Curriculum Project

Introduction

As classroom teachers, you are already curriculum experts. This project is intended to help you focus on how the Internet can be used to enhance or extend a particular curriculum objective.

This project is NOT about creating materials to teach students about the Internet or the Web. However, you may want to include tasks that help students reflect on how using the Internet is different or better or worse than other ways they could have done the project.

This project is NOT about gathering a list of Internet resources for students and pointing them at them without direction.

This project IS about attacking one or more curriculum objectives and bringing Internet resources to bear on it. In fact, you may have curriculum plans that you use already that could be adapted to make use of the Internet.

Requirements

Your web-based curriculum project should attack an important curriculum objective. The unit should last anywhere from a few days to several weeks. However, you can set this up so that students use this at intervals over the school year.

You can use any format that is clear and seems appropriate to you. A number of models have been or will be reviewed in class. If you use the WebQuest format and recommended templates, you should be able to meet all of the requirements of the project by using the elements correctly. Remember to check your WebQuest against the rubric, A Rubric for Evaluating WebQuests.

Your project must include at least one Web page specifically designed for students. Parts of your projects should be on separate web pages to make it easier to use. Some tips on how to make sure your webpages are clean and clear can be found at http://projects.edtech.sandi.net/staffdev/tpss99/finepoints/index.htm.

Your project must include the following on a separate teacher page. (All of these are included in the teacher page templates for WebQuests.)

A statement of purpose clearly defining the target audience, subject area, and specific curriculum objectives linked to the standards.
An explanation of how network resources will be used by the students and by a teacher who may want to use this.
A management plan for carrying out the project including an explanation of how your students will have access to the Internet. (This does not have to be based on fact.)

You can take a look at some sample projects by viewing the projects from earlier classes

*Scoring Rubric*
	Poor	Good	Excellent
Objectives	Objectives and links to standards are missing or vague.	Objectives and links to standards are stated.	Objectives are clearly stated and directly linked to the appropriate standards. Variations are provided to stress different standards.
Student Work	Student activities are trivial and require only knowledge and comprehension.	Student work requires some higher order thinking but the project can be completed without demonstrating synthesis or evaluation.	Student work requires higher order thinking as appropriate to their developmental level. To be successful, students must synthesize and evaluate.
Network Resources	Few resources are available.	Multiple resources are used but all are of the same level or interest area.	Multiple resources are available for different interest areas and ability levels. Resources are varied and all are of high quality.
Uses of the Internet	Internet use is limited to following links and reading information from pages.	Students use Internet resources for research and some communication.	The Internet is essential to the project and is used in a variety of ways that capitalize on unique properties of the Internet, such as immediacy, international communication or access to experts or collaborators.
Classroom Management	Directions to the teacher are vague or activities make it difficult to use the lesson with a whole class.	Directions are clear but all of students time is not accounted for.	Directions to the teacher are clear and make good use of all students' time.
Quality of Web Pages	Pages are poorly laid out making it difficult to follow. Graphics and/or links don't work properly.	Pages work properly, but lack some element to set them apart such as use of color or graphics or placement of elements on the page.	Pages are clean and clear. All links work. Color and graphics enhance the pages.