 Choosing a project Project ideasThe curriculum usually decides what topics your projects will cover, but you have to decide what the project will be. You may get your ideas from teacher's guides, previous classes, the Internet (such as Webquests) or other teachers. This conference provides project ideas categorized by subject and grade level. You can use FirstClass to develop and implement each of these projects.
In addition, you can use FirstClass as a repository to communicate with other teachers and share ideas about your projects.
Giving students choicesOnce you've decided what the project will be, you need to decide how much flexibility you will give students in choosing their topics and groups. Elementary school students will likely require a very fixed project plan, where you decide the topic, the format, and the groups. You may want to introduce some flexibility, but keep it within guidelines you have set. For example, you may assign a project about the different provinces in Canada, and let students choose which province they will research. However, at this level, you would list the criteria to research, the layout of the project, and so on.
You can give older students more options. For example, you may assign a project about famous people in history. You can let students choose their own person to research, choose their own criteria based on what they have learned in class, and choose how they would like to present their projects. You may even let them choose their own groups.
Depending on the grade level, you will decide how much choice students have over their projects. However you decide, though, FirstClass can facilitate these tasks.
Use FirstClass for initial organizationFirstClass lets you organize a project environment that suits your needs. Initially, you can use FirstClass documents to provide project guidelines, and let students sign up for topics and provide group information.
In a traditional classroom environment, you may assign topics by distributing a class list and the topics assigned to each student, or writing out ideas on the board and having students sign up for a particular topic. FirstClass lets you do the same thing online. Within a projects conference, you can create online documents to do the following:
outline the project guidelines, such as the type of data collection allowed, the criteria required, milestone and due dates, presentation requirements, and so on
list students or student groups and the topics you have assigned to them
list the topics students can choose from
Students or student groups would read the document and enter their name or group name beside the project of their choice.
have students enter their pertinent information, such as topic chosen, team members, and member roles, in a preaddressed form.
You can provide sections for any pertinent project information you may require.
This is a sample document students may use to sign up for their projects.
 The next stepNow that you see how FirstClass can get you started, let's look at how to use it to plan your project environment. You can begin to set up areas for student group collaboration, where students can store research information, brainstorm with each other, develop their presentations, and so on.
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