Internet Portfolio and first week of school

August 20, 2013 at 9:48 pm | Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Last week was a very busy week! A lot got done and I am happy to report I have a really good group of students. I am looking forward to a good year.

To continue the discussion with the performance based assessments, I am going to reflect on the Internet PBT.  Looking back and pondering over how the Internet PBT fared, I realize that I should have been a lot more technical. I should have talked more about the design of the Internet and how the network as a whole functions.

I focused more on the impact and the cyber security aspects of the Internet. I asked students to work in pairs. They had to pick an area of impact and make a presentation using any sort of technology. After that they were asked to write a research paper on their findings.  They had to cite their sources – the articles, websites, and documents they found regarding their topic.  I worked with the students on their research papers. We focused extensively on impact of the Internet on specific fields, and somewhat on the cyber-security aspects of the Internet.  However, the research lacked depth of knowledge.

What I realized is that students did not understand the true impact the Internet had on society. They had not focused on how the Internet – the connection of millions of computers – has impacted everything that we do. The Internet has changed the way society functions. What was the underlying design that made this happen? What is the real long-term impact of this sort of invention? These were questions my students had not researched or comprehended.

This year I am going to give this PBT a complete new makeover!  I am going to focus on the design aspect of the Internet – its architecture, design decisions and impact. I will also focus on cyber security issues involved with the Internet. I am excited about teaching this content to my students; it will be interesting to see how the students learn this content.