UOP#1 had to have some adjustments made from what was planned. Students used there notes to complete a quiz and then used the information from their quiz answers to create their powerpoints. This was the easy part. Students were familiar with powerpoint as they used them in their English Language Arts classes. We went over how to select a background and insert images by dragging it from a page on the internet to the desktop. They were very comfortable with this. Also students were shown that they had to click in the text box to start typing. Students used quiz questions as their headings or used some part of them.
I think that overall students did meet their understanding goal. The part that they did have trouble with was explaining why they thought that for the higher level thinking question. Most students lacked the explanation part and simply stated their predictions. It seems like anything that requires them to think a little extra seems to be were the struggle with them lies. I get questions like " what do you mean by explanation?" or "I don't get what it means by explain how ..."
I think that their technology skills did improve a little but I probably won't see it until we have another project.
I liked that I really structured the lesson. That helped a lot when it came to creating the final product. Typing came very easy for them and they finished rather quickly. Finding images was much more difficult because of the strict district firewall. I liked that they got to use computers and they did as well.
Not everyone finished the assignment. Only a handful finished out of thirty-four students due to technical difficulties. For example, not all laptops were working. There was trouble signing in or the slightest closing of the laptop screens, internet connection is lost as well as the printer doesn't work. So some students had to start over and others spent time looking for pictures.
