Project+synopses


 * Note to 2014-2015 Students:**Please add your synopsis to the top of this page (just below this message). We have kept a few from previous years here, in case you want an idea of how you might go about writing your own synopsis. Remember, this is an idea, not a contract at this point; we fully expect your project to evolve. If you have difficulty using the wiki, or you just don't want to mess around with it, please send your synopsis to your instructor in an email, and I will post it for you.

**From previous years**:

 * Fostering creativity with online design spaces for elementary students**

Aaron Hansen I have designed a website that my grade eight social studies class is contributing to. I will put the information on the site for the students, but it is their job to find and create the information, videos and images. Last year built a website with my grade 5 class and it was highly successful. Therefore, I would like to recreate this success, and encourage creativity within the limits of this online space.

Troy H. (October 2, 2013) All post-secondary institutions have electronic systems that collect and maintain data about students: their characteristics, demographics, grades, activities, and so on. Data of this nature can be considered a valuable institutional "asset" that, if analyzed and utilized properly, could greatly increase the institution's ability to offer services, programs, and activities that benefit students and contribute to their success. For example, tracking students usage of various services (e.g. library, physical education, etc.) or enrolment in "orientation" courses (e.g. math-rediness) and then comparing the performance of these students with their peers could yield valuable insight into whether certain services or programs have an impact to students obtaining higher grades or not. It is intriguing to consider how to bring this all together to develop a "student profile" that could provide meaningful insight about students on campus. Other institutions in North America (primarily in the USA) have implemented this concept in various ways in an attempt to improve student success and services...with various degrees of success. The focus of my project will be to design a prototype student profiler data model, applicable to the University of Saskatchewan, so that I can explore the feasibility of whether this concept would yield results that could identify the value/influence that services offered to students on campus have to their success.
 * Using institutional data to develop "student profiles" **

Paul Lehmkuhl  I have been in contact with several individuals at the Bamfield Marine Sciences Centre //(www.bms.bc.ca)// including the program coordinator, the communications officer and the director. I asked if I would be able to do a promotional video for their institution and they have been supportive of the idea. Part of their enthusiasm stems from the fact that they are currently undergoing a branding process and it seems to be an ideal time for a video production. They have a design template worked out through the company Massif Creative and I would follow this same design for the video project. I would visit the BMSC site periodically throughout the year to take any footage that is necessary, to conduct interviews and meet with the project manager as needed (some of this can also be done remotely).
 * Promotional video for the re-branding of the Bamfield Marine Sciences Centre **

Qiang Fu
 * Surviving as an International Student: Chinese Graduate Students' participation in Canadian Classrooms **

International Students experience various difficulties in Canada. Among them, participation and engagement in classes are considered as a main problem though this group may encounter other difficulties. I intend to understand the classroom experience of Chinese graduate students in their Canadian institutions. By doing this, I hope I can reveal the difficulties and explore advice for prospect students from Chinese students who have stayed in Canadian classrooms for a while.

Xinru Fang
 * Exploration of Language-Related Variables to the Academic Adaption of Chinese International Students**

The increasing recruitment of Chinese international students is well acknowledged all around the world. A piece of recent news concerning the resignation of one of the campus' top business school officials in the University of San Francisco on account of the increasing number of Chinese international students in their campus inspires me to pay attention to the challenges and stresses encountered by Chinese students who study abroad, especially their academic stresses. Since my interest is related to EAL, I would like to explore the academic stresses and adaption of Chinese international students based on the perspective of English language acquisition.

**Scratch FITness: Improving fluency in information technology with Scratch ** Julian Screawn The project is a Web-based resource designed to help instructors utilize Scratch as a tool for the promotion of fluency in information technology across the curriculum. With MIT's Scratch software learners can create interactive stories, games, music and art - and share them online. The guide will be targeted at teachers (Grade 3 and up) who wish to integrate technology across the curriculum using Scratch but have little or no time to learn or teach the Scratch program. The proposed guide will allow teachers to gradually learn Scratch while effectively integrating it into curriculum content.

