2.1 Content Standards & Student Technology Standards
Candidates model and facilitate the design and implementation of technology-enhanced learning experiences aligned with student content standards and student technology standards. (PSC 2.1/ISTE 2a)
ITEC 7445: Multimedia Project
The Multimedia Design Project allowed me an opportunity to integrate the technical skills of web and graphic design with instructional design. I created a visually appealing, motivating, and engaging online experience which helped students to understand what makes visual rhetoric work. The Multimedia Project (MMP) is designed for 12th grade Advanced Placement Language and Composition students. They have an advanced reading and language ability among their peers, but they are not necessarily the top performers in our particular school. These students are well-acquainted with small-group learning, but most students have not participated in project-based learning as much as they have participated in traditional styles of content delivery. Students also have a working knowledge of Google Classroom and Web-based tools, so this opportunity to create a webquest served the intersection of their training and their interests. This MMP, titled “Visual Rhetoric” is project-based learning, and it takes advantage of the features of website design - audio, compelling images, embedded video - to engage the students in the learning. I designed the website on Weebly and presented the students with a problem/project: How would you design a visual that communicates a message to a particular audience? The MMP takes students through several examples of famous posters, and they examine the rhetoric in the visuals. Then, the students are led through graphic design elements as well as a tutorial on how to analyze an image. The MMP fosters a curiosity about what makes visual rhetoric work as well as it challenges students to create their own message and visual to go with it. The MMP was used in our AP Language and Composition level in our English Department to great success, and it is scheduled for relaunch this spring.
Teachers at Norcross HS have a growing comfort with the Google Chromebook, and they already have a fairly developed ease of use with standard laptop and desktop computer stations in labs. However, many teachers in our school opt out of more engaging web-based tools because they seem too technical or too difficult or time-consuming to set up on the front end of use. Therefore, I wanted to model the use of a web-based learning tool to try to spread the innovation to others in my department. I also wanted to facilitate the ease of use and design of the web-based learning in hopes of encouraging fellow teachers to provide more engaging learning content for their students. The type of content that visual rhetoric includes is, well, visual, and so stand-and-deliver techniques for learning do not suffice for complete learning content standards that have to do with visuals. In fact, ISTE’s student technology standards provide several reasons for modeling an engaging learning experience for teachers. ISTE’s standard 3d. states that “Students build knowledge by actively exploring real-world issues and problems, developing ideas and theories and pursuing answers and solutions.” (ISTE, 2019). Further, the Gwinnett County AKS directs content standards, among which are:
Once the MMP was designed according to standards, it was time to facilitate its implementation. I published the website and shared it through our county’s LMS so it could serve as a model for the other teachers in my department. Teachers in my AP level critiqued it, and they gave me feedback about how it seemed useful to them and where I should tweak a few things. This feedback and revision step was important in facilitating the implementation of the MMP, since teachers prefer buy-in and influence over the digital tools they use. Once I adopted their suggestions, they launched it and used it as an anchor piece in a unit on visual rhetoric. All teachers in the level reported at least satisfactory results with the module, while some praised it for its direct instruction that was also engaging. Some teachers said they hardly had to motivate students to produce the task at the end. Others did report that their students did not produce well, but their students did engage with the project to learn the information. In all, the teachers reported the implementation was a success that helped them reach technology and content standards that are difficult to reach without using a web-based tool.
If I had to do the project over again, I’d make the levels of product more differentiated. The teachers who reported that their students did not produce the visual at the end said that the students felt it was too difficult of an assignment. Some teachers thought the assignment was too involved for what the content standards called for, and so they did not do the project. Even though the MMP was aligned with content standards, the rigor of the project it asked for at the end was higher than the mastery level of the standard. So, many teachers felt like the time it took to produce the end product was not going to be well spent, since the standard could be addressed in a simpler way. In fact, teachers came up with projects that were smaller in scope and took less time. However, these projects were more traditional in nature, with technology only used at the substitution level of the SAMR scale and relatively low on the LoTI scale. Nevertheless, I am considering offering choices in product that allow students to practice parts of standards or to allow teachers to reduce the class time it takes to complete the product.
