Planning for the Third Trimester

As I enter the third trimester of classes, I like to reflect on what I've accomplished in each grade and what I want to make sure we accomplish by the end of May. This month, I am including my students in the review and planning.

Revisiting September

In September, I started classes by introducing the students in sixth through eighth grade to ISTE NETS for Students. I think it is essential to get the students thinking about the goals of their computer education and assist in evolving the program. I am trying this for the first time with my seventh grade students and hope to go through the process with the sixth and eighth graders. 

The first step was to review the ISTE NETS. I introduced our New Jersey State standards which are based on the ISTE standard. The students have existing work groups. Each group received a short list of projects that we've completed to date (see Project List below).

Small Group Work

The group is dividing the standards into three parts: state standards, first three NETS, second three NETS. A group leader goes through the project one part at a time. The students search and determine what goals they believe they met through the project. They are recording their selections with x's in a spreadsheet.

Individual Work

The individual portion of the work involves creating a personal reflection in a word processor. I am trying to review old skills and introduce some new skills. This provides a great vehicle for content. 

The students will create a "proper" heading with ONE tab set following the school's guidelines. They will indent their paragraphs using the hanging paragraph setting and the ruler. There will be one short paragraph per project. They will reflect on what they felt they learned through the project, what they liked, and what they did not like about the project. They will write a final paragraph telling me what type of project they would most like to work on next with a specific example and tell what standards we would be meeting through the project. The paragraph will be double-spaced with proper spacing between words and after punctuation marks. It is to be proofread for good spelling and grammar.

Whole Group Reflection

We will end the process with a group reflection on projects suggested by the students and choose at least one project to complete in the last trimester of school. I am hoping to find great value in the process and continue to do this every year.

Project List

Project 1
A. Learn to create and animate a fish and your choice of animation.
B. Choose your license from: copyright, creative commons, and public domain.

Project 2
A. Practice creating citations for the Daughters of the American Revolution essay resources.

Project 3
A. Create “Something You Probably Don’t Know About Me” presentation.
B. Present your presentation to the group.

Project 4
A. Create “Evidence of Advent” photos and select photo for iMovie. If you did not assist in this project, explain what project you were completing and why it took you extra time.

Project 5
A. Discussion about “What To Do If You Find Upsetting Information on the Internet”.(Boys/Girls)

Project 6
A. Create Dice, Country, and Donation Spreadsheets.
B. Write Country and Donation Analysis.

Project 7
A. Learn to determine who was responsible for the DAR web sites.
B. Determine in small group and present to whole class on the value of the information on a selected web site.
C. Write a letter to the creator(s) of your web site.

Image Citation:
Photo (c) 2011 Ann Oro.

Web Site Evaluation Sixth Grade

I am working on the concept of web site evaluation. Last year I found a web site evaluation webquest by Joyce Valenza. The link I had no longer works or I would reference it here. I want to document the process as I prepare to do the exercise with the year's sixth grade students.

Teacher Pre-Work

I had a list of links to dinosaur web pages on last year's wiki page. I checked the links to make sure they still worked and then copied and pasted the wiki page for this year's class. As I reflected on what we accomplished last year, I removed a link for Barney and added three web sites. The Barney web site was too childish.


Next I break the class into multiple groups of four team members: content specialist, authority/credibility specialist, bias/purpose specialist, and usability/design specialist. Since I did not have a multiple of four students, I added the additional students to the authority/credibility team.

Introducing the Project

I will have two groups of eight students examine six web sites. Last year, I explained every project job to the whole class. This year, I will only give a thorough explanation to the specialists. The specialists, in turn, will present their new knowledge to the whole class when we have a whole group discussion. I am doing this because the current seventh grade did not seem to retain much of what I thought they had learned last year.

Jobs - Content Specialist 

These students will look at their six assigned sites and determine if the content would be valuable for sixth grade students writing a research report on dinosaurs. They will try to determine if the information is comprehensive and accurate. They will compare the sites and decide which has something unique to offer the reader. If there are links, they will try to determine if they provide additional worthwhile content. They will determine if the information was recently updated or old. Finally, they will decide if the information on this web site might be as good as or better than an encyclopedia or other printed book.

Jobs - Authority/Credibility Specialist 

These students will learn to truncate the URL and try to determine who is the owner of the web site. They will find out if the content has sources sited or documented. I will teach the students about domain names (.com, .edu., .net, .org, .gov) and help them think about how this might lead them to think about the authority or credibility of the site. They will learn about personal web pages and the ~ in a URL. Finally, they will learn to use the advanced search to find out who links to the web page.

Jobs - Bias/Purpose Specialist 

These students will try to determine why the site was created. They will also learn about domain names and try to find out how the information may or may not be biased. They will look for hidden messages such as people trying to sell dinosaur toys. I will be having them focus on three questions: Are there facts or opinions on the web site? Are people trying to sell something? Is the web site trying to entertain? 

Jobs - Usability/Design Specialist

These students will scour the site to determine if the information is user-friendly: are there dead links, is the content well labeled, and can they find their way back to the main page easily. The students will look for misspelled words and grammatical errors. They will evaluate whether the site seems cluttered or if the links within the site are broken.


I have two handouts to assist the students in their jobs. I've placed them on my resource wiki. 

Student Group Discussion

Following the individual web site review, each specialist ranks the web sites from 1 (best) to 6 (worst). The specialists then get together as a group of four. They go through each web site and share with each other the positive and negative aspects of the pages. As a group, they group rank the sites from 1 to 6. The students will share the best site and the worst site of the six they reviewed to the entire class.

Group Debriefing

This year, I will have the specialists come up in pairs and explain to the group, as a whole, what they learned to look for when deciding on the worthiness of a web site. Hopefully this group debriefing will help the students retain the lesson in a way that I did not last year.