These were my thoughts as I designed the ‘Observations’ tool. The tool, which was created with Google Forms, includes two fields: Relevance and Observation. Relevance is described as ‘Who or What is this observation relate to,’ and ‘Observation’ is the observation itself.  As students read text, they need to focus on sentences that are important to their goal, rephrase them, and write them as observations using the ‘Observations’ form. Observations are fed in one at a time. When the student presses the ‘Submit’ button, the observation is listed on the spreadsheet attached to the form. Soon, a whole list of observations accumulates and becomes available for students to use in their projects.

This type of note-taking has great individual, as well as group, benefits. As an individual, a student can always go back to the Observations List and recall, add new, or correct observations he/she made. As a group, students can look at other students’ observations to learn from, get new ideas, or use as a foundation for brainstorming with group members. The tool is also valuable for evaluation purposes. By going through student observations, teachers can understand the foundation that students based their ideas upon. As its name indicates, the ‘Observations’ tool helps students make observations, which implies that it was not designed specifically for text. Depending on the type of

project students are engaged in, they may be required to use different senses to make observations. In a science project, students may different phenomena very carefully or even tinker with apparatus and write observations about what they see, feel, smell, taste or touch. In a storytelling scenario, students are encouraged to record their thoughts as they reflect descriptions of characters, events, and students’ emotional reactions to a story. In all types of projects, the observation tool can help students focus their thinking on what they need to know, reflect back on, and build a knowledge foundation that students can collaborate and brainstorm with.

A Model Project with an Assignment List

A Model Project with a Task Assignment Sheet

A typical project in a planned project-based environment may begin in different ways. How to begin depends on students’ grade level, their experience with project-based learning, and to what extent the teacher is ready to delegate responsibility to the student. Task assignments may be the first thing students decide on or it may come after the driving question, if students are the ones developing it. The decision to engage elementary students in project-based learning and train them to take charge of the process is quite demanding and most teachers don’t have the necessary time to make it happen. Therefore, teachers in my school prefer to assign the driving question, provide clear project specifications and assign specific roles to each team member in the group. This does not warrant that task assignments are predetermined by the teacher. Each member’s task is wide enough to break it down to clear steps and deadlines. Students engage in task assignments after they understand the assignment well enough and have a chance to generally overview the subject.

The process of task assignments follows the students’ analysis of the role they assume. Based on their understanding of the role, they devise a set of steps and deadlines to perform it. Team work facilitates peer review, helping each member refine their task assignments. They also need to learn to synchronize their tasks, if task precedence is important for project completion. The tool that enables all this consists of a ‘Task Assignment Sheet’ and an ‘Assignment List,’ both part of a Google Site Projects Template created by me. The following section describes how to create a ‘Task Assignment Sheet’ by breaking the task into the necessary steps and components that are needed for students to be able to use it and collaborate. It is very important that you perform these steps in the order they are listed. Otherwise, you may have problems with sharing the information correctly with all team members.

Click Here to Download Instructions
How to Create A Task Assignment Sheet

I have been a long- time advocate of project-based learning because I believe that it encourages students to become independent self-driven learners. I employed my basic understanding of project-based learning to help my students use this approach in their work. However, I always felt the lack of a systematic approach that other teachers and I could refer to when guiding students to use it. When I stumbled upon the book “Teaching Science in Elementary and Middle School Classrooms,” I knew that the book was a serious contribution to creating a systematic approach to handle project-based learning in science. The authors -Krajcik, Czerniak, and Berger – have laid out a detailed formula for implementing project-based learning in science that any teacher seriously attempting to use it can rely upon. The book is filled with practical descriptions of procedures and forms necessary to cover the entire process: formulating the driving question, developing scientific investigations, using technology, developing collaboration, developing benchmark lessons, developing proper assessments, planning a project-based curriculum, and setting up the classroom for project-based learning. However, the book’s focus on science made me look for additional sources that had a more universal approach, such as the excellent and exhaustive Buck Institute’s Project Based Learning source.

After reading all these excellent materials, I was able to formulate a methodical approach to project based learning that I was eager to apply with my students. A combination of this methodical approach with the benefits that Web 2.0 technology affords, started making a lot of sense. Web-based applications such as Google Apps hold the promise of student collaboration, making it an ideal platform for project-based learning. As an avid user of Google Apps and other Web 2.0 applications, I started toying with the idea of implementing a project-based framework using Web 2.0 tools. I created a template with Google Sites that serves as a project-based guide for students to follow. The building blocks of this template vary depending on the subject that the project is focused on, but it has a few generic components that are likely to show up in any project. A typical project template may include a “Team Task Sheet” for planning each members’ roles and responsibilities in the project, an “Observation Form” for encouraging students to record and share their live or text-based observations, a “Questions Form” for recording and sharing questions that may lead to a driving question, and a “Research” section which displays the bibliography of the sources students consult.

