Let's BUILD Something!

So recently I have been working with my colleagues at school more and more frequently. The value in collaboration is becoming more and more clear to me; not only for the purposes of bouncing ideas off one another, but also because two people can work together to create one final, master project. This mindset, along with the advice of one of my fellow teachers, really got me thinking...

With the ideas/concepts of research, creation, and collaboration in mind, I would like my students to create a website that offers real, meaningful information to anyone with access to the world wide web! The idea is not originally mine, but I absolutely LOVE it. What better way to engage graduating seniors than creating a website that will be forever online?

So, after I got to seriously thinking about this project and possibly implementing it, I began to plan out how it would look from a teaching perspective. I figure that I will have to group the students into 4 - 5 person groups - thus, divvying up the work - in which each group will be responsible for a certain area of the topic. For instance, if we were going to create a website that will provide supplementary information for high school students reading Shakespeare's "Hamlet," one group may be assigned the history of Hamlet, another the plot and characters in Hamlet, another the Art and Literature influenced by Hamlet, and so on. This idea is obviously still in the early stages, but my goal - as a of right now - is to implement this project by the end of next year.

It is important for me to mention that the original creator of this idea had his students create a wiki-space. I am not too familiar with wiki-spaces and their functionality, but I plan to become acquainted with wiki-spaces and possibly choose to do that. We shall see!!

The big idea about this whole thing is that the students will be researching with a purpose and collaborating with their peers. In our district, I have noticed, many students tend to not care so much about the information as long as they pass. This may be an alternative to get around this attitude. And collaboration is always a great way to engage all students in the learning process.

I'll keep you posted. No, No... I will keep posting.

Go Phils!