have to approve the use of school hardware & software for such an activity. Individual teachers would have to dedicate some of their class meeting time(s) to introducing, assisting, and co-facilitating such an endeavor.
Equally important would be the issue of how such an activity would be "graded", assessed, and evaluated for both the awarding of "1st Place, 2nd Place, 3rd Place, etc..." and credit towards the grade on the student's report card. Surely all of these issues and challenges could be met, but who would lead that effort??? School Administrators? Content teachers? Technology Resource teachers? County -Level School System Administrators? The answer probably lies somewhere in a combination of all of these groups, or should students and parents be afforded the leadership roles???

Online Portfolios.... Possibly?????

As my graduate cohort's portfolio display is fast approaching, I have begun to think about the potential for this as a "final exam" style activity for high school students. The SOL tests that are administered in May of each school year now, have become the defacto 'finals' that students genuinely prepare for. And many educators lament the task of trying to "review & prepare" students for another large test/exam right on the heels of the SOL tests. So, my question is, given the relatively open access to computers and the internet to high school students, would a web published 'portfolio' of yearlong learning displays be possible in most core subjects? And if not, what barriers are most likely preventing it? (Technology 'barriers' or Human "barriers' or a combination of both?)

Advocacy Websites

As I have helped to assemble and produce a web based "call to action" website, I feel the potential of the web based means of advocacy are almost limitless. The key is, that you must update and revise it much more regularly, but that in and of itself seems to be the advantage. In the past, advocacy was much more static, consisting of paper brochures & newsletters that could only be revised on a monthly basis(at best). Radio advertisements also were included, but again, had to be planned & produced often months in advance of being "aired". The ability of a web based site, complete with video, podcast, and down loadable 'documents' allows almost anyone the ability to produce & exhibit a very compelling message display. It would appear that two main drawbacks are what keeps the web based advocacy from completely becoming the primary means of conveying a persuasive message. One being, that according to the 2000 census only half of all U.S. homes have internet access. In the last few years, additional "mobile technologies" (such as blackberries & I-Phones) have increased those percentages, and today the numbers of people in the U.S. with some form of personal internet access(home PC, laptop, palm device, etc...) has probably increased to 75% or more. Yet that still leaves a significant number of people unable to be reached with your electronic "message". Also, the ongoing time commitment of frequent updating & revising of a web based media can pose challenges for some. It would seem that you have to factor in the dimensions of "Who are you trying to reach?", and "How are you going to be able to invest your time in the message advocacy?" .........

Planning A Podcast

While 'podcasting' seems to be a "new" type of lesson technique, much like teaching a lesson using the production of a 'flip video', the real technique for spawning learning comes from the planning & creation of an 'authentic problem'. Podcasting, like any other tech based learning activity can quickly lose the focus of being a "learning activity" without being anchored in a real(or seemingly believeable) problem or issue. Besides a "discussion series", I have found that developing an 'authentic problem' for which to build a podcasting activity around is the most challenging part of devising a lesson using a podcast. Or is it just a matter of knowing your subject matter better and merging that with some creative thinking????

Discussing a Discussion Series

This week I participated in a small group activity that produced a series of short PSA's related to advocating for daily physical education in schools. The process in many ways seemd to mirror the wrting process, and our group was able to utilize the DEAPR steps in our production methods. This activity seemed to have a lot of potential for some great classroom lessons, yet the biggest challenge our group faced was 'quieting' the background and making it free of other noises that seemed to really interfere with sound quality when recording. The technical aspects of using the audio software was actually the easiest part of the production process. It would seem , that conquering our 'background noise' issue would be even more of a challenge in a high school classroom setting, or possibly that issue could be resolved via the audacity software.......

Podcasting for Visualization

Tonight our class began the first phase of developing our group's podcast, assembling a treatment and storyboarding. As we developed a 'practice podcast', what really came to mind were the days of the 30 minute radio 'shows' of the 1940's and early 50's. The combination of voice influctuation, background music, sounds, and verbal "accents" of the speakers all came together in a 'sound' form to aid the listener 'visualize' the scene they were "hearing". That seems to be the main focus of the 'treatments' and 'storyboards', to decide how the features of the audacity software will be utilized in a way to help the listener not just "hear" the message, but visualize the setting as well......

Advocacy Public Service Announcements

This past week my advocacy group put together our advocacy message, and the process seemed to somewhat mirror our video essay unit from two semesters ago. Yet this particular production really required more technology and software skills, while the video essay seemed to revolve more around the 'writing process'. While both seem to have a lot of potential to serve as a good authentic problem, I can really see the advocacy public service announcement being much better suited for high school students as opposed to middle school, or even k-5 learners. Each has their advantages & disadvantages form a teacher's standpoint, I guess you have to decide which format works best for your individual situation.......