This post is the seventh post in a series of posts I am authoring as part of my practical for my Masters of Education, with an educational technology emphasis. Click here to read about the context I am writing this under, and the goal of this series of projects.
The purpose of this post will be to share about the project, and give an overview of the technology integration within the project and how I am seeking to meet the ISTE standards outlined here.
The overall concept for this project was inspired by a project found here: http://mariana68.wixsite.com/bl-humanbodyredesign/human-body-20
Project Overview
Click here to access the Project Folder
Before reading further it is important to review the folder above, especially the Unit Overview. This project in particular, a lot of the information is found in the student initial hand out, as it outlines the contents of the paper, and of the video.
The overview of this project is as such:
Students will designing a presenting a potential engineering redesign of the human body. They will select one of the 6 human body systems they have studied (Circulatory, Digestive, Nervous, Excretory, Respiratory, or Muscular), and identify a problem or area that could be improved within that system. They will then propose and design a solution to the identified problem within that body system. They must be able to demonstrate how the redesign is an improvement of the original and makes the human body more efficient. They will need to include information in a presentation that explains what their change is, and why it is better than the original. Students will also need to make a model of their change, that can help explain what thye are proposing. Student will then present to a panel of judges, who will award out awards for certain categories based on quality of presentation.
The final product of this project will be as follows:
Model of their proposed change to the human body
Complete presentation that include the following:
- Statement of the identified problem
- Information on what the system you chose does for the human body
- Description of the solution to the problem
- 3 detailed reasons for why they chose that redesign
- They must give specifics: describe location, structure change, how it will work
- Explanation on why the proposed solution will make the body system more efficient/ work better
- Predict/ Hypothesize how the redesign will change the way the body will work
- Address how the redesign will affect other systems of the human body
- Describe any potential issues that might arise from the proposed solution, and how they seek to address these issues.
This is the last project that I will be fully writing for this project. It is a shorter project that seeks to incorporate design elements into exploring the human body systems. This project should be accompanied by some other activity and series of instruction to help gain the knowledge on the functions of the human body systems. This project focuses on evaluating these system’s functions and judging how the system functions connect.
One of the more exciting things about it is that it allows for students to really be creative with things that they are very familiar – the human body. They get to explore and think about these engineering principles in a way that can get them to be excited about how they can help humans. This project can lead to interests in improving our species through engineering.
One aspect that I really thought was important to this project is the use of judges to help grade and evaluate the projects. While maybe not contributing completely to the final grade, it is important to get across to students that they will be presenting to varied audience that hasn’t spent two plus weeks learning and studying the same things as them. This makes it important to really explain well in a creative way, every detail needed.
One thing I would be interested in trying to add would be to change how the presentation occurs. One project idea that I didn’t quite finished used this idea, where PowerPoints were not allowed. I thought about bringing that to this project, but I wanted to keep it simpler, but it is an interesting idea to try if using this project.
Considerations of Technology
As a part of my interest in educational technology, and my desire to promote it within schools, I want to highlight my usage of technology and other considerations within each of my projects.
The promote biodiversity project utilizes the following digital technology tools:
- Padlet
- Padlet is my personal favorite collaborative note board that I have found. It is cheap to use and available on all devices. School options allow for connection to Google Suite for Education. This means students can share and post documents and other files from their Google Drives onto the note board. As well, the note board can be made available to a few or all students, making it great for not only small group collaboration, but cross class collaboration.
- Padlet in this project is used for students to brainstorm for the ask questions portion of the design thinking process.
- Padlet is my personal favorite collaborative note board that I have found. It is cheap to use and available on all devices. School options allow for connection to Google Suite for Education. This means students can share and post documents and other files from their Google Drives onto the note board. As well, the note board can be made available to a few or all students, making it great for not only small group collaboration, but cross class collaboration.
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- Most school districts are partnered with Google Education services, providing students access to the Google suite of tools.
- One of the best aspects of the Google suite of tools is that it is available as a web based app on all operating systems, and as a downloadable app for each tool on most smart phones. This makes it convenient for students to use the device of their choice for following and accessing all information on Google.
- All of my projects will utilize a Google Classroom page, where announcements, documents, website links, and other information will be shared. I chose the Google Classroom service because of its ease of use, integration with other Google products (mainly Docs), and easy management of student work.
- Google Classroom will also be used for sharing all resources found in the above folder.
- Students will also be responding to questions on Google Classroom, about potential problems and solutions for each of the body systems.
