WebQuest!

This WebQuest experience really taught me a lot. It was not only fun to make, but fun to interact with in the end. It gave me a lot of creative liberty as the teacher. I can only hope that it would appeal as much to my students, which I do expect it will. Perhaps this is so because it will be especially designed for their class, and personalization always adds a nice touch.

I felt pretty confident before beginning the project, even though I had never created a web page working out of Microsoft Publisher before. It did prove to be a fun, stimulating experience. I learned a lot, such as creating an appropriate, functional layout. It also reiterated and gave me practice in some things that I already had previous knowledge of—i.e. creating hyperlinks, importing pictures, etc.

I highly recommend this as an effective tool, and without a doubt, intend to use it for literature/language arts instruction in my classroom. It is not only a fun project for the teacher, but it offers variety in the usual assignment of internet research or Microsoft publications.

Final Fairview Reflection

My personal experience at Fairview was, in general, positive and enlightening. I went, unsure of what to expect. At the least, I did expect most of the students to be familiar with conducting a web search via popular search engines like Google. However, very few had much access to the internet in the past; and this, in turn, forced me, along with my colleagues, to redirect our strategies in a sense.

During the first part of our fieldwork, I found myself becoming frustrated and discouraged, seeing that we were having to use the time we had hoped to play with the presentations, and make them fun, appealing, and interactive (which is ultimately the goal with a project like Windows Movie Maker) to instead, teach them basics such as key word searches and discerning a good source or picture suitable enough to use in a presentation. This particular case scenario provided many teachable moments. Once I realized the value of this concept, I picked myself up, and made the most of it.

Our mission, originally, was to connect our students to the wonderful world of Windows Movie Maker, or so we thought. Although we helped them achieve a level of exposure to the program, our main accomplishment seemed to deviate from our planned intentions. I was able to help students learn how to effectively search for the pictures or information they wanted, add to their ability to participate collaboratively, in addition to building their confidence as individual leaders in various ways throughout the project.

So maybe they did not fully achieve mastery in using Movie Maker, but they gained so much from this experience, as did I. I not only learned to work under pressure, within a stinted amount of instruction time and with technological limitations (lack of technicians on staff, computers freezing, etc.), but I also learned that every moment can be used for teaching, if I keep the right focus and attitude. And that is what we are here for. I am confident that most of these students walked away from this project feeling proud of their effort and excited to showcase the final product to their peers, and with a better grasp on the reading material and its themes. With that, I say mission: accomplished.