Grade 8 Cell Projects

Three classes of grade 8's recently visited the library in order to complete a research project for science class. They were learning about various types of cells. Students were expected to work with a partner to research a particular type of cell and then create a presentation which would explain their learning to other students in their class.

Mr. Warr and I worked to coordinate class time for students to complete the projects. I then helped Mr. Warr to introduce the project. We discussed with the students the importance of taking good jot notes so that the information would be easy to utilize when creating their presentations. Students were given several options for creating their presentations. Some utilized PowerPoint or the free version of PowerPoint called Open Office. Most decided to utilize PowerPoint. Students were required to completed a project in which they researched the life cycle, and the anatomy of a particular cell.

They utilized our digital library, print resources from our non-fiction collection and also other websites from the internet. For this project Mr. Warr and myself decided to use the mobile WiFi cart. We learned a great deal during the implementation of this project about the use of our mobile cart. Here at Lagerquist our mobile WiFi cart contains 12 iPads and 12 Netbooks. Students can access and use the cart in their classrooms. At first the use of the cart for research was difficult to master. Mr. Warr is admittedly not tech savvy and required a considerable amount of assistance with in utilizing the cart for the completion of their projects. The iPads were more awkward to use because the could not utilize PowerPoint on the iPads so we had to coordinate who was using which device. Also, the Prezi app on the iPad did not have many of the capabilities of the desktop version of Prezi so this made it difficult for students to utilize. However the students and myself worked around these limitations and overall the projects were very successful. We have learned that there are limitations to the usefulness of the iPads. The Netbooks are certainly useful for certain types of assignments and the iPads have their place in the creative realm for producing things like music, videos, photography and certainly surfing the web. The most effective projects were completed using Prezi. I've included a link to this Web 2.0 tool here. I've also added this little YouTube video that explains how Prezi works. It's a fantastic tool.