Xi Zhang
 * How Chinese Immigrants Select Names for Canadian-Born Children**

The purpose of this project is to study how Chinese immigrants name their children when they give birth to their children in Canada. Do they name their children by Chinese names or English ones? Why do they give their children such names? How do they choose from so many English names or Chinese names? If they name their children by English names, do their children have a Chinese name, both pronunciation and characters? Why or why not? Is this an important way for them to fit in the Canadian society? Does the name thing make them feel confused about their children’s identities? I would like to find their thoughts about their children’s names.

An Examination of and Proposal for a School Division-Wide DE Program
Clay Bergen 10 Word Synopsis: An analysis of, and proposal for, a division wide Distance Education program.

The Carlton Extensions Campus is the DE program in the Saskatchewan Rivers Public School Division. Suffice it to say the current methodology for distribution of materials, assessment and evaluation of students is “behind the times”. The intent of this proposal is to analyze the current system from a program evaluation methodology and then to provide a comprehensive plan to implement a “new and improved” distance education model for the division.

JR Dingwall Visual, computer, media, information, digital, web, information communications technologies are just a few modifiers that have been applied to literacy frameworks over the last 50 years. I intend to explore and elaborate these terms to build a foundation for a teacher (pre-service and in-service) education model involving information communication technologies. Leading Questions:
 * Designing Teacher Education: An ICT Literacy Framework**
 * 1) What characteristics demonstrate a high level of ICT literacy?
 * 2) what are the components of ICT Literacy (definition)
 * 3) What characteristics are present in perservice teachers?
 * 4) What are the current models for ICT literacy education?
 * 5) benefits & deficiencies

**In an ELA 20 Networked Learning Community, we can work smarter together rather than harder alone.**

Lianne Borstmayer
How do we improve student learning? By improving instruction. With the unveiling of new curricula in senior English Language Arts, teachers are required to update and improve their courses. I want to guide my colleagues to plan inquiry based lessons that we will share and post on our division’s website. Networked learning is joint work founded upon learning principles that enables effective practice to be developed and tested within a specific context through collaboration between schools. I have given my NLC the name PIER, an acronym that stands for Planning, Instructing, Evaluating and assessing, and Reflecting. It will be a group of teachers, my peers, unpacking the curriculum and planning together.

Aaron Adair
 * Two articles relating to current creativity, motivation, and engagement **

I plan to compose two articles that relate to my areas of interest: creativity, and student engagement and motivation. I have done a lot of thinking and writing about a possible new structure for a school in Saskatoon, so I hope that my project will relate to this work. I have already composed and submitted an article entitled “From Old School to New School: (Re)defining Creativity in our Secondary Schools Through the Co-working Phenomenon.” My next article will either focus on the logistics of a new school concept or on engagement and motivation related to my work in ELA A30.

Dean Loberg
 * Using Technology to Enhance an Administrator’s PLC**

As part of my job I have the pleasure of chairing our Vice-Principals quarterly meetings, and this year we have decided to do a PLC on leadership. The struggle is supporting this geographically isolated group of very busy professionals in their goal of learning as a group. While they have all agreed to the idea of a PLC, and have selected the topic as a group, it is not a requirement of their jobs, and I have no authority to enforce their attendance. My project will be designing a PLC that allows each member the freedom to pursue their own direction, but cohesive enough to keep them coming back and wanting to move forward.

Susan Pattison How do we continue to successfully learn about and implement assessment for learning practices so that our school community understands and embraces its principles and practices and supports its use? By using a collaborative inquiry team based on Gordon’s (2004) model, teachers enacted a series of steps designed to clearly communicate assessment for learning practices to parents and students. This activity culminated in the introduction of student led conferences for students in all grades, an increase in parent attendance at student conferences and an increased understanding of AFL practices by parents and students. Within the collaborative inquiry team, an increased focus on peer and cognitive coaching occurred through discussions about AFL practices and while writing collaboratively.
 * Becoming assessors: Working together to create an assessment for learning community**

** Understanding Chinese International Students’ Adoption of English Names: An Exploration of Individual perspectives ** Shanhua Chen

I t is a common phenomenon that most Chinese students use English names instead of their Chinese name when they came to study in Canada. My aim is to explore the reasons contributing to this adaptation and the effect of using English names. I hope to contribute to a fuller understanding of Chinese international students’ cross-cultural adaptation from the angle of their adaptation of English names.

