I am posting this on behalf of Melissa: Betsy, Your Unit on Lifelong Learning was great I like the way you set up the introduction. This clearly stated your goals and objectives for the unit, and what outcomes you hoped for. You incorporated Web 2.0 Tools into your unit, such as Citrix Go-To-Meeting (which I have never heard of, and plan to look into further), GoogleDocs, GoogleSpreadsheets, GoogleReader, Delicious, and Blogger. Your unit was very detailed, with many activities. In the first lesson, group presentation, assessment was conducted using a rubric, provided in advance for students to follow. In Lesson Three, you used self assessment. Collaboration was used as a focus in your unit in order to create a constructivist learning environment. I think your Unit was great, but I was slightly confused during it. ! One random thing I noticed is that Andy's Presentation did not state AM or PM for the time. There was also a lot on each page, and I almost felt overwhelmed. Otherwise, you did a great job! Melissa

I am posting this on behalf of Melissa: Doug, I reviewed your first lesson in your Unit. I really like the way you incorporated the powerpoint into your presentation. It specifically detailed the goals of each activity in Lesson 1. Your lesson is on Web/Social Aggregators such as iGoogle. I like that you allow participants to log into your iGoogle, but I think they would benefit from creating one on their own. Your lesson also has three parts, of which only the first Activity seems to be detailed. Collaboration with others is mentioned, but never specifically detailed on how it will be conducted. The standards are detailed fully in your Unit Plan on task stream, but your implementation is confusing. I like your idea of teaching 21st century skills to teachers, but I think you could have incorporated more collaboration, web 2.0 tools, and assessment. I think you did a great job putting it all together, it just wasn't quite complete. Melissa

I am posting this on behalf of Melissa: Adrianna, In your unit, you included many web 2.0 tools such as: Blogger, Diigo, Google Docs, iGoogle, Twitter, Voice Thread, and Webspiration. In Lesson One, you incorporated Twitter for discussions. Group Discussions help create a connectivist structure to learning by allowing students to collaborate. You also had students create an iGoogle account, which allows them to create a central location for all of the tools required in the unit. A group blogger was also incorporated into the lesson. Students are asked to share the blog with the instructor and reflect what they learned, but it seemed the reflections were more individual than group. Your content on Dental Materials was well formed and you provided a lot of information, in very nice powerpoint presentations. It showed you put a lot of work into your unit. I feel you could have provided more assessment, but personal reflection is always a good form of assessment. I am somewhat confused on the blogger assignment, as it says to create a group blog, but the questions are more personal than group oriented. Melissa

The project definition page gives clear objectives and goals aligned to the standards. The unit is very organized and well written with attention paid to detail and clearly informing the participants. Some Web 2.0 tools are included in this unit including wiki capabilities and embedded media. I noticed that you had a Google Groups link on the sidebar, but you did not include Google Groups as a part of your unit. Google Sites as a wiki is acceptable for collaboration and discussion. You might consider creating pages for group work space or using some other social media tool. The links and forms are very useful to the learners. Evaluation rubrics are clear and well defined so that the participants can construct their projects successfully. Overall a well developed unit for students to understand news bias and how to conduct a video interview. A minor suggestion is to make your font consistent through the unit. The first page uses every large font, and the following pages do not have consistent font. There are also some pages that use different styles of font. The look and flow of the pages will be improved with the same size font throughout. Otherwise the rest of the unit looks and feels very professional and is organized well. You might also consider including some other tools that can help support connectivism. You might have students use Diigo to comment on or annotate links, they could use Delicious to find resources to share with their peers, or they could create their own wiki as their group space. I hope that you have an opportunity to use this unit, it sounds like a fun learning experience for the participants!

I don't think the article gives students enough credit. As teachers we have our students analyze various forms of media and students analysis will become more automatic for them. I do think that students are less likely to analyze the entertainment side of media.