Final Synthesis Project

Joe Sobeske

EDT5410 – Summer 1 2008

Final Synthesis Project

Target Learners

The target learners for this learning project are high school juniors and seniors in south-central Michigan. The students are tech savvy and have shown a strong desire to pursue a career in a computer technology related field. They are English speaking and generally come from middle to low income households. Ethnically, the student group is almost entirely Caucasian.

Context

This project will take place within the context of a Career and Technical Education (CTE) center’s Computer Systems Networking and Telecommunications curriculum (Michigan State Classification of Instructional Programs Code 11.0901). This project addresses some of the Information Technology foundation standards as well as several career and employability skills standards. (See http://mccte-fsu.org/csp.php?i=2#cluster_5 )

Learning objectives

The student will be able to use the internet to analyze his/her individual educational and experience requirements for a chosen career goal and create a web page which includes an embedded presentation describing the steps necessary to obtain the goal while earning at least 80% of the points available on the supplied rubric.

Description of Lesson

Online tools to be incorporated.

· Google Page Creator.

· Google Docs.

· Embedded Media.

Lesson description. The goals of this lesson are:

· To encourage students to crystallize a career goal and requisite education requirements that come with their career goal.

· To give students an opportunity to explore online applications.

· To practice presentation skills.

The student will be required to deliver to me a website which he/she has created that includes an embedded slide show presentation. The embedded presentation will state the goal and describe the steps that the student will need to take to accomplish the goal. The website will provide links to pages which describe the education/training requirements of the goal, the schools likely attended and resources which will describe the employment outlook for the chosen career. (See example page at http://jsobeske.googlepages.com/sobeske%27scareergoalexample .

To access prior knowledge, I will start this lesson with a discussion about goals and times students have either set and achieved a goal or heard of someone who has. I will then focus the discussion by asking about their knowledge of anyone who has set a goal to get a certain job and then did whatever it took to get the job they wanted. I will then get specific and share with them the process I went through to become a teacher after having been in a different career for many years. Once I have verbally described my process, I will present the slide show which I have created. Before I present, I will tell the students to notice that I will not simply be reading the slides, but rather will be presenting. I will describe what presenting means and what to look for in a presentation.

With the discussion about career goals and my career goal presentation complete, I will describe the requirements of the assignment. I will begin by telling them that they will be creating a website and I will show them my website. I will walk them through the links and describe why each part is there and what I want to see. At this point, I will be very specific about what is required by passing out the “Career Goal Website Rubric” and going over it in detail.

At this point, I will demonstrate to the students how to get started with Google Docs and Page Creator. I will also demonstrate how to embed the slideshow into a web page. Then I will give the students time to begin researching their career goals and creating their web sites and slide shows. I will make myself available to help any student having difficulty.

Artifact

I have created an example of a website similar to which I am requiring the students to create. The address is http://jsobeske.googlepages.com/sobeske%27scareergoalexample

JUSTIFICATION

The goals of this assignment could be accomplished with a lower-tech approach. I can imagine students could go to the library, look up the information they need about their chosen career, contact colleges and universities and study their bulletins and gather all the information and present it in a folder or portfolio. Having the students use the technology I described above has distinct advantages over lower-tech approaches. Here are some of these advantages:

· Consolidating the career goal and education requirements on one website synthesizes the material in a dynamic and understandable way that a low-tech approach could not do. This website gives the student a map to success and the ability to navigate the various aspects of a career goal.

· The fact that their website is actually published on the internet gives the students the opportunity to share their goals with their families in a way a low-tech approach could not do. The students’ career sites will be available anywhere there is internet connectivity which gives students’ families an opportunity to support and guide the student. Students would not have to wait until they happen to have a portfolio with them to share their plans with their mentor. This is a huge advantage because when a teenager is in the mood to talk about his/her life goals, this approach allows mentors to seize the moment.

· The information can be changed and updated easily thus allowing the potential for this to not only be a class assignment, but a tool to help students achieve a goal. If this was a paper and ink assignment it would be much less likely to be used as a tool to help crystallize their thoughts about their goals and how to achieve them. With this website continually available every time they are logged on, it is more likely to have the desired effect, which is to have students maintain focus.

· The technology allows this assignment to be completed in a much shorter time and allows the students to work on it at home if they desire. A multifaceted assignment such as this would be a huge project if done with traditional low-tech methods. This assignment does cover several state standards; however, there are several hundred more standards which must be addressed in a year. This use of technology allows more standards to be covered in a shorter amount of time, yet in a way that is meaningful to students.

· Using this technology teaches technology. If this assignment were to be completed using a low-tech approach, students may not be exposed to the utility of free services such as Google Docs and Google’s Page Creator. This has the potential auxiliary benefit of saving students money. Also, this project exposes students to Web 2.0 concepts such as cloud- delivered applications and embedding media which is hosted non-locally.