Week 10 - Giving a nudge

A lot of groups are stuck.  They don't know what the next step needs to be in order to move their projects forward.  One student was fired up about going to Venice Beach to interview street performers as well as the motley cast of characters there to find out why they do what they do.

His genuine curiosity about the characters at Venice is wonderful, but I wondered how this was going to become a year long project.  I didn't want to discourage him though.  Anaheim is 39 miles from Venice Beach.  He said he was going to get out there and do the interviews, but since he hasn't, he spends a whole lot of time doing nothing during our 20 Percent days.

In his timeline, he wasn't concrete about when he would go saying, "I'll go on a weekend in October and November."  I commented on his paper that, he needs to plan out his dates better.  We are two days away from November and he has not made his first visit.

I'm going to have him prepare all of his questions in advance and figure how he is going to approach them, ask them questions/conduct the interview, and film all of this at the same time.  Even though he hasn't been there, doesn't mean that he can't use his time wisely.

To give all the students a nudge, I've given them a progress report assignment.  On the Google Presentation I've attached at the bottom, I gave them an assignment to present for 2 minutes max what their project is, what they have done so far, and what the next step will be.

Resources
20 Percent Progress Presentation

I think that presenting what they've done so far and seeing where their peers or at might be the push they need to break through and get some real work done.

On a different note, one of the real world skills that I see that students need to develop or use is communicating with people.  One group called different organizations to see if they could volunteer, but no one answers or they don't know who to talk to get what they need.

One girl asked me to call for her.  I told her to say, "Hi, my name is ******** and I'm a student at Savanna High School.  I was calling to see if you had any volunteer opportunities for me and some of my classmates."  I also said, "If the person you talked to can't help you, ask them for the name and number of the person that can help."

This student and her group members were almost stunned because it never occurred to them what they should say when they called.

Finally, I must stress that you need to be walking around and monitoring the students as they work.  Sadly, not all students make the best use of their time, but if you get around the classroom, their less likely to wander away to inappropriate content on the Internet.

These 20 Percent Days are the most tiring as I'm helping students throughout the whole time, troubleshooting technology issues, keeping kids on task, and offering suggestions about their project.

I'll leave you with a video of an 11th grade student explaining how she was using some of her time today researching examples of how to draw characters for her RPG she and her partner are creating.

Week 9 - A potpourri of progress

This is the last week of our first quarter of school and this was the last 20 Percent Day that we had for the quarter.  Ideally students should have completed 4 blogs for each week they've been working since I showed them how to blog, but most students had 3 while others had none, so I changed the required number of blogs for the first quarter from 4 to 3.

Instead of a fourth blog from everyone, I created a Google Form I had everyone fill called, "First Quarter Survey."    My thinking was that I could quickly read the responses and get a sense of where they are at.  I included questions about how like "How would rate how your project is going so far?" and "What do you need help with or are having trouble with?"

My goal  is to meet with the groups that need help or having a problem with something.  The final question I put on the form was optional and it allowed students to just add a question or a comment about the project.  Most of the students left it blank, but here is one student's answers for what they need help in and their comment.

Some groups need no help, some need a push, and some need some tweaking.  Next week I'm going to introduce the progress presentation they need to start next week they'll be preparing for their peers.  My thinking is that by sharing what they've done so far, they'll either not they are on the right track or they need to crank up it some.

Resources

Here is the link to the form I created. www.bit.ly/20timeform1

Week 8 - A break

Week 8 - Somewhat of a break

This week our school administered the PSAT to all of our 10th grade students during our 20 Percent Day.  No one consulted me about how it might conflict with my schedule, but that's how life goes.  I did not have my 2nd, 3rd, or 4th periods yesterday so I just wrote it off as a break for the students.  I was thinking about a break as well, but I wanted to keep my weekly habit going.  I also worked on grading the blogs.  The requirements were 150 words per week with a picture.

It's really neat to read their blogs and to comment on them.  I'm trying to leave encouraging remarks while moving them towards progress.  I must admit that this is quite a task to go in and comment on every students blog.  And when you leave a comment, you have to put in those dreaded, "Please prove you're not a robot" words and number combination.


