Final Project Idea

I am planning on writing a unit that incorporates technology into the reading of a play. I hope to make the unit available for use with multiple plays - meaning have the basic structure of the unit set, but be able to have it general enough to work with many plays. I think that this would be really good for the population of students that I currently work with. They do their best work when day to day structure is kept the same. I feel that if I use the same basic structure whenever I teach a drama unit, they will get used to the structure of the unit and be able to better understand the process.

For this final project, I will probably base my unit on the teaching of Macbeth. I hope to include the use of :Vlogs, Wikis, a webquest, and possibly a blog. I am (obviously) still learning the best way to incorporate these technologies, so I am not sure how I will use them yet or if I will change which technologies I will use. I am not yet sure how I will use digital note-taking. I liked the idea of using Inspiration, but am not yet sure where I will fit it in.

I have to admit that I probably have not used a database to search since I completed my undergrad/initial licensure programs back in 2004. I am pretty sure the database I used to use when searching was MNCAT. Unfortunately, that means I now rely a lot on Professor and Dr. Google to answer many of the questions that I come up with.

After last class, I now understand how bloglines could be a valuable tool in research. I liked that you could subscribe to a particular journal/magazine/etc. or you could ask that a particular topic's information find your way into your bloglines account. As far as determining the validity and credibility of the information, I guess I would first need to determine the validity and credibility of the site the material is coming from. I would have to say that I could do this by using the handout I give to my students when they are completing their research project. This rubric has you (the reader) rate multiple criteria on a scale from 1-5 to determine if it is a valid site. I will probably subscribe to many online newspapers and try to find some educator blogs/websites that I want to get updates from.