Through the use of Technology projects, I give students the opportunity to
apply lessons and techniques learned in the classroom to "real-world"
situations. Examples of the projects I have presented to the students over
the past several years are shown below. Some projects are related to just
one application (e.g., MS Access Database Management System) while others
involve multiple applications (e.g., Word, Powerpoint, and Excel) to
complete. The larger research projects give students several years of
experience using computers to research, organize (outline), and prepare
well-developed reports and presentations to prepare them for the demands of
high school and college. I welcome your suggestions of other topics which
could be developed into an exciting and interesting classroom activity for
the students.
Single Application Projects
Census Data Project - Analysis of changes in distribution of the US
population between the 1990 and 2000 Census using the MS Access Database
Management System. This project uses official US Census Bureau population
data, by state, from the 1990 and 2000 Census. Students analyze the data to
identify population shifts and the states with the largest increase and
decrease during that ten year period, by state, Census Divisions, and Census
Regions.
Radio Station Playlist Project - Creation of a playlist for a 1-hour
radio music program; students must completely fill five ten-minute (to the
second) slots with music selected from a database of 400 songs with lengths
ranging from a few seconds to several minutes, using the MS Access Database
Management System. They also have to fit commercials, public service
announcements, and station identification spots into the 60 minute schedule
so that the entire schedule is full to the second. In this project students
create database tables, queries and forms (screens) used to build their
schedule.
Store Inventory Management System Project - students develop a
database system to manage the inventory of a home electronics store,
tracking value of inventory on hand, quantity-on-hand compared to the
reorder-point to determine when to reorder different items based on delivery
times from vendors and minimum reorder quantities so that the products are
never out-of-stock (customers will switch to other stores where quantities
are in-stock).
Analysis of Servey Results Project - In the 2006-2007 school year,
MDP students and their families were surveyed for responses to 30 questions
(e.g., favorite flavor of ice cream, least favorite flavor of ice cream,
etc.). while no personally identifiable information was collected, we did
capture two age ranges (12 and under, 13 and older), and gender (male or
female) of each individual responding to our survey. The data were entered
into an Access database. The students develop a number of database queries
to look for trends on responses by gender, age range, or a combination of
these criteria.
Multiple Application Projects
Civil War Newspaper Project - working in teams of two or three
students (depending on number of students in the class), each team must use
the Internet and library sources to research events and personal journals or
diaries of real people living in 1860 through 1866 to find out what people
were talking about, thinking about or worried about develop two Civil War
era newspapers; one paper from the period of the Civil War, and one paper
from the year just prior to the start of the war, or the year just after the
end of the way. One of the papers must be from city/town north of the
Mason/Dixon Line, one from the South. Each issue must have two new articles,
an original political cartoon that might have appeared in a real newspaper
of that era, a biography of a prominent individual of that period (using
only books in the school (or public) library, two advertisements for
household or personal products that might have appeared in papers of that
time, and a letter to the editor written from each team member.
Expanding World Tourism Project - Working in teams of two or three
students, teams research specific information about a foreign country in
preparation for setting up a travel office for that country who's goal is to
produce a travalogue (via Powerpoint slideshow) to entice visitors to visit
that country. Students begin this process by creating and using a report
outline (using the outline feature of MS Word) to capture and organize
information from their research, then convert that outline into a full
report in MS Word. Teams then select information from their report to
include in their slideshow, adding additional pictures and, where available,
appropriate audio clips. Teams add animation affects and color to make their
slideshow exciting and attractive to potential customers. At the end of the
project, the each team presents their slideshow to the rest of the class
and, for extra credit, can bring in samples of a food item related to that
country, to share with the rest of the class at our International Food Fair.
Grand Tour of National Historic Sites Project - Working in teams of
tow or three students, teams select five or six National Historic Sites from
a list of 90 sites. Teams then research each site to determine why that site
has been designated a National Historic Site (e.g., related to a famous
person, site of an important historical event, location of a building or
structure representing an important architectural feature, a natural
formation, etc.) Teams then locate these sites on a map of the US and plan a
trip for prospective travel office customers to visit all sites on a driving
tour starting and ending in Philadelphia. In this project, students will use
MS Word to build an outline and convert it into a research report, then use
that infomation to build a promotionl tour "video" (Powerpoint slideshow) to
display in a "travel office window" (show in class on the SmartBoard). In
the process, students will use an Excel spreadsheet to calculate mileage
between one site to the next, mileage for the tour as a whole, number of
days for each leg and the entire tour, number of gallons and cost of
gasoline used for each leg of the trip and for the entire trip. The
spreadsheet requires that the gasoline useage and cost be calculated for
five different vehicles with different MPG ratings, to advise potential
customers on the cost of taking the tour. For each site on the tour, teams
must identify a hotel/motel/inn to recommend to the travelers.
Stock Portfolio Project - Working individually, 8th Grade students
will build an Excel spreadsheet in which to record weekly closing prices of
a minimum of 10 securities, one from each of 10 Dow Jones "market sectors".
For the 2007-2008 school year, the prices will be collected from November
through March. During this project students. Each student will import their
Excel spreadsheet will be imported into Microsoft Access (database
management system) to build a stock portfolio table. This table will will
the student to build database queries to analyze the performance of each of
their tracked stocks over time. Each student will also export their own
portfolio table data into a "class level" portfolio database that I have
created so t hat the students can compare the performance of thier stocks
with the performance of the stocks being tracked by the other students
(there will be a total of almost 200 stocks being tracked by the class as a
whole). The class database will also allow us to track the overall
performance of each of the 10 market sectors (database will have 18 stocks
being tracked within each sector). Where students detect a major spike in
the price of stock or sector average, students will search the internet for
a possible cause of that spike (e.g., major world or national event or
natural disaster (drought, flood, etc.), product recall, corporate merger
for example.