TE+831+Assignments

In addition to a student’s participation (i.e., weekly readings and discussion posts, Tech Tools posts, etc.), the major assignments for this course are listed below with links to each assignment’s page. For all assignments, except when otherwise specified, students will be assessed using the TE 831 General Grading Rubric (linked below).
 * TE 831 Assignments **


 * Vodcast Project (aka: vlog, digital story, and vidcast) (20% of course grade) **

One of the strongest ways to integrate educational technology into school subject matter is with vodcasts, which can include narratives. Vodcasts can be utilized with any subject matter and allows users to shape and craft content in powerful and purposeful ways. Creation/production of vodcasts is also grounded in creativity. Digital story creation is a digital literacy that blends images, text, first-person narration, and (often) music. Often referred to as vlogs, vidcasts, digital stories or video podcasts, vodcasts enable authors to take content, blend it together, and share it with others. The purpose of this assignment is for you to create your own vodcast. While the topic for your digital story is up to you,//you need to construct a story that you will use as part of a lesson or unit that you are teaching (if you are not currently teaching, you will need to share it with an alternate audience)//. **__The digital story should be 4-5 minutes in length__**. If you go over this limit by a little bit, that's ok (under this limit, not so good). You can use iMovie, PhotoStory 3, and/or Windows Moviemaker for the creation of your digital story. A vodcast tutorial and more details regarding this assignment is provided on the course wiki. You will upload your digital story to [|www.vimeo.com] (you’ll need to sign up for a free account, if you don’t already have one) in order to embed your vodcast onto our course site. **The vodcast project is due Sunday, June 9. **

Rubric for evaluating your vodcast:


 * Re-purposing Technology Lesson Plan (20% of course grade) **

Part of knowing is doing. This assignment’s purpose is about doing. Most technologies are not designed for educational purposes. What this means is that technologies have to be creatively repurposed to make them fulfill their educational potential. This is as true of Microsoft PowerPoint as it is of the iPhone. In this assignment, students will identify an Internet technology (i.e., website or online program, etc.) or digital hardware (cell phone, Flip camera, iPad, etc.) – or both – which they have limited use and experience with (they may choose to integrate more than one for this project). Students will craft a lesson around that piece of technology.

The lesson must be connected to content TE 831 students teach. Likewise, the lesson plan should be implemented and taught in their classroom, with their students prior to the due date for this assignment. However, if a student is not currently teaching, in lieu of teaching the actual lesson, s/he will create a short video (4-5 minutes), PowerPoint, or Prezi presentation to demonstrate her/his lesson plan and highlight its content. The paper for this assignment includes a 2-3 page lesson plan (following the format provided) and a reflection paper (1,000 – 1,200 words). The reflection paper should connect course readings and themes along with reflections on the actual integration of technology in the lesson plan. Students will format both the lesson plan and reflection paper as Word documents (more information on the course wiki) and post to the wiki by the due date. A lesson plan template and further guidelines for the reflection paper will be provided on the wiki. **The re-purposed lesson plan and reflection paper is due Sunday, June 16. **

Rubric for evaluating your lesson plan project:


 * Voice Thread Final Reflection (10% of course grade) **

For the final assignment, students will use [|Voice Thread] to reflect on what they learned throughout the course. Each student will create his/her own Voice Thread project, which will include audio and visual presentation materials. A Voice Thread is a collaborative, multimedia slide show that holds [|images, documents, and videos] and allows people to navigate pages and leave [|comments in 5 ways] - using voice (with a mic or telephone), text, audio file, or video (via a webcam). More details related to this assignment are located on the course wiki. **The Voice Thread final reflection is due on Thursday, June 27. **