We Speak Digital: Using Web-Based Project Organizers to Promote Literacy

Web-Based Project Organizers provide a one-to-one workspace for students to access and respond to teacher developed units of study and to provide two-way communication between student and teacher. Project organizers support whole-class instruction, small group instruction, collaborative learning, and individual learning both within the classroom and from any location which has a computer and internet access.  

Organizers may be developed for: a single concept, for a mini-lesson, or to support a multi-week unit of study on a major topic.  Organizers can be developed for any grade-level.

Organizers incorporate multiple media: text, images, audio, video, web-based games, and activities, website links etc. – as appropriate to reach and engage students of all levels and learning styles.

Teachers can create their own media and/or incorporate media which is available via subscription and on the web. 

Teachers have web-based access to project organizer student responses – which allows them to review student work, write individualized comments, answer student questions, and share and develop instructional mini-lessons based on student work.

Project organizers support classroom instruction to ensure success for all students.

Participants in this workshop will:

Explore:

• Explore web-based project organizers which have been used by students
• Review completed organizers – actual student responses and teacher comments
• Review the process involved in creating the organizers.

Design:

Working in small groups, participants will develop plans for project organizers using the following process. 

• Planning (Brainstorming)
• Writing
• Storyboarding
• Student response
• Identification and/or creation of media
• Identification of culminating activities and assessments
• Preparation for the web…

Going Live:

Depending on level of expertise, students will be provided html templates into which they may integrate their work. Coding will be wrapped around the templates by Sarah to create the Project Organizers.  Alternatively, all work may be designed in a Word Document.  The Word document will be re-worked for the web by Sarah.

Background

The Web-Based Project Organizer application was designed and developed by Sarah Chauncey to support her work as a School Library Media Specialist.  She continues to upgrade and maintain the application and database which stores and serves the project organizers for teacher and student use.  During the summer of 2006, she completed a major upgrade to support sharing of organizers amongst schools, classes, and teachers who are interested in using and adding to the Project Organizer database.