- Students will share all written work and drawings onto google classroom as images for turning in under assignments.
- Google Documents will be used as a primary source of all text writing with students. It allows for collaborative writing, commenting and editing, and for brainstorming. Google Documents is used because of these features, along with its prevalence within schools. As well, Google Docs is available on all devices and operating systems
- Google Documents will be used for collaboratively responding to the initial discussion at the beginning of the project
- Blogging site for students. The two sites I would recommend for this would be Kidblog or Edublog. Edublog offers free services, and uses the WordPress shell, so I personally would choose that service, as I am most familiar with it, but Kidblog, while being a paid service, offers a very good service as weall.
- The important thing to look for in a blogging site is that the service is used for education purposes, and is not one that will collect on personal information from users, or have ads and access to other harmful elements. Each of these services are great at offering management tools for student accounts and blogs, where you as teacher have control over privacy, approving comments and posts, and the information that students are sharing. This ensures that no inappropriate usage is happening that creates issues of breaking policy, cyber bullying, or any potential issues.
- I would establish these blogs at the beginning of the year for each students, and beforehand ensure that I receive explicit permission from administration and from parents, as the reasoning for blogs is the public aspect they offer, and they should be aware off this happening. I would encourage and share to the parents, links to their children’s blog so that they can view it and participate in the learning process.
- In this project, I would use the blog primarily as a reflection space for students to share updates about their projects. Specifically on what questions they think need to be answered, and for reflecting on the good and bad things that happened during the design process.
- Presentation tools: This can be any option that students normally would use for presenting in class, such as Google Slides, Prezi, creating a video to share, or even animation using Powtoon
- I would encourage students to choose whichever presentation format they feel most comfortable. Remind them that they need to be able to properly convey the needed information. I would suspect most students would lean towards a PowerPoint presentation, but creativity is allowed. I would not tell students what tool to use, and if they ask give them suggestions based on what they are interested in.
In consideration of the ISTE standards outlined here, I am going to share how this project is meeting these standards.
- Facilitate and inspire student learning and creativity
- Students are using digital tools to explore the functions and connections of the human body systems, to create and design innovative design solutions to identified problems
- Students will be exploring real-world situations surrounding failures of the human body, to inspire creativity and seek to solve issues surrounding these issues.
- Collaborative tools will used throughout the project for brainstorming, planning and discussion of all ideas had about the project.
- Students will be collaborating with teacher to find resources and tools that help boost knowledge about using credible digital evidence.
- Design and develop digital age learning experiences and assessments
- Learning experience is relevant to real world issues, with digital tools being used to explore, discuss, and innovative new ideas about the human body and its functions
- Technology is used to allow students to research and explore their own ideas for how to create and design solutions.
- Students will be engaging with digital tools throughout the experience in order to explore their interests and ideas surrounding the human body systems.
- Multiple formative and summative assessments within the project overall, with students engaging with digital tools like Padlet and blogging sites, to discuss and share their results, so the teacher can communicate effective feedback.
- Model digital age work and learning
- Teacher will have knowledge of all tools being used.
- Teacher will use Google classroom to communicate with students, and will have access to student documents to monitor and view student progress
- Teacher will update and share with parents about all tools being used, and status updates on what students are doing using email, and other apps, dependent on parent needs.
- Teacher will provide a variety of resources that have been evaluated and found using online sources.
- Students will collaborating to assess and explore their projects through focus groups.
- Promote and model digital citizenship and responsibility
- Teacher will take time to share sources about copyright before project, and share sources where students can get fair use images and other media for their project.
- All digital tools have been vetted to be usable on a wide variety of devices, allowing all students access.
- Teacher will lead students through activities that promote vetting Internet sources, in order to promote healthy understanding of checking facts and understanding how to recognize signs that articles and other sources are misleading or fake.
- All digital tools are available on most devices, helping students have access no matter what devices they have accessible.
- Engage in professional growth and leadership
- By sharing this project on this blog, I am seeking to engage my work in a global setting, and reflect on the work I have done with considerations to technology and 21st century skills.
- Community members will observe and judge projects to provide creative insights into student learning
In Conclusion
This project intends to be a short and quick way to help really reinforce information about the human body systems. Its a shorter unit, so I think using something fun and unique will get students excited about a topic they have done so many times in school. Its a great chance to encourage creativity, and explore the engineering design process within a life science content area, something that gets neglected.