Our school has just purchased more Chromebooks to add to our supply. Even though teachers must check out technology and share it, it is true that students could have access to technology to use in the classroom three days a week if their teachers liked. Fortunately for our school, teachers have grown accustomed to our LMS, eClass, which is our county’s brand of D2L. Since D2L already includes some technical offerings, many teachers have gravitated toward the online module format for their lessons. But, teachers have not yet grown comfortable with uses for technology which are at the transformational level (TIM) or at levels 4-6 of the LoTI scale. So, this small-scale effort of mine to move some teachers to a web-based learning tool was an attempt to increase teacher awareness of the type of engagement that is possible with online learning and project-based activities. We have the technology, so why aren’t we using it? Further, Universal Design for Learning elements, including Multiple Means of Representation, were used and demonstrated to faculty as a way of modeling methods of increased user access, a gap we have as a school. The ISTE technology standards for students envision Empowered Learners and Knowledge Constructors, as well as Creative Communicators, and this MMP clearly engages those standards. In order to assess the true impact of this project, it would be useful to design a survey for students who complete it. I’d want to know if they felt like it was engaging. Aside from that, however, the assessments that were given shortly after the visual rhetoric module showed progress in their understanding of difficult to teach content standards, including GCPS AKS ELAGSE11-12W6: “Use technology, including the Internet, to produce, publish, and update individual or shared writing products in response to ongoing feedback, including new arguments or information.” Even though this is a writing standard, teachers agreed that their students learned it better by focusing on the “Use technology” part as a method of learning the content.
References
Cast (2019). UDL: the UDL guidelines. “Provide multiple means of representation.” Retrieved from http://udlguidelines.cast.org/representation.
Gwinnett County Public Schools (2019). Academic knowledge and skills. Retrieved from https://apps.gwinnett.k12.ga.us/isapps/ReportViewer/Viewer.aspx?rptid=AKS
ISTE (2019). ISTE standards for students. Retrieved from https://www.iste.org/standards/for-students.
LoTi (2018). LoTi framework. Retrieved from https://www.loticonnection.com/loti-framework.
The Multimedia Design Project allowed me an opportunity to integrate the technical skills of web and graphic design with instructional design. I created a visually appealing, motivating, and engaging online experience which helped students to understand what makes visual rhetoric work. The Multimedia Project (MMP) is designed for 12th grade Advanced Placement Language and Composition students. They have an advanced reading and language ability among their peers, but they are not necessarily the top performers in our particular school. These students are well-acquainted with small-group learning, but most students have not participated in project-based learning as much as they have participated in traditional styles of content delivery. Students also have a working knowledge of Google Classroom and Web-based tools, so this opportunity to create a webquest served the intersection of their training and their interests. This MMP, titled “Visual Rhetoric” is project-based learning, and it takes advantage of the features of website design - audio, compelling images, embedded video - to engage the students in the learning. I designed the website on Weebly and presented the students with a problem/project: How would you design a visual that communicates a message to a particular audience? The MMP takes students through several examples of famous posters, and they examine the rhetoric in the visuals. Then, the students are led through graphic design elements as well as a tutorial on how to analyze an image. The MMP fosters a curiosity about what makes visual rhetoric work as well as it challenges students to create their own message and visual to go with it. The MMP was used in our AP Language and Composition level in our English Department to great success, and it is scheduled for relaunch this spring.
Teachers at Norcross HS have a growing comfort with the Google Chromebook, and they already have a fairly developed ease of use with standard laptop and desktop computer stations in labs. However, many teachers in our school opt out of more engaging web-based tools because they seem too technical or too difficult or time-consuming to set up on the front end of use. Therefore, I wanted to model the use of a web-based learning tool to try to spread the innovation to others in my department. I also wanted to facilitate the ease of use and design of the web-based learning in hopes of encouraging fellow teachers to provide more engaging learning content for their students. The type of content that visual rhetoric includes is, well, visual, and so stand-and-deliver techniques for learning do not suffice for complete learning content standards that have to do with visuals. In fact, ISTE’s student technology standards provide several reasons for modeling an engaging learning experience for teachers. ISTE’s standard 3d. states that “Students build knowledge by actively exploring real-world issues and problems, developing ideas and theories and pursuing answers and solutions.” (ISTE, 2019). Further, the Gwinnett County AKS directs content standards, among which are:
- ELAGSE11-12SL4 Present information, findings, and supporting evidence, conveying a clear and distinct perspective, such that listeners can follow the line of reasoning, alternative or opposing perspectives are addressed
- Make strategic use of digital media (e.g., textual, graphical, audio, visual, and interactive elements) in presentations to enhance understanding of findings, reasoning, and evidence and to add interest.