A Project about The Pearl's Escape using Google Sites

I have created a sample project based on the Smithsonian Institute’s “Once Upon a Real Time: Telling the Stories the Past Tells Us.” The project is classified as a historical story and tells “The Story of an Escape: Flight on the Pearl.” Based on this story, I created a template that has the above mentioned building blocks, as well as specific sections that stem from the project’s topic–telling a historical story.

In the next few blog entries I will focus on each component of this template separately. Starting with the “Project Task Sheet” designed to help students describe their tasks in the project, followed by a student generated list of bibliographic resources and how to include them in the site, promote brainstorming by recording and sharing observations with the “Observations” form and use the “Questions” form to focus the discussion towards a definition of a driving question. Each component will be described for its educational value, how it serves project-based learning, how to approach each task and tailor it for your own needs. A live demonstration of templates in action will be available towards the end of this academic year when my 5th grade students’ template-based projects will be displayed on our Balboa Magnet school website.

Bibliography:

At the time, I wasn’t at all acquainted with any web-based applications. I knew that many companies were working on web-based applications and that it was considered as the trend of the future. I also knew that they were not stable enough to compete with existing desktop applications. As a fierce advocate of project-based learning, I was looking for web-based productivity tools that would help students create projects that reflect what they are learning in the classroom, in one or multi-disciplines. Students can utilize the tools to construct knowledge, develop innovative products, search, evaluate, and analyze information, develop their critical thinking skills, communicate and work collaboratively. A combination of web 2.0 products, particularly Google applications, fit my goals best.

I started using Google Docs, Sites, Maps, Earth, Notebook, Sketchup and other web-based applications, such as: Mindomo–a mind mapping tool and Scratch–an animation and simulation tool. I spent hours experimenting with these applications and created project prototypes using a combination of these tools. The results and the possibilities for student learning surprised me. Soon enough I discovered that Google is offering Google Apps, which include: startup, e-mail, talk, calendar, documents, sites, and video, free for educational institutions. Google Maps, Sketchup, Notebook and Earth have their basic free version, as well as other Web 2.0 applications such as Mindomo and Scratch. These apps were all free and I was just required to set up 560 accounts for our 3rd to 5th graders, our faculty, and staff. I was then ready to start.

The outcome of this project is displayed at Balboa’s school website.

The Balboa Magnet Projects Page

The site includes a rich ‘Projects‘ section with student projects listed by Teacher Name. Students used a mix of different applications to create their projects. Some projects were done with non web-based application (MicroWorlds), but the output was converted to html and posted on the web. Most student projects were done with Google Apps and other existing Google applications such as Maps and Notebook. For example, 5th grade students created web sites for each state in the United States. Our third graders worked on collaborative sites about Native Americans in which each team member worked on different aspects of their assigned tribe. Fourth graders worked on a web site dedicated to everything they learned about California, starting from the California regions, missions, and a mission focus. A few had time to work on

Mapping of the Oregon Trail on Google Maps

the Gold Rush and map the Oregon Trail. This project was particularly interesting because students mapped the California’s twenty one missions on Google Maps, including an image and a description of each mission on the map. When they finished mapping all missions, the students embedded their map in the ‘Misssions’ page in their California site and linked it to the original map created with Google Maps. There are many other projects displayed on the site such as Google Presentations about Famous Americans.

Using Web 2.0 technology and Google Apps accounts has encouraged the creation of a new computer culture in our school. Students are frequenting the computer lab on lunch and break times to experiment, advance their projects or create new, original projects of their own. Our fifth graders enjoyed working with Google Apps so much that they asked permission to keep accessing their Balboa Magnet accounts even after they leave to Junior High School and I was happy to oblige them after Google granted us 200 additional accounts. I definitely feel that my students have really acquired many skills in technology and they feel very comfortable using those skills. Even our third graders (who I was afraid would have problems with logging into the system due to their age) are accessing their accounts without any problems. I feel that my students have established a foundation in technology this year in terms of mastering the basic skills. I now want them to use this foundation to further engage in different aspects of project-based learning.