The goal of these learning projects to help develop our growth mindset and to foster a love of learning.
Based on our ability to access and share knowledge online in a learning network not limited to the knowledge within four walls of a classroom, you will choose something significant that you would like to learn, and you will share your progress openly on your school board blogger account. The ‘something’ might be an instrument, a language, a sport or almost anything that requires a sustained effort.
There will be a minimum of 2 learning projects completed this school year. You should be prepared to share your progress on your project once a month with me, so devote time to document your learning often.
Recommended guidelines:
- The skill you choose to learn should be something that is relatively new to you, challenging to learn, worth learning, and of great interest to you.
- Online sources must be used to learn the skill (e.g., videos, text resources, podcasts, etc.), but face-to-face resources (e.g., community members) should be sought where possible to support your learning.
- You should be blogging weekly about your progress and documenting your learning journey. Blog posts should include images, videos that show your progress, videos that you create to teach others about your skills, links to the places you are learning from, and reflections on the process of learning online (including critiques of the sources you are using).
- Share your progress openly through your blogger.
Since this project is to develop a growth mindset and to foster a love of learning, the evaluation of the project is based on your regular and consistent documentation of your learning; I recommend that this include a before and after assessment (e.g. videos, reflections, pictures etc that demonstrate your level of mastery at the beginning and end of your learning journey. Weekly blog posts documenting your progress might include images and videos that demonstrate your learning; how-to videos or “manuals” that you have created to teach others about your skills; links to the places you have learned from; and reflections on the process of learning online (including critiques of the sources used). You will not be evaluated on the final outcome/product but rather on how your project demonstrates your understanding and effective use of social media (YouTube, Twitter,etc) or open educational resources for learning, your ability to use technology to support and document the learning and the documentation of the process of learning (your struggles, your reflections and feedback to guide your personal growth).