Implementation Plan I plan on implementing this unit when I finally get a general education position! If I get a job teaching second grade I will use my lessons as they are. If I get a first or third grade position I can still use the unit by tweaking some of the lessons to be grade-appropriate. I will implement the unit over a 5-8 day period when we are ready to learn about the American Civil rights movement!
Lesson 1: 1-2 days.
Lesson 2: 1 day.
Lesson 3: 1-2 days (and may be completed partially at home it need be).
Lesson 4: 2-3 days.
Each assessment written on the website will be used in coordination with the lesson that it was intended for to ensure that each standard is met and that the child is mastering each skill.
Reflection of Experience I learned a great deal during the making of this website. I have taken one or two educational technology classes before so some of the technology I used was a refresher while others were new to me. Technology tools are great in that way. You can always learn more about a tool because they are always getting new features. The more I use different tools the more confident I get in incorporating them into my lessons. What I learn from one experience helps me in future experiences. There were several times when I was thinking, "Hey that would be cool, I wonder if there is something like that out there." Sure enough there always was. The interactive timeline was one of these ideas.
The newest concept to me was using screencast-o-matic to record myself talking about my website. I really enjoyed doing it because I think that it is something I will definitely use. It comes in handy when students and parents are at home trying to figure out an assignment. It took me a couple of tries because I kept starting over every time I messed up. I finally realized that you could rewind it a little bit and copy over that part!
I loved having a peer group look over my project before it was submitted. It was great for those moments when I second guessed myself or wanted a second opinion. It was nice to be able to ask, "Were the lessons grade-appropriate?" or "Are there a variety of assessments?" This was really helpful for me as a first year teacher and I definitely utilized them as a resource.
Changes I made several changes to my website as a result of the peer reviews and after a closer look at the rubric. My group alerted me that a link to my rubric for lesson 3 on the assessment page wasn't working. I went in and fixed that. They also reminded me that we were supposed to embed our peer review form rather than just have a link to it, so I made sure to fix that as well. I also added some general information about the website and unit to the paragraph on the introduction page. Lastly, I wrote the lesson that correlated to each standard on the standard page. I had previously written a list of all standards used without referencing where they were used in the unit.