Final Project and Storyboard

The final project is a fairly open-ended assignment. You may choose any topic that will benefit your classroom and create a multimedia project for that topic. You have two options for this project:

• You may choose to create an interactive multimedia project that your students will use in the classroom. This project will teach some specific aspect of your curriculum.
• You may choose to create an assignment for your students that involves their creation of a multimedia project related to your curricular goals.

Group Projects

You may work on your final project in a group of up to four. It is strongly encouraged that this be done as a group project (with at least one other person), but this is not a requirement due to the fact that many of you teach different grade levels and subject areas. Group work allows you to experience the joys and troubles of cooperative work and is the best and most authentic environment for creation of large projects. If you work in a group, each individual member of the group should turn in an assessment of his/her own contribution to the group and a confidential assessment of the contributions of the other group members using this form.

Storyboard

Prior to the completion of the final project, you are required to complete a storyboard of your project. This is a critical step in the design process. While moving straight to the development stage gives you a better feel for the materials with which you have to work, skipping design encourages an over-emphasis on media and glitz and an under-emphasis on content and appropriate interactivity. Certainly, you will collect some media and play with some of your development tools before you complete your design, but emphasis on the design phase makes for a much better project, and for this class, it is a requirement.

Your storyboard should act as a proposal for your project (although given the tight nature of the schedules this semester, your storyboards will not be returned far in advance of your final implementation). You should include:

• a brief description of your project, including which of the above options you will follow
• a detailed storyboard, including drawings of all your slides/cards
• descriptions of the interactions that will take place (what will each button do)
• a list of all media you intend to use (media are sounds, pictures, videos, etc.; be sure to list every one you intend to use, not just "pictures from clip art"; this can change in the develop phase, but you should have a very good idea of all the media in the design phase)

Your final project will not follow this storyboard in every detail because you will continue to enhance your design as well as discover limitations of what is possible to do in the time allowed. However, your final projet will follow your basic design and most of the details.

Final Project

Your final project will be an implementation of the design you created in your storyboard. The Final Project is a significant interactive multimedia project. It will use basic PowerPoint buttons for simple navigation and VBA scripts for complex interactions. This is true regardless of which option you choose. For details about assessment of this project, see the Final Project Rubric.

Stand-alone Multimedia Project Option

If you choose to create a stand-alone multimedia project for your students to use, you should create a powerful full-featured interactive multimedia project that teaches something that relates to your classroom. It should make appropriate use of media and be fully interactive. You should justify why this is better than a book or paper for your students. You should include:

• Your complete storyboard
• A brief description of your project, including what your students will learn from it
• A justification for what benefits you hope your students will gain from the project and why this will be better than some non-interactive medium (such as a book or paper)
• A complete lesson plan for how this project fits into a unit of instruction (be sure you have learning objectives and/or outcomes and assessment(s) for them)
• A brief discussion of what you would like to do to the project beyond what you had time to do or were capable of doing
• The complete project on disk
• A list of the copyright status of all media used; all media should be copyright-free or have permission from the creator of the media (given the short time-frame for this course documentation that you have requested copyright permission will suffice)
• Assessments of your own work and each of the other members of the group (if the project was done in a group) using this form

Assignment-for-Your-Students Option

If you choose to create an assignment for your students, you should create a complete assignment including everything you will give to the students. You will use PowerPoint to create a full-working interactive multimedia example of the type of work you expect from your students. You will also create a method (possibly in the form of a rubric) for assessing your students' work. For this option, the multimedia project will be somewhat less extensive than for the other option, but the supporting material will be more extensive. You should include:

• Your complete storyboard
• A brief description of your project, including what your students will learn from it
• A justification for what benefits you hope your students will gain from the project and why this will be better than some non-interactive medium (such as a book or paper)
• A brief discussion of what you would like to do to the project beyond what you had time to do or were capable of doing
• The complete PowerPoint project on disk that will be used as an example of the kind of projects your students will create
• A complete packet of information about the assignment that you will give to your students with a clear description of the project, including any expectations you have for your students
• A complete model for assessing your students' work; this can be in the form of a rubric or any other form you deem appropriate, but it should make it clear to the students that the content is important and flashy presentations with shallow content will not be tolerated
• A list of the copyright status of all media used; all media should be copyright-free or have permission from the creator of the media (given the short time-frame for this course documentation that you have requested copyright permission will suffice)
• Assessments of your own work and each of the other members of the group (if the project was done in a group) using this form

Project Presentations

You will present your projects on the last day of class. This is an important part of your class participation grade.

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This page was prepared by Dr. David M. Marcovitz.

Last Updated: June 19, 2009