Introduce the Right Tools at the Right Time
Think about the various tools you have considered for your PBL tool kit. Now ask yourself: Does everyone need to be proficient in using this tool or application? Or is this an opportunity for students to make choices and specialize in using different tools?
If you’re introducing a tool that everyone will need to use, consider a technology playground where students can explore and teach each other. Set up stations, with each one featuring a device or app that students will use in the project—an online database at one station, a note-taking app at another, video basics or a blog somewhere else. If you know that some students are already proficient in using these tools, enlist them as facilitators.
To help students review tool basics, create screencasts (with Screencastify or Explain Everything). Better yet, have students produce these how-to resources to demonstrate their proficiency.
Project Example 1.
Two teachers from Elizabethton High School in Tennessee challenged their students to produce original stories about community history for the NPR Podcast Challenge. During the first weeks of the project, students spent little time using technology. Instead, teachers guided them to ask probing questions and investigate potential topics (developing their understanding of how historians operate) and think critically about the qualities of effective storytelling (addressing language arts standards). As topics came into sharper focus, student teams began conducting interviews and crafting scripts. It wasn’t until the last week of the project that students were introduced to editing software (in this case, an open-source tool called Audacity). None of the students had used the software before. One of the teachers gave a quick demonstration, pointed students to tutorial videos, offered help for anyone who needed it, and turned them loose. Three days later, their podcasts were ready--and one team wound up winning the national contest!
A team of early elementary teachers from Zurich, Switzerland, were implementing a project about animal adaptations. The final product was going to be a pop-up natural history museum where students would share their exhibits about the small critters they had observed in local habitats. To support students’ choices as exhibit designers, teachers offered workshops on using different materials and techniques. One teacher gave lessons in making models with a variety of hands-on materials. Another, proficient in using digital tools, offered a session on integrating sound and video effects into exhibit design. “As teachers, we could divide and conquer,” one of the teachers reflected later. Another commented on the student agency that resulted from the experience: “If you’re only in your class, there’s a tendency to do the project the way your teacher guides it. By having kids make choices, there was less likelihood of the teacher controlling the experience.”