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"I knew where I wanted the question to lead but decided I was more committed to giving my students a voice than I was to accomplishing my project idea. I wanted our projects to be about "work that matters," but it needed to matter to the students not just me. I wanted their project-based learning to stem from their own empathy."

"At the Flat Classroom(tm) Conference in Doha, Qatar in January 2009, a visionary group of students proposed that a series of debates be held to promote awareness of racism on a global basis and how we need to work together to solve the world's problems. This multi-national group of four students proposed their project and were promoted through an extensive voting process including a global vote on the next project to be run by the Flat Classroom(tm) project founders, Vicki Davis and Julie Lindsay. "

Welcome to PBL-Online, a one stop solution for Project Based Learning! You'll find all the resources you need to design and manage high quality projects for middle and high school students.

"This classroom guide is intended to inspire and expand your thinking about effective assessment for project-based learning. The tips are organized to follow the arc of a project. First comes planning, then the launch into active learning, and then a culminating presentation. Reflection is the final stage. Download this today and get started! "

"Perhaps the most difficult aspect of project-based learning for me was figuring out how I was going to assess it. I'm sure some teachers love assessing and marking student work, but honestly, I'm uncomfortable with most grading and scoring. I appreciate feedback and I don't mind giving feedback, but I hate reducing it to a letter, number, or score. To me, it undervalues the learning."

"Once the students had selected a topic from our over-arching theme of civil/human rights, and I had a rubric, it was time for the real work to begin. We started our project-based learning by making a list on the board of things we know about the topic followed by a list of things we "need to know." Basically, we completed the K and W of our KWL chart (PDF)."

"I decided to use the teacher console on Diigo to create groups for each of my classes. I used handouts and tips from Bill Ferriter's Digitally Speaking Wiki to get everything set up and explain to the student how I wanted them to find, annotate, and share resources and information. (I highly recommend Bill's resources. They saved me a ton of time.) The students had used Diigo for research on a project during a previous school year so I thought with Bill's handouts and the boys' previous experience we were in good shape to begin. I soon learned differently. We have a 1:1 laptop classroom and the boys have a natural tendency to head straight to Google any time they have a question, but it was obvious after the first day that they weren't finding the quality resources they needed. Additionally, some boys still didn't know (or forgot) how to share to a group while others didn't know how to write a quality annotation. I had assumed too much. They needed what Mike Kaechele calls a "teacher workshop" on searching for information and on how to use Diigo. They needed me to model what they should do."

Powerful Learning Projects - networked sharing and learning

The Spring Branch ISD 21st Century Learning Initiative is the professional development plan that drives and supports the Classroom-Based Technology Project. The Classroom-Based Technology Project places devices for student use into all Spring Branch classsrooms in Pre-K through 12th grade.

This resource is the collaborative effort of a group of experienced educators and entrepreneurs who have united to share their experience and ideas, and create a project geared toward making learning relevant to life in our new digital age. Our purpose is to develop exceptional resources to assist in transforming learning to be relevant to life in the 21st Century.

"The Buck Institute for Education commissioned the cutting-edge advertising agency, Common Craft, to create a short animated video that explains in clear language the essential elements of Project Based Learning (PBL). This simple video makes the essential elements of PBL come alive and brings to light the 21st Century skills and competencies (collaboration, communication, critical thinking) that will enable K-12 students to be college and work-ready as well as effective members of their communities."

"Writing appropriate emails is part of being a good digital citizen! Students (even digital natives) are not born with knowing the rules and responsibilities. Just as they need to learn to answer and talk on the phone, they need to learn about e-mail writing in an academic setting (to their teachers, Skype partners, project collaborators, administration or their classmates regarding school business)."

"Educurious™ is on a mission to reduce our nation's high school dropout rates. Our project-based curriculum connects students to real issues they care about and equips them with the lifelong learning skills for success."

Project by Skype to connect teachers with each other and with experts

"ePals is the leading provider of safe collaborative technology for schools to connect and learn in a protected, project-based learning network. With classrooms in 200 countries and territories, ePals makes it easy to connect learners locally, nationally or internationally."

"We want a team to think about action research as a collaborative endeavor, where principals and teachers work together to improve something over time. It's not just about gathering data, it's about working hard to improve something. Maybe you see a need to improve writing in the building, and you're going to figure out whether there's a way to take a techno-constructivist approach to strengthening students' writing skills. Maybe you feel the culture of your school is very mired in antiquated approaches to teaching and learning, and you want to build a new culture of innovation and collaboration, so you're going to develop your project around that goal."