Project+Tools

= Project Tools =

Here are the tools that are used during the project

**1. Needs Analysis Survey:** The Needs Analysis Survey is taken at the beginning of any new experience to find out the skills you already have and and your needs that can be improved throughout this experience. This survey includes four parts: personal information, basic internet skills, creating & using Wikis, and writing essays skills. To view this survey and its results, please visit **this page**.

 **2. Rubrics:**

Heidi Goodrich, a rubrics expert, defines a rubric as "a scoring tool that lists the criteria for a piece of work or 'what counts.'" So a rubric for a multimedia project will list the things the student must have included to receive a certain score or rating. Rubrics help the student figure out how their project will be evaluated. Goodrich quotes a student who said he didn't much care for rubrics because "if you get something wrong, your teacher can prove you knew what you were supposed to do."

Generally rubrics specify the level of performance expected for several levels of quality. These levels of quality may be written as different ratings (e.g., Excellent, Good, Needs Improvement) or as numerical scores (e.g., 4, 3, 2, 1) which are then added up to form a total score which then is associated with a grade (e.g., A, B, C, etc). Many rubrics also specify the level of assistance (e.g., Independently, With Minimal Adult Help; With Extensive Adult Help) for each quality rating.

Rubrics can help students and teachers define "quality". Rubrics can also help students judge and revise their own work before handing in their assignments. During this project, there are many rubrics used. Here is a list of them: 
 * [[file:Wiki Rubric.doc]]
 * [[file:Wiki Page Rubric.doc]]
 * [[file:PPT Presentation Rubric.doc]]
 * [[file:Brochure Rubric.doc]]
 * [[file:Podcast Rubric.doc]]
 * [[file:Video Rubric.doc]]
 * [[file:Glog-Rubric.doc]]
 * [[file:Facebook Rubric.doc]]
 * [[file:Collaborative skills Rubric.doc]]
 * [[file:Community Service Rubric.doc]]

**3. Students' Wiki Guide:**

Wiki is one of the web 2.0 tools. It improves not only collaboration and cooperation among students, but also their writing, reading, and higher thinking skills, e.g., analysing, evaluating and creating. The most important skill that I care about here is how to make their own tools. They are expected to create their wiki, or pages from scratch. That's why I prepared this **GUIDE**. Students will find all instructions of how to design their pages from creating account in Wikispaces.com to the final stage where they publish their work.
 * **Creating an account in wikispaces.com**
 * **Creating a wiki**
 * **Signing in and joining our wiki**
 * **Editing your page**
 * **Searching for information**
 * **Searching for and inserting images**
 * **Searching for and inserting Videos**
 * **Commenting on others' pages & sending messages**

To download this guide, please click the following file: 

<span style="color: #0000ff; display: block; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 120%; text-align: left;">** 4. Example to Follow: ** <span style="color: #0000ff; display: block; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 120%; text-align: left;"> <span style="color: #0000ff; display: block; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 120%; text-align: left;"> <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">The question is what strategy could be followed to achieve the objectives of this project. From the first sight, you can say “**It is a web-based learning**” where students learn according to their pace of learning. Actually, this is the ultimate goal that we wish to achieve in our schools. However, teachers still play a vital role in their students’ learning not as a dominant, but as a guide or a **scaffolder**. <span style="color: #000000; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%; text-align: justify;">The term “Scaffold” is taken from the construction field. It means a temporary structure that physically supports workers while they complete jobs that would otherwise be impossible; when the work has finished, the scaffold is removed **(De Antonio & Troncoso, 2008: 221)**. In the educational setting, scaffolding can be defined “as a temporary assistance that teachers provide novice learners to enable them to achieve new skills and understandings that they would not be able to manage by themselves, which is in the same way that builders use scaffolding to support new buildings. Scaffolding can be viewed as a way of supporting the learner to perform a task but this type of support is temporary. Once they are able to perform a task successfully and independently, the support from their teacher is withdrawn” **(Le, 2010: 12)**. <span style="color: #000000; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">One of the scaffolds’ types is “**Modeling**”. I have selected to give my students a model with all the features I want and then I let them to do their own pages. This doesn’t mean that they must imitate such model and become stereo-typed learners. **This model **has been designed just for guiding them while they are working. It includes three parts. The first part is a short bio about the writer. The second part is about “Karnak Temple”. There are many topics discussed in a previous meeting with students. Among them are temples, mosques, churches, cities, hotels, restaurants, people, food, airports, … etc. The third part is about one's opinion about the topic or impression about the project.

** 5. Quizzes: **
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">During this project, two types of assessment used: formative and summative. The most important of them is the fomative.This assessment is part of instruction designed to provide crucial feedback for teachers and students. Assessment results inform the teacher of what has been taught well and not so well. They inform students of what they have learned well and not learned so well. As opposed to a summative assessment designed to make judgments about student performance and produce grades, the role of a formative assessment is to improve learning. As opposed to benchmark tests that are used to predict student performance on other tests (most often state assessments), formative assessments are intimately connected to instruction. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">**F****ormative assessments are:** <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">**For Learning** — The purpose of formative assessment is to enhance learning not to allocate grades. Summative assessments are designed to allocate grades. The goal of formative assessment is to improve; summative assessment to prove.
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">**Embedded in Instruction** — Formative assessments are considered a part of instruction and the instructional sequence. What students are taught is reflected in what they are assessed.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">**They produce:** > <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">One of the tools that can be used as a formative assessment is the Quizzes. They are interactive and enjoyable for students. During this project, two quizzes (How to use Wikis & About Egypt) are designed to check students' progress. **[|QuizRevolution]** is used to create such quizzes. To take them, please **<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 130%;">click here **.
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">**Non-threatening Results —** Formative assessments are scored but not graded. Students mark their own work and are encouraged to raise questions about the assessment and the material covered by the assessment.
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">**Direct and Immediate Feedback —** Results of formative assessments are produced “on the spot;” teachers and students get them immediately. Teachers get a view of both individual and class performances while students learn how well they have done.
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">**Structured Information —** Teachers can judge success and plan improvements based on the formative results. Students can see progress and experience success. Both teachers and students learn from the assessment results.
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">**Ways to Improve —** Summarized formative results provide a basis for the teacher to re-visit topics in the unit if necessary. Individual student responses provide a basis for giving students additional experiences in areas where they performed less well.

** 6. Certificates: **


<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">One of the summative assessment tools that is used in this project is offring certificates for students. These certificates are created using the MS Word. To view these certificates, please **<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 130%;">click here **.

<span style="color: #0000ff; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">**Resoures:**

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 * <span style="color: #000000; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">De Antonio, A. & Troncoso, B. (2008). Scaffolding tutoring strategy on virtual environments for training. **__Ingeniare__**, 16 (2), 220-231.
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;"> Le, T. (2010). Learning lexical collocations with concordancing and scaffolding. Published Master’s Thesis. Faculty of Arts, University of Groningen. Available online at: **__ http://scripties.let.eldoc.ub.rug.nl/ FILES/ [|root/Master/DoorstroomMasters/ToegepasteTaalwetens/2010/Le/MA_1938851_T_H_Le.pdf__] __** . Retrieved on June 23, 2011.