Unit Plan Canvas

This PLAYground canvas is intended to be an introduction for a middle school unit on Colonial America. The unit would stretch from the creation of the first colonies and stop right before the road to revolution. A lot of the unit would focus on the different interactions between peoples and how geography and religion shaped the colonies. My previous lesson had been on the Salem Witch Trials, which would work well for the religion aspect of the unit.

I approached the PLAYground with a little bit of skepticism; I wasn't entirely sold on the idea and could not see the benefit of a canvas. But after beginning the process and adding widgets and such, I actually started to really like it. For the most part it was easy to learn and user friendly. At time it was a bit glitchy, but I was able to work around it. The only aspect of this that I think could use some improvement would be visual components. I did not like how there was only a few colors to choose from and no font options. I found it harder to put emphasis on some boxes when everything generally looked the same. Also, I wish there was a way to increase the size of the canvas. I noticed that the more widgets I added, the more grid space I got, but that made it harder to navigate and I decided where and how I wanted to put everything. If it had something like a spreadsheet where you can just scroll in either directions forever, I think that that would make it easier to work your way to a finished product.

http://www.play.annenberginnovationlab.org/play2.0/challenge.php?idChallenge=2307&mode=view#network6