Reflections on the Process of Creating Benchmark Assignments

Throughout this summer, as we have been doing research for our various and extensive class assignments, my eyes have been opened to some amazing things on the web! It's very exciting to think of the possibilities. There are so many great websites out there that I can't wait to use with kids or as a teacher. This whole webquest concept is really intriguing to me and I think the possibilities are limitless. I have run across some really great ones, and some not so great ones. After completing the process myself, I have a profound appreciation for how difficult it is to put together something that is both (hopefully) valuable, useful, easy to use, and visually interesting. What I came up with is far from what I had envisioned, but I realized at one point that I needed to simplify, just for the sake of time.

The process of creating this project was extremely intimidating and overwhelming. For the longest time I felt really clueless about where to begin. I spoke with my head teacher and asked what we were going to be doing with our second graders this fall, and she mentioned doing an author study on Roald Dahl. Well. that sounded pretty interesting! So, as I began doing research on him, my list of ideas of what to include in the webquest grew and grew. I also realized that there's a lot of things that I'd like to do, but would really be more appropriate for older kids. As it is, I pretty much pushed the envelope as far as what to expect for second graders. It was really hard to narrow down the scope of the project. I would love to add other things like an author tribute, write a newspaper article, more arts, creating a photo gallery that the kids make, more reading of the books, repeating the character meetings, and more. Maybe in the future.

As far as the logistics.... learning to use Dreamweaver has been really frustrating for me. So many things felt counter-intuitive, or I could just not figure things out. Thanks so much to my classmates who helped me over the summer! I could not have done it without you! Now that I am here, the last day, I feel a bit more comfortable with the software, but I am very aware that i am a wee-novice, with lots to learn. I actually bought the suite of software, with the ambitious hope that I will slowly learn to use it, as well.

So, the project was several layers; learning to use the software, coming up with the content and structure, then putting it all together. In the end, it did not turn out as I had planned, but I have clearly run out of time. My other responsibilities this summer needed attention as well, so .... here it is, for better or worse. The process of doing this whole thing, however, has been invaluable. I now feel that I have a basis of experience that I can draw from in the future. I look forward to future projects, though probably less intensive!