Once the MMP was designed according to standards, it was time to facilitate its implementation. I published the website and shared it through our county’s LMS so it could serve as a model for the other teachers in my department. Teachers in my AP level critiqued it, and they gave me feedback about how it seemed useful to them and where I should tweak a few things. This feedback and revision step was important in facilitating the implementation of the MMP, since teachers prefer buy-in and influence over the digital tools they use. Once I adopted their suggestions, they launched it and used it as an anchor piece in a unit on visual rhetoric. All teachers in the level reported at least satisfactory results with the module, while some praised it for its direct instruction that was also engaging. Some teachers said they hardly had to motivate students to produce the task at the end. Others did report that their students did not produce well, but their students did engage with the project to learn the information. In all, the teachers reported the implementation was a success that helped them reach technology and content standards that are difficult to reach without using a web-based tool.
If I had to do the project over again, I’d make the levels of product more differentiated. The teachers who reported that their students did not produce the visual at the end said that the students felt it was too difficult of an assignment. Some teachers thought the assignment was too involved for what the content standards called for, and so they did not do the project. Even though the MMP was aligned with content standards, the rigor of the project it asked for at the end was higher than the mastery level of the standard. So, many teachers felt like the time it took to produce the end product was not going to be well spent, since the standard could be addressed in a simpler way. In fact, teachers came up with projects that were smaller in scope and took less time. However, these projects were more traditional in nature, with technology only used at the substitution level of the SAMR scale and relatively low on the LoTI scale. Nevertheless, I am considering offering choices in product that allow students to practice parts of standards or to allow teachers to reduce the class time it takes to complete the product.
Our school has just purchased more Chromebooks to add to our supply. Even though teachers must check out technology and share it, it is true that students could have access to technology to use in the classroom three days a week if their teachers liked. Fortunately for our school, teachers have grown accustomed to our LMS, eClass, which is our county’s brand of D2L. Since D2L already includes some technical offerings, many teachers have gravitated toward the online module format for their lessons. But, teachers have not yet grown comfortable with uses for technology which are at the transformational level (TIM) or at levels 4-6 of the LoTI scale. So, this small-scale effort of mine to move some teachers to a web-based learning tool was an attempt to increase teacher awareness of the type of engagement that is possible with online learning and project-based activities. We have the technology, so why aren’t we using it? Further, Universal Design for Learning elements, including Multiple Means of Representation, were used and demonstrated to faculty as a way of modeling methods of increased user access, a gap we have as a school. The ISTE technology standards for students envision Empowered Learners and Knowledge Constructors, as well as Creative Communicators, and this MMP clearly engages those standards. In order to assess the true impact of this project, it would be useful to design a survey for students who complete it. I’d want to know if they felt like it was engaging. Aside from that, however, the assessments that were given shortly after the visual rhetoric module showed progress in their understanding of difficult to teach content standards, including GCPS AKS ELAGSE11-12W6: “Use technology, including the Internet, to produce, publish, and update individual or shared writing products in response to ongoing feedback, including new arguments or information.” Even though this is a writing standard, teachers agreed that their students learned it better by focusing on the “Use technology” part as a method of learning the content.
References
Cast (2019). UDL: the UDL guidelines. “Provide multiple means of representation.” Retrieved from http://udlguidelines.cast.org/representation.
Gwinnett County Public Schools (2019). Academic knowledge and skills. Retrieved from https://apps.gwinnett.k12.ga.us/isapps/ReportViewer/Viewer.aspx?rptid=AKS
ISTE (2019). ISTE standards for students. Retrieved from https://www.iste.org/standards/for-students.
LoTi (2018). LoTi framework. Retrieved from https://www.loticonnection.com/loti-framework.