Music Festival Webquest (Standard 2, Goal 2)
To be taken to the Music Festival Webquest, click here. If prompted for a password, type in "spartans".
Artifact Commentary
This Webquest was created in the summer of 2010 during my CEP 811 class. Previously, I had no experience in creating Webquests and was not even familiar with the term. This Webquest was designed for my “History of Rock ‘n Roll” class, taught at the high school level. It has since become a project that I do every year and has yielded some of my most creative assessments.
This artifact is anchored in the second Standard as well as the second Goal. To first speak of the Goal, this project represents a large expanding of my pedagogical knowledge. In a way, this assignment forced me to use the TPACK framework before I was familiar with it. Though modified since it’s original inception, the Webquest represents an early effort to meaningfully incorporate technology into an existing curriculum. Previously, I had tried to teach the importance of events like Woodstock, Altamont, and the Monterrey Pop Festival with traditional lecture and note-taking. I found that I could not get students to understand the large scale effect of the music festival or appreciate the planning and efforts needed to undertake such a project. Consequently, students are now required to come up with their own festival. In the two semesters of it’s inclusion, I have had a wide array of projects turned in, from audio samples of participating bands, to food samples from made up sponsors, and even had a student create an independent website for their festival.
This Webquest is a prime example of my efforts to teach subject matter in a different manner in order to better foster students’ understanding, the major theme with the second Standard. Inherent within the assignment and the fact that I still use it is a little of Standard four, as I continually modify it’s delivery to improve student success. Within the Webquest, students are asked to use different pathways to find information and to make sure that everything they do (recruit sponsors, sign bands, etc.) find it’s way into the “big idea”.
This artifact is anchored in the second Standard as well as the second Goal. To first speak of the Goal, this project represents a large expanding of my pedagogical knowledge. In a way, this assignment forced me to use the TPACK framework before I was familiar with it. Though modified since it’s original inception, the Webquest represents an early effort to meaningfully incorporate technology into an existing curriculum. Previously, I had tried to teach the importance of events like Woodstock, Altamont, and the Monterrey Pop Festival with traditional lecture and note-taking. I found that I could not get students to understand the large scale effect of the music festival or appreciate the planning and efforts needed to undertake such a project. Consequently, students are now required to come up with their own festival. In the two semesters of it’s inclusion, I have had a wide array of projects turned in, from audio samples of participating bands, to food samples from made up sponsors, and even had a student create an independent website for their festival.
This Webquest is a prime example of my efforts to teach subject matter in a different manner in order to better foster students’ understanding, the major theme with the second Standard. Inherent within the assignment and the fact that I still use it is a little of Standard four, as I continually modify it’s delivery to improve student success. Within the Webquest, students are asked to use different pathways to find information and to make sure that everything they do (recruit sponsors, sign bands, etc.) find it’s way into the “big idea”.
