hth

Okay, so, what if for Christmas/Hannukah/Kwanzaa you could have a miraculous tool that would help you manage the nitty gritty, annoying, overwhelming parts of the Senior Project at a glance. Well, guess what? Fish is your wish. I’m sitting in the beautiful, albeit empty, Wilmington International Airport. I have just attended a training session for the new Senior Project Tracker. This Web-based program will, believe it or not, allow us to see at a glance who has and has not turned in assignments. It forces the kids to plan before beginning all of the major components. It allows us to evaluate materials without ever leaving the comfort of our computer chairs (or recliners). It also allows parents, mentors, advisors, guidance counselors, all authorized interested parties to track a particular student’s (or students’) progress at any time of day or night. It's like a little holiday miracle, isn't it?

Gone are the days of the humongous, backbreaking book bag. Welcome to the electronic age, folks. Glad you're here.

The Tracker was developed by a group of guys in Milwaukee (they called themselves “Homeboyz Interactive”) in conjunction with a program to employ violent juvenile offenders in a more productive capacity. The program they developed called Project Foundry is used by over thirty schools in ten states to help support their project based learning activities. Their participants are consistently labeled "best" and "coolest" by none other than the US Department of Education and the Gates Foundation. Nifty, huh?

What is this thing we call "project-based learning?" Here’s a quote from their website:

“Project-based learning is an instructional method centered on the learner. Instead of using a rigid lesson plan that directs a learner down a specific path of learning outcomes or objectives, project-based learning allows in-depth investigation of a topic worth learning more about. Learners represent what they've learned from the construction of a personally meaningful subject or object through a medium such as a research paper, community project, business proposal, play or poem. In addition learners have more autonomy over what they learn, maintaining interest and motivating them to take more responsibility for their learning." (http://www.projectfoundry.org/innovate.html)

The folks from Partnership 4 Dynamic Learning (P4DL) and the Senior Project Center (SPC) ran into the folks from Project-Based Learning Systems (PBLS) and a match was made. After all, what is Senior Project other than PROJECT-based learning.

Project Foundry is currently being tailored to meet the needs of Senior Project stakeholders as an awesome tool to finally bring some sense to the mountain of paperwork we all dread. Yahoo!

Never fear. The SPC at P4DL is bringing PBLS on board PDQ 4u to help with the SP a3. hth. Keep it on the DL. lol.

s ig2r. sbtsbc . . .ack, I can’t stop . . .mtfbwu

Peace out. (Am I too geeky for a signoff?—Suggestions welcome.)

Project Foundry

Senior Project Tracker information

Tracker video (a short video that will be updated soon)

SMS abbreviations