Collaborative Projects using Technology in my (future) classroom

I've been thinking about some ways I can create AUTHENTIC collaborative projects in my classroom when I begin teaching...

I will definitely want to set up a class wiki. I will put up problems to be worked on by groups or the entire class, where students can post their comments, questions, and solutions to the problems. Individual contributions to some of these might be for extra credit!

I would also post powerpoints or videos demonstrating some of the more complicated processes I did in class, as sometimes students need to see things more than once, and may pay attention better on their own watching a video than in the distracting classroom. As noted by Schrum and Levin (2009), today’s students are “digital natives” who are used to receiving their information and communication via technology (page 10). Presenting my lessons to them electronically might even be more effective than a classroom presentation. I would ask them to post or message me with any questions or ideas they had regarding my lessons (or of course, they could ask me at school). 

Later on, I would like to give the class a project to prepare a lesson themselves, using their choice of media- videos, powerpoints, whatever. When they have completed it, I would check it for accuracy then it could be posted publicly to allow other students to benefit from it. I would probably have several smaller groups create separate lessons, the whole class working on one lesson would be rather unwieldy.

I intend to try to maintain a connection to the “real world”, showing how the algebra or trig or geometry that we are learning has applications to problems and professions in the world outside the classroom. I would charge the students with the job of looking for connections (through internet searches, talking to adults in their lives, reading newspapers watching TV and more) and entering them on the wiki. The class would keep an ongoing list of connections, and could even connect the connections etc. I would also link to stories or articles that relate to the math we are doing, or have done, or even to math in general, to emphasize to the students that it IS part of everyday life.  I would encourage the students to also post links to any stories and articles they find that are relevant to math in the real world. Commenting on the links would also be strongly encouraged (and a good way for me to see who is actually reading the articles). If there were especially thought provoking articles we could get a good discussion going online.

All of these activities would correspond to one or more of the NETS-S Standards, and in fact in total these activities address ALL of them;  contributing to  the wiki and collaborating on group projects would address standards 1 ,2, 4 , and 6; researching information regarding math and professions on the Internet would meet standard 3; adhering to ethical standards of citations and credits would meet standard 5 (ISTE, 2007). These projects and activities would also meet the NETS-T 2008 Standards for Teachers (ISTE, 2008).

References-

Schrum, L & Levin, B (2009). Leading 21^st century schools. California: Corwin.

International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE). (2007). National Educational Technology Standards for Students (NETS-S). Retrieved from http://www.iste.org/standards/nets-for-students/nets-student-standards-2007.aspx

International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE). (2008). National Educational Technology Standards for Teachers (NETS-S). Retrieved from http://www.iste.org/standards/nets-for-teachers/nets-for-teachers-2008.aspx