Considering the E-Learning Project: Early Musings

As I understand this project, and based on some of the examples provided, the project should be useful to us and utilize principles we have explored in this course.  It is early, however, so I’m sure that, as did my MMP, the following idea will need serious revision.  As a writer, this comes as no surprise; the best writing is re-writing!

Last spring, I presented for the first time at the New Jersey Teachers of English (NJCTE) conference.  Using the project I developed in the “Using Digital Tools” course, I shared my work with book clubs and reader response —how technology could enhance both.  We worked with a social justice theme, and the presentation had Poll Everywhere and many links that, once shared, the audience members could use in their classrooms.  (Several contacted me and actually did so or are doing so this year.)  I want to present again this spring, and that is what my e-learning project will be geared toward this audience, a community of like-minded professionals.

Our focus this year is environmental justice.  I have linked my class webpage here, so you can see the essential questions that guide our inquiry in the navigation.  This year I will be tackling an inter-disciplinary unit with the eighth grade science teacher.  For those unfamiliar with the Next Generation Science Standards, it is important to note that inter-disciplinary projects (cross-curricular work), becomes even more important with the NGSS.  The students will be working with the crosscutting concepts delineated in this Teaching Channel video.  All seven of the concepts, particularly, cause/effect, stability and change, structure and function, and system and system models can be explored through this literature approach.  Our class Google site captures the essence of this with the questions about human impact and our ability to be agents of change.

I see the e-learning project exploring the genre of dystopia, the analysis of the literature, as well as the science issues such as over-population, sustainability, waste management, energy conservation, pollution, as well as accommodating the 2016 ISTE Standards in terms of the students’ independent work based on their understandings.  By the time I present in May, I will also have student samples and design projects that the students will have completed (in science and ELA classes) to address a specific environmental concern (NGSS: human impact) to share with my audience.  Hopefully, this project will demonstrate the marriage of science, reading, and language arts, as well as the affordances of technology in facilitating creation.

I have embedded several of my resources above.  In addition, studying dystopian literature provides a lens to explore this topic. I apologize for the inchoate explanation of this project; I am still sorting it out.