Fabulous Futures Blog

I have tried to incorporate everything I have learned about PBL and alternative assessment into creating a technology enhanced project for my Work and Education English course (upper secondary school).

I will be using my course orientation blog Espoo heart English! for schedules and instruction. I have already introduced the course requirements and outline to the class. They have agreed to all the hard work and seemed to understand the underlying notion which is that we are preparing for the future. The goal is to produce actual digital documents for the future that can be used for applying for jobs and to create a blog (project) to provide information to help us and others consider different career options. Using technology to create modern digital CVs that are available online was a concept that the students embraced. Especially since I could show them an example of my own digital portfolio.

During the course we will complete the following tasks:

1. Project task 1: 1 blog post (personality tests and dream careers) and 2 comments (introduction + peer evaluation)
2. Project task 2: 1 blog post (a CV on Prezi.com or personal blog) and 2 comments (introduction + peer evaluation)
3. Project task 3: 1 blog post (job ad and questions for an interview using Voki.com) and 2 comments (introduction + cover letter)

After the blog is finished, documents will be printed out and we will have job interviews in class (oral skills). I will be creating a separate rubric for this occasion.

I believe in the motivational aspect of having students' project work visible online for the world to see and comment. This also enables instructed constructive criticism (peer evaluation) and more interaction by commenting. I think the students will have their hands full. However, I believe in positive reinforcement and a rewarding experience through hard work. I am confident that they will succeed and we will have lots of fun together!

Having used rubrics before, I was well-aware of their influence on the quality of work regarding students. However, I had never tried Rubistar before, which is an extremely helpful online tool for writing rubrics and publishing them online (perfect for my blogs!). This time, I used Rubistar to clarify our project objectives. To create visually and intellectually captivating WebQuests, I used the original WebQuest Model and my own previous experience. Never before have I had so many web tools in one course - exciting!

You can take a look at what I have achieved so far at Fabulous Futures. I would love to hear your thoughts on the first task (project task 1) and the rubric (commenting). Please do not comment the blog itself, that is reserved for students only. Comment this blog post instead!