These past couple weeks we’ve taken a trip back in time to 2 of the most complicated and deep periods in history. The Crusades and the Middle Ages. This certainly took a lot of work. The end goal was to have one good learning source that we could send to other students and have them critique it. Our driving question was: “How did people’s quest for power impact other peoples lives?”
This project started with a lot of videos. Seriously, I think there were 7 or 8. The first videos were from other teachers about what they look for in a good learning resource to present to their students. We then came up with a list from these videos and talked abut how we could incorporate them into our presentations. The list we came up with was:
-The information needs to be accurate
-The information needs to be interesting and compelling
-It cannot be biased
-There is lots of pictures as well as words
After this part of the project we watched lots of informational videos, mostly about how anybody who lived in the Middle Ages was almost certainly doomed. As we went along we did assignments and added them to a learning portfolio. I thought that this learning portfolio would be the presentation we would hand in. Turns out that it wasn’t and I spent 2 extra hours trying to get my writing neat for nothing. That was a bummer.
Once we finished our learning portfolio we put it together into a good copy. I think one of the hardest things for me was the pictures. Since we were publishing our projects we weren’t allowed to just pick pictures off the internet. Most people drew the images and did a great job of it. The only problem with that is that I am certainly not an artist. After was felt like 1,000,000 failed drawing attempts, I managed to find some images I could use off of Unsplash. I think that I did a really good job of problem-solving and adding it to my project.
Some other things that I did really well on is adding all of my information and putting it in a way that is interesting. It made my project more compelling. One thing that I could’ve done better on is proofreading. When we were finished our projects we had 3 people look over it. I had way to many spelling errors. If I had went through it before, my project probably would have made more sense.
Once we were finished that ginormous and complicated project in one week, we started on another one, just like the Middle Ages. The Crusades. Just like the Middle Ages we started by watching videos. We also had a lesson on religion and how they played a part in the Crusades. Unlike the Middle Ages, we don’t have nearly enough time to learn about them before we started on the project. The project of the Crusades was pretty much the same as the Middle Ages. Make the project, get peer critique, etc.
Another thing that I did well on is learning format the Middle Ages project. For example, the second project I didn’t have to go back and delete my images because I couldn’t publish them. One thing that I could have improved on is to take the peer critique more. A couple of times my friends gave me suggestions and I didn’t always take them. I think my project could’ve been better if I listened to other people more. Through this project I learned a lot not only about the Middle Ages and the Crusades, but about how to make a project ready to publish and making a good learning resource.