Jennifer Dorval
 * Creating a Model of Engagement including the Partners Involved in Education **

My project will focus on engagement - student, teacher, community and parent/family engagement.

Most of my graduate work to this point has really been focused on parent and family engagement. I will look at engagement in regards to all the partners involved in learning and how this can affect student achievement. I will research student engagement, teacher engagement, community engagement and parent/family engagement. I will then examine the research to find and review the commonalities. I envision that my project will include an introduction, followed by my research and then the creation of a model of engagement that includes the partners involved in education. Introduction Part 1 - Student Engagement Part 2 - Teacher Engagement Part 3 - Parent/Family Engagement Part 4 - Community Engagement Part 5 - The commonalities of engagement Part 6 - Model of Engagement - Increasing student achievement by putting all of the pieces together.

Tannis Emann
 * Using Digital Communication to Enrich Global Citizenship: The Peru Project**

After a very successful year pushing the boundaries of our school district’s policy on Skype I would like to focus my project on the continued work of using Skype in a classroom to provide authentic, primary source learning experiences for elementary students. I want to hinge my project on our continued work with a village in Peru to illustrate the richness and depth of developing global citizens, the power of learning through a relevant and real source, and the need to update policies that are limiting and dictating the tools we use to educate our students. The foundations of the project will be established through Skype but a range of other social media may also be used.

Ryan Hauber
 * IP 10 Updates: Supplementing existing curriculum with new modules**

The current Information Processing Curriculum was developed in 2003. In technology years, it translates into an eternity. What I would like to do is to create some new modules that will supplement and reflect the many changes that the current course lacks. Advances in Web 2.0 tools, social networking and cloud computing all impacts the daily life of today's students and these very relevent topics should be integrated within our course.

Shelley Wright
 * Using Social Media to create Change**

My ELA 20 clas is studying human trafficking. We're attempting to create a social media campaign to raise awareness of human trafficking in Canada. Some of my students will become trafficking experts who can Skype into classrooms across Canada to teach other classrooms about the problem. We will also be creating a resource wiki for teachers to use. Eventually we hope to petition the government to create a new human trafficking law.

Rita Gunning
 * Jase, jase! : Technology for Oral Communication in French Immersion**

The impact of an Early French Immersion environment is very well represented in reviews of research over the last 40 years. These students learn to use the French language with increasing fluency, proficiency, and accuracy. Much less attention has been given to support beyond the classroom for aspects of oral French production. This can be provided by an Internet-based resource for French Immersion students at an intermediate level where they can practise French outside of the classroom context, prepare for authentic French oral interaction and improve their conversational skills. The product with align with the Saskatchewan provincial curriculum and the Western and Northern Canadian Protocol.

Kim Jasken
 * Instructional Design of an Online Computer Programming Course**

The current IT students at SIIT could immensely benefit from having the option to take ITPL 135 online. I will take the current face to face course and implement a course with equivalent topics and outcomes but delivered in a whole new way. I will incorporate a variety of technologies to suite a variety of learning styles of the individual students. Having the course available online will accommodate students who have once failed the course and need to pick it up at a different time (for example over the summer) and/or from a personal location (for example the students' reserve). This product will hopefully be the trendsetter in a number of other courses being developed and offered online.

Carmen Peasley
 * Conquering the new Curriculums, One Resource at a Time: Online Learning Communities at work.**

One of the most common complaints about the new SK curriculums is the lack of resources to accompany them. Many people are having to start at square one to rebuild the resources necessary to provide a quality education to their students and who has time for that?! I will create a website/blog/wiki (undecided as to which) that has resources categorized by subject area in K-6. The main page will have the most easily found internet resources on it and will include teasers for the other pages. In order to gain access to the other pages, you must become a member. Membership is free (as far as cash goes) but you must agree to post resources as well. Those resources do not need to be created by the poster, but can simply be a link to a great website, blog, video - even a book on amazon! Members will also be encouraged to include their own lesson plans, interactive whiteboard activities, assignments, and ideas as well.

