In reviewing my goals for this capstone project that I developed during Co-op 1, I noticed that the first listed was to “gain valuable experience incorporating twenty-first century literacy skills into my lesson plans.” I believe that with this project I have succeeded in meeting that goal.  The students collaborated to answer essential questions and used the iPad apps to schedule and plan as well as to create media as a platform for presenting their findings.  

 

In addition to digital media, the students also used informational texts to gather information on their topics to share with the other group members.  The interest and enthusiasm that the students brought to the project should help them to recognize the importance of developing their reading skills in order to continue and extend their projects beyond the 5-week window of my research.

 

This project allowed me to utilize the skills that I have been developing these past few years through my coursework and to become a learner along with the students as we tried out new apps and developed new skills.  I am hoping to use what I learned through this project as a springboard to developing project based lessons that my fellow teachers and I can use in the classroom.  My developing expertise with iPad applications will also be quite useful in the 21st century classroom or library.

 

I am satisfied with the results of my project and hope to continue it with this group of students.  My goal was to turn them on to reading and my results show that they are on their way to becoming lifelong learners.