Fireside Reflections

The recently completed “Fireside Chat” project seemed to be a success. It will need a few tweaks for next year as the “State of the Union Project” but things went well overall. My students procrastinated in a big way and many were afraid of Audacity as a program to use.

Once the sat down and used it they were amazed at how easy it was to create their assignments. Most were looking forward to creating more assignments this way, which they will have the opportunity to do.

I had a large number of students use webcams or cell phones to create their projects which was fine, I learned a lot about the cell technology from them. The technology will be another form they can use if their do not have access to updated computer technology.

The major change will be to set a cut-off date for helping them record in school. It will be especially important if CFF funds are cut off next year, since that would probably not give me any free time to work with students one on one. I can help them turn in projects the day they are due, but recording must be completed in advance.

Overall, the students did seem to enjoy creating a project like this rather than writng an essay. Most of the projects were of a good quality, only a few were “ast minute just to hand something in” types of projects, which unfortunately occurs with any type of project.