Scott St. Pierre
 * The effect of a blended learning environment on authentic student engagement**

Thoughout my time in grad school, I have been experiementing with blended learning environments in classes I teach. These pilots have shown blended learning environments to have a positive effect on authentic student engagement. However, many observers question the scalability of blended learning environments. Since I am considered a technology expert and tend to teach courses that are usually computer mediated, comments tend to focus on whether or not a teacher with less computer skills teaching a course that is traditionally not computer mediated would be able to have similar success in a blended learning environment and still meet the learning objectives. There are also questions about at-risk students being successful in such an environment, or would they just take advantage of the lack of direct supervision, even though the research clearly states that this type of autonomy does lead to increased success for at-risk students. The product will be a process for any teacher to develop a unit of work or project within a blended learning enviroment that will lead to increase authentic student engagement.

Andy Baetz
 * Create Math Video Tutorials**

Create a library of math concepts and objectives for elementary grade students. The product will be completed using screencasts from a computer and video of whiteboard lessons. A web site template will be created so the video recordings can be posted online to allow students to watch videos when the teacher is unavailable.

Dan Schellenberg
 * iPod/iPhone Factoring Tutor**

Factoring trinomials is a foundational skill required to succeed in high school mathematics, but can be a stumbling block for many students in their grade 10 year. My project is to create an iPhone/iPod application that generates an unlimited number of examples for the student, and walks them through the process of solving each example. The product will be a native iOS app, written in Objective-C using Xcode and Interface Builder.

Laura Friesen
 * Liquid Candy: A Study in Altering Adolescents' Beverage Selection Behaviour through Instructional Design**

QUESTION: Can an instructional design product reduce the overall consumption of sugary beverages of a group of teenagers?

It has been well documented that obesity rates are increasing in our teen population. Students’ consumption of sugary beverages has skyrocketed and exceeds all guidelines for healthy eating. Serious health consequences are associated with obesity and with excess sugar consumption. This study is designed to test the effectiveness of an instructional design product in reducing overall consumption of sugary beverages. The product, a computer based lesson, will be administered to Grade 11 and 12 students in an experimental group. Students use Twitter® technology to track their beverage consumption before and after instruction. Data is compared to a matched control group to test the effectiveness of the product in reducing overall consumption of sugary beverages.
 * PROJECT DESCRIPTION:**

Michele Sambrook
 * A Combined Online/Face-to-Face Physics 20 Course**

Description: A course for face-to-face and online, synchronous and asynchronous students

Project: I teach Physics 20 to online and face-to-face students. Most of my students are synchronous, but some are asynchronous, so I am interested in the best practices in both synchronous and asynchronous online education and in combining the two. I will do a literature review to research best practices and I will create a combined synchronous/asynchronous online/face-to-face Physics 20 course using Blackboard as my learning management system.

Investigation into factors 12-14 year olds consider when constructing their online identities.
Anne Naugler

I would like to prepare a questionnaire for 12-14 old children that will help me to determine what factors they consider when constructing their online identities. I’m concerned that my students become friends with a lot of people on facebook that they don’t know and publish information that should not be available to strangers. I don’t think they consider that information they publish could make them targets for predators, or could limit job possibilities when they’re older. I will use the information gained to design a unit to teach them on media literacy, and perhaps a website where lesson and unit ideas can be published.

Jordan Epp
 * Out Your Front Door: a community development project for youth**

//Project// Out Your Front Door (OYFD) is a community development project that will be designed to engage youth in local leadership and community building while developing online networking skills through situated learning models. Using an asset-based community approach, youth will design and lead an asset-mapping research project. Collecting data such as surveys, photographs, interviews, and statistics, relevant to their local community the resulting study will be transformed into a living 3D model of their neighbourhood within the online virtual world of Second Life (SL). Once in Second Life students will have the opportunity to create their own avatar, learn 3D modelling techniques, design and build objects using SL primitives, and learn basic action scripting within SL. From this virtual model of their neighbourhood students will assess their communities assets and liabilities and develop strategies for community building within the physical streets and avenues of their community. Aside from bi-weekly face-to-face sessions, and online social networking tools, students will keep track of their progress by developing and managing a wiki in which to display and follow advances in the building process and asset mapping progress. //Product// This proposal outlines a project for which a complete front-end analysis will be produced. By March 2009 a thorough needs assessment will be completed. This analysis will follow the Instructional Design protocol for needs assessment and deliver a packaged analysis of the intended learners, further investigation into the context of the program, and a task/content analysis for each of the three stages of the project. This packaged front-end analysis will provide the necessary information to complete a project design including recommendations for applications and tools, timelines, and resources. Although this complete project design will not be included in the March 992.6 submission, the complete needs assessment that will be delivered will provide the information necessary for prototype development. The targeted audience for this analysis are those instructors who will develop and carry out the final program.