One of the biggest problems that I've encountered with this project is having the kids blogging about what they are doing on a weekly basis.  I understand that some students don't have Internet access, but we've had computers in class weekly as well as accessing their blogs form the mobile app on their phones.  If they really wanted to do it, they could have done it.

About half of the kids have setup their blogs and are putting in good efforts. So students had a week from Wednesday to Wednesday to do a blog post to show their progress, but what do you when you don't meet on that day?  Some students are behind, and so what do they do?  Some students have not even started blogging, when they finally begin, where will they begin?

I think that I'll just give students the number of the blog they are on, on the Google Calendar I have on my website.  I'll just tell them so that I can grade the blog based on the week they do it, rather than when they do it.  For example, a student that sets up and begins his blog during this week 3 will not write "Blog Week 1" rather they will just write, "Blog Week 3."

I think I'll have my TAs grade that they are posting, and I'll go through and comment a class a week perhaps, maybe two if I can get to it.  It's too bad that viewing other people's blogs on Blogger is blocked, because I think that it would be neat for the kids to comment on each other's blog and develop a real audience.

I'm going to have to figure out how to get people to start commenting on the students' blogs so that they can take pride in writing the posts and the satisfaction of seeing that their project is of interest to someone out there on the World Wide Web.

Week 7 - Gaining Momentum

As we continue to work on our 20 Percent Projects, I see many students and groups working autonomously.  What a beautiful thing to see.

Because the students were working so well today, I spent the majority of my time taking students outside to film them talking about their projects.  I simply had them introduce themselves and say what they are doing their projects on.  After a few students were filmed, I noticed that many of the students were not comfortable talking into a camera.  I encouraged them to speak with confidence and look right into the camera.

In the video below, one of the groups had a bit of fun with it and did a great job.

  

This group is working on recreating the hit "Hot dogs or legs" pictures that were sort of big this summer.  I've included a link to one of the student's blog for this assignment.  Please feel free to visit his blog and leave him a comment if you have the time.  I'm sure he'd appreciate it. 

Jeikob's Hot Dog or Legs Blog

Since we are nearing the end of the first quarter, I'm thinking about an assignment or presentation in the second quarter when students come up, maybe two or three per week where students will come up and share the progress they are making.  I am thinking ahead because I'm anticipating that some students will need that motivation to produce something otherwise they may wait until the last minute and will have wasted all these Wednesdays.

Until next time.

Week 6 - A glooming peace this morning brings...

Today I had the laptops out and ready to go so that students can work on their 20 Percent Project.  Students seemed to be working.  In a somewhat unstructured time, students were working quietly.  There wasn't a lot of chit chat.  They had their heads buried in computer screens, they were talking about their projects, they were really working.  On the most part, I just stayed out of their way.

Last week students had their first blog post due and one of the neat things about students blogging is that they get to interact with the world.  One student said that a person from South Korea looked at his blog.  That's pretty cool.  Other students are excited about getting 30 page views.

Just to create a spirit of competition, I told them I had over 700 views at the time he was in class and now you can see that I have over 800.  I told the students that I would have a prize for the student that had the most blog views.  When students turned in their blog urls on a Google Form, I had them choose what they wanted their blog listed as.  A lot of students chose to just use their name and blog, for example, Cindy's 20 Percent Project.  Based on title alone, I think the most intriguing blogs are "Teaching a White Boy to Dance" and the other side of the project, "A White Boy Learning to Dance."

One problem we are facing is that our district has blocked urls that have "blogspot.com."  However, they can log on to Blogger and create their blogs and update their posts.  This makes it difficult for kids to comment on someone else's post when connected to the school's wifi, but I may have to leave that out as part of their grade.

From now on, I'm going to highlight one student's blog on my posts.  Ivan is an 11th grader and his project is to create a website for our district where art students can share their art with him and he'll post it to the website.  He's creating a virtual gallery where the audience of exceptional art will go beyond whatever classroom that piece was created in.  It's in the infant stage, but a very promising project.

Ivan's AUHSD Art Blog