Talk:Todd's Portfolio Page

Re. objectives -- Jianwei Zhang 16:17, 27 March 2009 (EDT)

Todd--

You've had a nice beginning of your design project.

Re. your objectives, you listed:

   2) Physically Locate a number of State capitals on any map as discussed in the course 
   3) Physically Locate a number of major U.S. cities on any map as discussed in the course 
   4) Physically Locate their home on any map 
   5) Physically Locate their school on any map 

To me these read more like learning tasks than learning objectives. Learning objectives are elaborations of learning outcomes--learned capabilities. These above items on your list basically indicate the same skill, which is to be able to locate a place on a map based on address information given. It is very important to make this distinction between tasks and objectives, so that students don't need to do repeated tasks but actually only learn one thing.

Google Earth has many richer features in addition to being used as a map. For example, learners can connect maps with real data about weather/temperature, historic annotations, traffic info, etc. So it provides a powerful tool for inquiry based learning projects. You may re-think about what tech and pedagogical designs you want to focus on in relation to our readings on project-based learning.

Since you're creating a lesson for high school students, so are developing an instructional case showing how new tools/approaches are used, please refer to General_Suggestions_and_Feedback#What_issues_should_be_addressed_in_an_instructional_case_report for suggestions.

Re: Re. objectives -- Todd Lewis 13:16, 6 April 2009 (EDT)

Professor,

I made some changes to the course objectives, I hope they are more inline with what is expected.

Todd

Feedback -- JayChakravarthy 12:59, 11 April 2009 (EDT)

Todd,

Your portfolio is excellently structured. I like the flow of your thoughts and their implementation under allthe sections. For example, the section Part B- the reality, supporting statistics, learner analysis, required technology, and teacher's experience- all bind together articualtely to the central theme of "Gathered information".

The links are appropriately placed and makes the navigation very easy. You have developed a neatly structured course.

Jay

Peer review- feedback -- JayChakravarthy 00:27, 10 May 2009 (EDT)

Todd,

I revisited your page. Here are some more observations.

Your course maps effortlessly to the project’s goal. “The overall goal of this project is to increase student’s knowledge of cities within the United States while having the ability to locate each of the states. Such knowledge includes unemployment statistics and median household income. This task will be achieved with the aid of Google Earth”.

Unit 1 and 2 guide the student through the basic functions of installing and configuring Google earth. The third unit takes the student to a higher level of cognition.

Assessment criteria are very well laid out. The time frame and the assignments for each unit emphasize the scope of each topic. As I was following through the units and the activities in there, I felt that the specific information of every location made the world look like a small place.

Additionally the geographic details allow the students to take critical decisions: such as choosing a location to work, or choosing a college to study or places to visit, and so on. Unit 3 very clearly guides one through the process of decision making. The unit also provides the students with an opportunity to explore further possibilities of building essential knowledge.

I liked the structure and layout of your course. The excellent part is that it encourages the students to further expand their knowledge and at the same time creates a foundation for geographical awareness.

Excellent work!!

Jay