**An interactive computer simulation emulating participation in provincial government** ** [|Constance MacKenzie] **

Summary: The purpose of the project is to help students understand government and to positively impact students’ interest in government today and later when they’re adults (the latter will not be evaluated). Users: small group when whole class use is not possible due to the adaptive requirements of students. Debriefing meetings to discuss various experiences such as choosing a political party; trying to win the party’s nomination to run in a provincial election; trying to win the provincial constituency; and trying to handle their constituents’ needs. These meetings will ‘spot’ students who feel alienated.

** Project summary - Dec 6th: ** My project targets my grade five students. The purpose is to help them experience government from an interactive perspective as they travel through time. The software I am using is PowerPoint 2007. The reason I chose this version over 2003 is primarily based upon my school division’s planned software upgrade next year to Office 2007. The project is a simulation that incorporates the use of group meetings to discuss progress as well as pitfalls to each student’s progress through the sequence of holding office and of being a politician. Students are to bring their ‘Politician’s Journals’ to each meeting. Students are to record in their ‘Politician’s Journals’ their progress, possible reasons for success and failures. Once elected, which will happen, perhaps with a few attempts rather than one, students record their activities as MLAs in their ‘Politician’s journals’ such as: potential positive and negative consequences for various pieces of legislation being proposed in the Legislative Assembly; their support of or lack of support for legislation; their private member’s bill that is to be presented in the Legislative Assembly; its positive and negative consequences; and finally whether it was passed or defeated. The simulation will be saved as //PowerPoint Show// which always opens in Slide Show view. I will lock down the action buttons, which in 2007 is either inserted pictures (from file or clip art) or words by setting the ‘Show type’ to //Browsed by an individual// without selecting the //Show scrollbar//. To resolve the issue of randomness I found that I can put 7 pictures at the bottom of the page for the student to select from. This will remain constant throughout the simulation __except__at the beginning when the student is to choose a political party – there will be 4 to choose from. This simulation includes video clips and digital pictures to increase the ‘reality’ of the simulation. Video clips include welcoming the newly elected MLA into the Legislative Assembly and a the discussion of the duties of the MLA (given by Don Toth). This could be extended to senior grades however for now it is intended for my class and next year for other classes who would like to use it.

Linda Dunkley
 * A Child's Appreciation of Nature **

My original idea centered on how to combine the use of technology and environmental ed. The original idea addressed how to support a child developing a love of nature and recognizing their place in nature through the use of digital storytelling and social networking on line. I am still going to include these ideas in my project only now the focus is on teachers and informing them how to incorporate technology and environmental ed into their teaching. I think that I am going to produce video and teaching aids for the teachers but that may change. December The design of my product is starting to take shape which is helping me feel more focused and better able to determine what will be in the product and what won’t. I have done some interviews with the teachers who went on the grasslands and marsh tours. I have interviewed 2 people who provide the field trips, one the educational consultant and the other the interpreter and designer of the tours. And I have talked with the person who is designing the new curriculum. I have also talked with another person who provides out of school learning opportunities and on Monday will interview another teacher who went on the grasslands tour.

**K-12 Parent Portal: An Implementation Guide** [|Cindy Seibel] There is a significant body of research demonstrating the contribution of parent engagement to student learning. Based on this research, school districts are implementing technology solutions to support and improve relationships with parents with the hope of producing improved student outcomes. This project will create an Implementation Guide for one technology solution, a K-12 Parent Portal.

