October

     In October, we were studying Colorado's life zones.  At the end of the unit, I asked students to choose one of the life zones and create a Google presentation about that life zone using a template that my amazing teammate had made.  In hind sight, I can't believe that I didn't anticipate some of the problems that arose.  I found students spending far more time than I had anticipated on collecting research and pictures for their presentation and not enough time on meeting the learning outcomes for the assignment.  Collecting information from life zones that are not in Colorado, trying to synthesize too much information, and struggling to focus on gathering just the information that was in the presentation template were some of the major issues.  According to the TPACK model, my students were engaging in the use of technology, but the work had strayed away from the essential learnings.
     It still isn't perfect, but I found that when I "front load" by compiling a list of websites for them to access and ask them to stick to just those websites, it really helps.  Students no longer got caught in "the black hole" that the Internet can become, and their searching became far more focused.  They were only gathering information on Colorado's life zones (not life zones from other places in the world).  They still had to synthesize the information to meet the learning goals, but the amount that they needed to synthesize was much more manageable for them.  It was a great project for them to begin learning about using that Google research tool in an effective way.