MMP Proposal

Multimedia Montage Project Proposal

Background:

      Having done a lot of my graduate school work online, I know how valuable it can be for students to learn in a nontraditional setting.  It forces students to work on their schedule and learn how to complete assignments without having a teacher as a watchdog.  This is important for students to learn before they enter college when they become much more independent and responsible for getting their assignments done.  For some, entering college is already a very overwhelming experience.  Going from a traditional classroom to either a class that only meets twice a week or not at all can cause students to not do well in their courses.  Helping students adjust to completing work online can help make this transition a little bit less stressful.

Purpose/Goals:

Helping students feel comfortable with online learning is one goal.  Another will be to get them more comfortable with assignments that are not traditional papers, but instead learn how to use multimedia programs.  There will also be a resource section for teachers to help them feel comfortable using multimedia themselves.

Rationale/Summary:

Online learning is becoming more and more prevalent as more universities offer students the option for various reasons.  Online learning gives students flexibility to complete their work at their own pace.  For some, the adjustment is simple, however, for others it can be a bit of a challenge especially coming straight out of high school where every class is structured.  This project will also help educators who want to learn more about multimedia tools that they can use in the classroom.  By becoming comfortable with different media tools, they can share that information with students as well.  Teachers can become comfortable enough with the tools that they can pass along their learned information to students.  Students can then create their own projects using the tools and gain experience of working online and submitting assignments online.

Audience:

The audience of this project is high school teachers and upperclassmen in high school.  The goal of this project is to help students feel more comfortable entering college.  Seniors and juniors should have some experience working with computers so they should be comfortable with getting onto the website.  I hope to collect data from both students and teachers informing me if this website was useful for them.  I would also want to ask students if this made them feel more comfortable with online learning.

Overview of Instructional Plan:

My learning objective is to help students with the transition from high school to college.  I also hope that teachers can use the website as a resource to help their students with this process as well.  I plan on using Adobe Spark to create a website that features instructional videos, photos, and reviews from other students and educators on different programs and methods of learning.  By creating a community, it will also allow students to connect with one another and discuss what they are nervous about.  For teachers, it will allow them to look over programs that have been used by other teachers and see what they like and would use again and what they recommend avoiding.

Technological Tools:

I plan on using Blogger to host the website.  Blogger is a great place for creating various pages and supports multimedia very well. It is important to create a feeling of community where people can also talk to one another and Blogger allows for comments sections where can people interact and ask questions.  I will also use Adobe Spark to create graphics for the site that will help people visualize the concepts.  Students will be able to learn about these programs and then go and try them out for themselves.   Teachers can then set up a drop box or some other way for students to submit their online assignments like they would in an online class  I would also set up a Wikispaces so teachers can get a clear look at how much students understand and contributed.  . I would also include screencasts for some of the programs to help first time users navigate through the different program options.

Learned Theories/ Principles:

I will try to keep my project simple and easy to follow.  I will keep everything organized so that there is no cause for confusion on my end.  Allowing students and teachers to communicate will also help by allowing them to ask each other questions and gain knowledge from their personal experience.  This can be extremely helpful for students and/or teachers who are a bit apprehensive about online learning.  These exchanges are using collaborative skills which is also very important to understanding online learning.  With teachers and students from different backgrounds and subjects, this will promote cross-curriculum skills.

Timeline:

Now-2/28: conduct research through online surveys on how high school teachers are currently incorporating online learning in their classrooms and how students are responding to it

3/1-3/10: create the website and start adding graphics and videos while completing the first project update

3/11-4/6: record additional screencasts and implement a social feature so teachers and students can communicate with one another

4/7: receive peer feedback to better my project

4/8-4/23: after receiving peer feedback, work on finishing up everything and completing the project