The topic of my "dream project" is "Australia", which is in the curriculum for grade nine. Ido not want to start it with a "brainstorming" or another rather "normal" way of of introduction, I would like to take my lessons in our new "Multimedia Room". Every student has a computer here with an internet connection and a connection to the computers of their classmates. As a result, every student has the possibility to look individually for information and to share it with the others. Because of that, the teacher takes a backseat during this project, he only gives instructions at the very beginning of the project lasting 20 lessons.
At the very beginning he asks his students to find general information about Australia creating a digital mindmap with the help of "bubbl" and sending it to their classmates. Every student can have a look on the work of their classmates and can compare it with their own mindmaps. After that, they have to focus on one aspect of Australia and prepare a presentation about it. Every student can decide independently which particular topic he wants to chooses. I could be "Aborigines", "Surfing" or presentation about the Australian rock band "Jet" for example. The only restriction is that the students are only allowed to use English-language websites. Here the availability of internet during every lesson is an advantage because it can provide the students with a much broader range of information than a school book, especially with topics that are new and modern and therefore arouse the students interests.
Most of the project time the students create their presentation with the help of the internet and their classmates, the teacher only offers advice to students who don`t have any ideas what to do. Furthermore, he explains which presentation tools might be useful for them and explains to them where they can find them. (Of course every student knows how to work with the internet, they already had an introduction to wit in this "Multimedia Room".)
At the end of the project every student should have created an individual presentation. After that, every student has to present it to the class and to send it to their classmates. This presentation can be a normal powerpoint-visualization, it can be a kind of slideshow, or it can be a short film or piece of music accentuating their presentations. the sudents should use their imagination! 
(I know that this is not a "revolutionary" method to involve new media in the classroom, but I think that it is an effective one which additionally gives the students immense pleasure resulting in presentations being valuable in form and content.)
July 7, 2009 at 6:38 am |
Dear Christoph,
I like your project idea. Your most convincing arguments to me were the information variety that the students will get out of the internet and the free choice of the topic. Altough they can choose a band they will still get a lot of information about the continet because other groups will choose different topics. Good job.
Birte