Millennium Museum

Project Description:
        The focus of my project will be to introduce gifted students in grades three through eight
(10 students) to web development and increase their awareness of the many advancements
during the last millennium.

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Project Timeline:

Phase 1: Introductions, explaining goals of the project, and researching time period

      After initial introductions to the gifted program, I evaluated the students' understanding of
web surfing.  I included mini lessons on what makes a good web site and how to find information that is reliable.  The students used a Cyberguide to help guide them in their evaluations.  We then discussed what they discovered.

    Each student was then given a time frame from the last 1,000 years to research.  The time periods were 50 years for the students in grades three through five and 100 years for the students in grades six through eight.  As a group we decided on two main focus topics, exploration and inventions.
After finishing the two focus topics, the students were required to research and find at least five interesting facts from the same time period.  I provided questions to guide them for the exploration and invention topics.  The interesting facts could be about anything as long as it was within the correct years.  The students were encouraged to use the Internet as well as books and encyclopedias. The only requirement was that they write down the sources that they used each day.

    Since the gifted program only meets once a week and students are not suppose to get additional homework, I allowed approximately three to four weeks for the initial research stage.   I drastically underestimated how long this stage would take.  We began researching in the beginning of September, and as of November 23, I still had eight students looking for information.

Phase 2: Putting all of the information together, web authoring, presenting product to others

       Once the students have compiled enough information, I will introduce students to basic web
authoring.  I stared with showing how the students should brainstorm and lay out their information on paper first.  Then, I will set up a basic web page (this is still under construction) and allow them to manipulate the graphics, the font, and the backgrounds using Claris Home Page.   I will also include a mini lesson on how to use our school's scanner since students were required to collect graphics as they did their research.

    I estimate that the web authoring stage should take six to seven weeks.  After that time, the groups will create a home page for the entire site that includes links to each others work.   I would then like the group to present the information to their teachers, their fellow classmates, and their parents.  This might be accomplished by having a technology night in late spring where I would encourage all the teachers to participate with their students.

    Even though I do not officially give my students grades, I will use the following rubric to evaluate their work.  I will include this rubric in their files that go with them each year.
 

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Goals of the project:
 

• students will become experts on the exploration and the inventions during their time period
• students will develop a web site which explains their information
• students will realize how much the world has changed in the last thousand years by comparing each other's work
• other students, teachers, and parents will be able to view our work on the web (in the past people outside the gifted program only had limited knowledge to what was done in the program)

Project Requirements:

• have access to a mini lab, which is Internet ready (We are using an open 1st grade classroom)
• make sure all necessary software is working correctly (including Claris Home Page and Netscape)
• contact our school's server to see if I can post our information on it
• find web sites (below) and checklists for the students to analyze

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Updated: November 20, 1999