While the other History Teachers were having their students make books, my students were making amazing ThingLinks (www.thinglink.com) with the same criteria. I feel like I am able to nail down how my project can differ, while still being the same concept, and I am more comfortable with that considering what my admin wants to see. For the project they had to discuss the same seven topics using the same criteria of at least five sentences and having a picture. We started working on them Tuesday and they were due by the end of class today. I had 22 students finish early yesterday. They emailed me and asked me to take a look so they could make any needed changes to improve their grade since it wasn't actually due yet. The students doing this were general ed, special ed, and EL alike. I was happy to help them out and the main thing I found was just that they had missed a picture or minor mix-ups with things. They came in today, read their emailed feedback and got right to work. Many students wanted to go further and add appropriate YouTube videos to enhance their ThingLink.
There are some serious leaders emerging and I am thinking of trying a "table leader" idea where that student is responsible for making sure everyone understands the assignment and stays on task. They want to help each other. Even ones that aren't doing great themselves and trying to help others when they know the answer. There is such pride when they are able to. This week was a lot about the students just reflecting on their own knowledge, connecting the dots, and helping each other. I had some ask if they could Google the next topic since we are moving on starting Monday.
What I am struggling with though, is students that are frequently out. I have everything on the website the night before with detailed instructions, links to videos, etc, but they aren't doing the work when they are out. I suppose this is a problem no matter what, but I find that since it isn't on paper, it takes them a week to make up the work because they will only do it during intervention (15 minutes twice a week) and they are still lost afterward because everything was out of sequence. My website is getting more traffic since I explained that the work we do on the Chromebook can be accessed form any computer, even their phone. Some are especially excited by the Drive App. They love that they can do their work on their phone during lunch - their friends don't even know that they are working! I feel like I am connecting students that might otherwise fall through the cracks and it makes me unbelievably happy.
