Challenge 8 and Challenge 9

Challenge 8: SHARE

COMPARE AND CONTRAST A COLLABORATIVE WIKI PROJECT OVER TRADITIONAL IN-CLASS GROUP WORK

Collaborative projects are much more engaging than traditional in-class group work. As a teacher and as a student, I would choose researching biomes using the internet and posting findings on Wikispaces over using the internet in a group in class project. This give students the opportunity to work on research at their convenience and can add to or take away at any point. Other members can check their partners' work and edit at any time. This gives the group a feel of security that the information they found is correct. Students and teachers can also see what students did what and how much work they put into the project. This teaches students another way to collaborate with others. I am so glad I found WIKISPACES!

-Megan Edens

Challenge 9: Share

THOUGHTS ABOUT THE ASSESSMENT PROCESS

I use rubrics in my classroom, a lot. We have used them for projects completed at home, projects completed in the computer lab, and also collaborative projects. Making rubrics is the easy part. There are several to choose from online. Rubristar is a website that I use to make many of my rubrics. Grading the students using the rubrics is the hard part. Actually decided how many points one student deserves depends on the group in a whole. You have to see what a "100" looks like from students participation in the group and go from there. Many times I have used one rubric for the whole group to avoid having to complete an assessment for each child. By adding the names of each student across the top of a rubric, this process is much less time consuming. I like that!