For the Multimedia Product I created a glog poster on the United States during the Cold War era. My learning goal was to show an understanding of one nation's perspective during the Cold War. While this medium was fun to use and created a visually appealing product, there are certain things I would need to consider before presenting this assignment to my students.
- There is a set of laptops in the classroom available for students to use, so access to a computer is not a problem. However, this website does require a login, and I am not sure if students can link their accounts to the teacher’s account so that all student products would be visible. If such a system does not exist, then presenting the final projects might be time consuming (having each student login to their account and then log out when done). I will have to determine if I can link the students’ accounts or if the system would allow multiple people to use the same account and work on projects in that account at the same time.
- I think that this project would work well with small groups of two or three. One student could work on the glog, while the other group members researched and looked for videos, images, timelines, information, quotations, etc. that they want to put in the project. I would let students choose their own groups and then randomly assign (name out of a hat?) countries to each group that they would represent in their project. Nations could include: the United States, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Hungary, the Czech Republic, China, Vietnam, North Korea, South Korea, and Cuba. I could also pare down this list and have multiple groups represent each country, so that there would be greater depth of information provided from each group’s perspective.
- This is a project that I would allot time for students to work on in class. That being said, the AP US History and IB 20th Century Topics students often complete homework assignments that rely on technology outside of class (online lectures, note-taking, and discussion boards), so there would not be any difficulty for students to spend more time on the project outside of class if they chose.
- I would create a sample product for them to look at. I would probably present this product along with my instructions and expectations for the assignment, and a tutorial of how to use the website.
- I will introduce the project towards the end of our unit on the Cold War. I will tell the students that this is a fun, wrap-up activity where the students use their prior knowledge (and some research) to present the perspective of their nation during the Cold War era. I will explain that the project is meant to be a review and synthesis activity of what they have learned. I will show the students the sample product that I made, and give them a list of requirements for the project such as: there must be text, at least two images, and at least one video. The information must accurately capture: things that the nation did during the Cold War, issues the nation confronted, attitudes of the people during the Cold War, etc. I will also give students a rubric explaining the requirements and how they will be assessed on those requirements for the assignment.
- Because the majority of the work will occur during class time, I will be careful to observe the students and make sure that they are on-task and all contributing to the project. I will go around the room checking on the groups to help them with anything and remind them that they need to stay focused on the project. I would also be interested in having students perform a self/group assessment, where group members explain their contributions and the contributions of their partners.
- Because this tool will be new to my students, I will provide a quick 10 minute tutorial to show them how to access the site, login, and edit their glog. I think that showing them how to add images, videos, and add text will help them a great deal. I can also quickly demonstrate all of the graphics, colors, and other aesthetic options that are available. This will give them a basic overview of the site and how it works.
- I think most students’ challenges with the tool will relate to how many options there are and struggling to decide what they want their glog to look like. I think that I will try to guide them through the planning process so that they can have a streamlined creation process. I would suggest that my students plan out on paper what they want the layout of the page to look like and what information should go where – that way all they have to do on the actual glog is implement their pre-made plan.
- I would like for my students to present their work to the class. Because the posters are small and cannot hold a lot of information and images, I think that it would be great to have the students explain why they chose to include the information they did. What does it say about the Cold War? Why is it vital to explaining their nation’s point of view during this conflict? Seeing these presentations will help students review key information and come to a larger understanding of the complexity of the Cold War. Additionally, the glogs are open to the public, so students from my other sections (or even other teachers’ students) can look at each other’s work and benefit from it.
- I will assess their work based on the content and creativity of the glog, and also their presentation. Groups will also be evaluated on each student’s participation in the creation of the glog and the presentation to make sure that work was distributed equitably. I will grade based on the rubric I will give to students at the beginning of this process.