JonesK_Round_1

=Digital Learning, Digital Doing!=


 * **Title**: ||< The Digiteens Project ||
 * **Subject**: ||< Expository/Informational text reading, research and writing, Persuasive Technique - Rhetoric, Argument, Proganda & Persuasion, Synchronous & Asynchronous Communication, Global Learning, Digital Citizenship ||
 * **Grade** ||< 8 ||
 * **Time Frame**: ||< 8 - 12 weeks ||
 * **Summary:** ||< **The Essential Question: What are the fundamental components of Digital Citizenship and what are the most effective means to create a broad and deep understanding of those components and acquire the ability to persuasively convey these components to a community.**

The goals of the project are: 1) Experience a fundamental concept of PBL which is to solve a problem though a team effort; 2) Expand understanding of a team and team work through distance/global learning opportunities; 3) Develop a deep understanding of the elements of digital citizenship; 4) Develop reading comprehension and writing skills pertaining to informational text; 5) Utilize technology skills to develop an effective and engaging campaign to promote good Digital Citizenship attributes in the campus and larger communities.

Students will master elements of 2 broad categories of skill sets: **Technology Proficiency** and **Digital Citizenship -** In the acquisition of these skill sets, students will experience

Research Skills - Google Lessons; Reading Skills - Comprehension Skills (Tool Kit), Expository Analysis Techniques; Writing Skills - Expository writing, citation (importance, technique, and tools), Collaboration: Asynchronous/Synchronous/ methods and Netiquitte - Ning, Wiki
 * Technology Proficiency:**

Tasks:
 * Digital Citizenship** ||
 * **Tasks**: ||< Other student generated N2K's (Need to Know ?s)
 * What is Digital Citizenship?
 * Is there more to it than cyber-bullying? What?
 * Can we work on this at home?
 * How will we communicate with students in other classrooms, schools, and countries?
 * How does this project resemble the real world?
 * How will this help us learn ELA?

One the one hand it is a very bread and butter reading comprehension and writing skills project and the assessments in those areas will be bread and butter - rubrics looking for application of understanding and competencies. On the other, it is hoping the students will be in a position to assess themselves, both in terms of performance and understanding through thoughtful, purposeful, and ongoing reflection. The real assessment strategy is to take the reigns off and allow students to own something they and others value. It is difficult to imagine the assessment of the campus/community Action Plan, because I hope sit back and help the students carry out what they design, develop, and implement. If any of my vision is implemented, the students will execute a multifaceted campaign that includes creating messages for younger audiences, peer audiences, older audiences, and formal audiences - School Board presentation... Please identify opportunities for differentiation. There will 1 campaign, but it may have a number of components. Within each component, there will be ample opportunities for differentiation: story boarding, script writing, filming, editing, sound mixing, poster making, press release writing, public speaking....again, the sky is measured by the limits of the students' imagination. ||
 * //Be sure to highlight opportunities for students to practice/employ an "early adopter" or lifelong learning skill//
 * Problem solving opportunities - communicative in terms of asynchronous aspects and numerous opportunities for technical difficulties.
 * In regard to synchronous communication, students will have the opportunity to turn off the "teen speak" in favor or more formal register or academic speak.
 * Objectives: ||< * What State, Common Core or other objectives does this activity/lesson project meet?
 * Effective research techniques;
 * Comprehension, analysis, and evaluation of informational/expository texts;
 * Most of the NETS-S and NETS-T
 * Real world introduction to elements of rhetoric, persuasion, and propaganda
 * Please include at least one !gnite objective here as well (communication with text and non-text resources, collaboration, higher order thinking skills, problem solving, etc.) ||
 * Assessment: ||< How will you assess the students learning?
 * Assessment: ||< How will you assess the students learning?
 * Resources: ||< * What resources will be needed?
 * Access to reliable wireless network;
 * Access to 1:1 technology;
 * Ability to allow students to "see & feel" their understanding of curricular objectives through a project based approach - Teaching Transfer!
 * Ability to teach the foundational and valuable aspects of PBL which is effective team building, management, and assessment ||
 * **Teacher**
 * Reflections:** || Please share what went well, what was challenging and what you might tweak or modify for your next round....

I found the "round" approach confusing. I was attempting to be global in my treatment of the objectives for the entire project. It is a problem I have broadly in terms of my life as a human and as a teacher. I have a very clear vision of "forest". My struggle is the discounting of "tree". Specifically, I was working on implementing another project as the Round 1 entry and then moving to the Digiteen project. That was altered due to dual and negative epiphanies: No Time and Curricular Ignorance. Anyway...A major mistake involved failure to adequately road map the semester to proper curricular objectives/timelines. I was forced to conform the curricular objectives to the establised timelines of the Digiteens project. The overall goal of this whole EA enterprise is that students own their content mastery and are able to transfer it to new situations. The first piece of that is Digiteens focusing on Digital Citizenship. The second will be the Flat Classroom Project focusing on Globalization, and the third will be a Capstone that the students will design using many of the sub-goals learned in the previous projects. Round 1 - Sub groups: Mix social online communication with academic language via the Ning platform; Introduce students to the concept of team work across distance and time; Introduce students to multiple aspects of Digital Citizenship; Introduce students to the concept of Project Based Learning - goal setting, time management, problem solving, technology use for broader purposes; ||
 * **Examples**: ||< [|Digiteen Ning] ||