Resource 4/Assignment 2 Submission - M & M Project

As my 4th resource and my mash-up for assignment 2 I have used a project that I had a year 7 ICT class complete during my placement. The basis of the assignment was for the individual students to complete a table and pie chart in Microsoft Excel as well as creating totals and averages for their tables.

The reason it is called the M & M Project is due to the data resource. To begin the class needs to be devided into 5 groups, this usually means 5 students per group. Each group is given a bag of M & M's and has to count how many of each colour of M & M's there are. This is then recorded for the rest of the class to view.

Each student then has to use the information to create their own spreadsheet/table and pie chart using excel.

This project worked really well with my year 7 class and was a great way to get to know the students more. I would suggest 2 to 3 periods/class to be set aside for this project as the students can take a long time to collect and organise the data.

This project is covered in VELS 5 standard for Creating:

"Students independently apply a range of processing skills, functions and equipment to solve problems and create products which contain minimal functional, typographical, formatting and readability errors. During the processing stage of collaborative work, students monitor project plans and record reasons for adjusting them." Vels 5 Standards

To enhance this project I have created a three part video.
While I did not use this video for the original project I feel that it could be used as a great resource for students who are unsure of how to completely use the features of excel. The video is a screen casting of a skype conversation (created by me) between a student and a teacher. The teacher is explaining the steps to completing the project while the student goes through the steps as it is explained. In the video the students computer screen can be viewed, thus the steps to the project can be seen as a moving image as well as text.

I see these videos being used to help students with certain aspects of the project, they may skip through parts of the videos to watch just one or two steps they are unsure of. It could also be used for an overseas student or a student that will not be in classes for an extended period of time but still needs to complete class work.

If I were to use these videos in a school setting it would most likely be posted on a class or subject wiki and then students would have to send/post their completed projects back to me in a private post thus covering another aspect of Vels 5 Standard for Communicating: "Students share their ideas through their blog, website or other public forums, which are correctly formatted, comply with ICT conventions and demonstrate an awareness of the characteristics that contribute to products meeting their purpose."

The example of the project in excel can be viewed on the LAIT wiki and my screen casting videos can be viewed below. To best view the videos the use of the full screen is suggested Enjoy.


Part 1



Part 2



Part 3

Resource 2 - Pokemon scratch game creation

Just a scratch game tutorial, 1 of 3 that has been created for more advanced users. It is a great way to get older students working on a scratch game that is much more in depth as well as most likely interesting as it involves Pokemon which most students will know even if they don't like it.



While I have not used this video in a class before I think it would be a useful tool to direct students to to give them inspiration towards their own scratch games.

Resource 1 - Toy Story Storyboarding Video

I used this for an animation class with year 7's. The task was for the students to create a storyboard and then from that storyboard to create the corrosponding animation using Microsoft powerpoint.



This is a great way to get the students interested in the task as most of them know and like Toy Story. I found that it was useful in showing the reasoning behind creating a storyboard before attempting the animation, some students like to just skip this step as they think it is pointless. While the video is almost 10 minutes long most of the important information is at the start of the video so not all of it has to be viewed if the class is short on time.