Reading Reflection #12

Prompt

Read former ITU Model Projects in the first Cougar Courses module.  Identify what you can use from the model assignments and then complete Tasks 1-17.

Response

While I reviewed the four ITU Model Projects I chose to focus on the Homeless ITU for Orange Glen High School and the Civil Rights ITU for Temecula High School, both from 2009.  Due to the fact that my ITU has a different theme and population, no information could be directly taken from either model project.  However, there was a great deal of information to be learned from the model projects.  After completing Tasks 1-17, I looked back on the information I had learned from reading the model projects and noticed that I used three advantages.

1. Ideas: While I did not take any information directly from the ITU Model Projects, reading them gave me plenty of ideas.  For example, in the Homeless ITU for Orange Glen High School students created posters and flyers for the rest of the campus to promote awareness.  After reading this I realized I too wanted my students to show the rest of the campus and community the progress they had made.  However instead of creating billboards and posters I wanted to utilize technology so the project could be spread quicker and to a greater audience.  Therefore I came up with the idea of using iMovie to create a compilation of the learning.
2. Expectations: The four ITU Model Projects were posted on the Cougar Courses site for a reason.  These four projects were the best of 2009 because the went above and beyond the expectations.  Therefore by reading them I know what is expected of me and how I can surpass those expectations.
3. Writing: While I worked with my team to create our school's ITU I realized a lot of information can be piled into the process.  If a team chose to that team could write a full essay on every task given.  However, after reading over the ITU Model Projects my team and I realized that none of them has burdened the reader with too much information or information.  This greatly benefited us because it caused us to no longer be caught up in the writing but on the content that was being discussed.  By choosing to write a paragraph instead of two pages were able to drive quality.