Parent 2.0 wiki - Literature Review - annotated bibliograhy, Scenario description, Link to Project Proposal [|Blog] - My blog Technology for Learning has several parent engagement posts. Search on "parent" [|Parent 2.0 Interactive] - Website includes discussion forums for stakeholder input, and will host the Implementation Guide (while under development and final version) The Project - [|http://portalguide.tech4learning.ca] - under development, feedback welcome! You can post feedback right on the site. My eportfolio - report on the project journey : [|http://project.tech4learning.ca]


 * <span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Adapting College Studies in Canada: A Readiness Course for ESL Students **
 * <span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; font-size: 8pt; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Xing Xu **

<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; font-size: 8pt; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">While international students bring with them tremendous economical, cultural and social advantages to Canadian institutions, their presence poses challenges on the service and support systems at various universities. Meanwhile, more and more foreign students are experiencing academic challenges and cultural differences, which calls for a readiness course that helps them adjust to culture shock and ensure they make a successful transition to higher education in Canada. The course is created as self-regulated learning modules, which will cover academic preparation and cultural adaptation issues. The final product will be integrated into the regular ESL instruction and delivered online.

**Web 2.0 Tools in a Blended Learning Environment** Shaun Loeppky

The project will be the development of a Grade 9 Information Processing course that would be delivered in the context of a blended learning environment. This environment will include classroom face to face (F2F) interaction as well as an online component with Web 2.0 tools (such as blogs and wikis) and curriculum content. When completed, the project will be targeted at educators who are exploring how technology can be implemented to assist in their daily practice and further student engagement. A conscious effort will be made to choose web tools that require lesser technical skill and are open source or free for public use. Within the changing dynamics of the World Wide Web, many of the tools from the development of this project may not exist in their present form in future. Therefore it is hoped that the results from this project will encourage educators to seek other web tools to enhance their teaching practice.

[|December 6th, 2008- Project Report Update Link]

Lisa Braun
 * Project Healthy START**

The purpose of the study is to understand the experiences of a group of college-aged students who are members of a team committed to the design, implementation and evaluation of a health promotion initiative designed to promote health among college-aged students. The study will address the following research question: What are the experiences of college students engaged in a participatory action team designed to promote healthy choices? Other questions to be addressed include: (1) In what ways are college students interested in making improvements to their health? (2) What kinds of insights can college students provide into their physical activity needs? (3) What kinds of goals and plans can college students generate to address the identified health needs of their fellow students? (4) What kinds of actions can college students generate to initiate positive changes in their setting? (5) What challenges and joys do college students on a PAR team encounter? Following the completion of the project, the discussion of the findings will focus on the future goals produced by Project Healthy START, and recommendations for future use of the PAR process.

**Online Communication Tool for Sustainable Forest Management Networking** Arcadio -

<span style="color: #000000; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">The main goal of my project is to provide a virtual collaborative tool to link professionals in forestry and sustainability to facilitate the communication as a whole for the international team involved in the project of Model Forests in Saskatchewan and Chile. Some specific targets are: to interchange information between co-workers and partners; to communicate scientific and technological advancements; to spread the voice about academic and professional opportunities in model forests plantations; to enhance the team work and interpersonal skills between professionals to coexist in a virtual communication environment. This is a pilot web tool and the starting point of a bigger product to be built in the near future. The clients are at the same time the end-users of the tool. The ultimate intention is to assemble this collaboration tool as an example to illustrate what other professionals in forestry and agroforestry could do with model forests to promote the sustainability in other areas of the world.

<span style="color: #000000; font-family: Calibri,sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">**Emerging Technologies: an Implementation Guide for Learning Technology Teams** <span style="color: #000000; font-family: Calibri,sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Clint Reddekopp

This project analyses emerging technologies and the problems K-12 education encounters when attempting to implement these technologies in a meaningful way in the classroom. The product will be an open source Linux Ubuntu distribution containing many emerging technologies already registered and set to auto-logon, along with explanations for their use. The goal would be to allow learning technology teams to connect freely to this resource through an open source virtualization tool and then 'enter the fray' so to speak with an identity and preset credentials (thanks to web 2.0 for multiple logons with matched credentials). Because this is open source the entire distribution could evolve through input from the educational community and in this way remain up to date and relevant, but that would be an extra and not an objective of this project. A website will be created to host and maintain the credibility of the distribution package. Learning about emerging technologies and their possible application to the classroom is a daunting task; maybe we can get it done more easily and effectively by collaborating through a shared identity?