Consider the following scenarios:
Scenario One: Upon walking into the classroom of a new eighth grade English
language arts (ELA) teacher, the teacher informs you that she will be teaching a
lesson on fate versus free will the following week. She plans on using excerpts from
Oedipus Rex and Dante’s Inferno. She has not put the lesson plan together yet but
intends to have the students present examples from the readings to support their
case through a persuasive essay.
- I'm not familiar with either of the books, so I am not sure what the teacher is looking for, but to work on a persuasive essay, I would suggest doing a class blog, where students contribute posts for their essay. They can discuss via the comments area for each essay.
- Or, maybe the teacher could put together a webquest, which explains the elements of a persuasive essay and gives examples of them via websites or blogs. The tech integrator would help the teacher to set up the webquest on a website or a page on the blog site.
Scenario Two:
A high school science teacher is presenting a unit on astronomy,
specifically on how Polaris is no longer the central point of the northern sky. The
teacher is confident that he can teach it out of a book but is anxious to give the
students a better experience from the lesson. He is hoping that the technology
integration specialist will be able to help make a more authentic study for the
students.
- Google Sky
Scenario Three:
In a fourth grade social studies class, the class is discussing the
role of landscape and surroundings on early natives—what type of food they ate, the
type of dwellings they built, and of course defensive systems or escape routes. Many
of the students have never traveled out of their own state and are not familiar with
alternate surroundings. The social studies teacher has requested that the technology
integrator help her create a new lesson.
- Use Google Earth to visit the different areas and see the landforms. There are also some 3-D tours of monuments and historic buildings.
Scenario Four:
According to the math teacher, math is everywhere. The teacher is
concentrating on a geometry unit discussing area and volume. The teacher is hoping
to have the students design a home consisting of 1500 square feet of living space
with three bedrooms, two bathrooms, a family room, and a kitchen. A playroom or
dining room are nice to have but are not needed. In the past, the teacher has asked
the students to draw it out with paper and pencil; however, this proved to be a poor
choice for reasons he has not given. The teacher is currently thinking of using craft
sticks and glue to have the students build models, but this does not fall within the
budget. The teacher is turning to the technology integrator for help.
- My first thought was a CAD program, but if that was not available and no budget for it, maybe they could use Excel (or Google spreadsheets) to map out the blueprint, using the spreadsheet cells as units of measure.
Cindy, You have some great ideas. For the math scenario, tools like 3Dtin or FloorPlanner.com could also be used. They are free online tools that create blueprints. My take on the 1st scenario could be a persuasive argument through a group discussion with Google plus or diigo. But, you are right, it needs a strong rubric to ensure that the persuasive element is captured.
ReplyDeleteGoogle Plus would be good too, if that is not blocked. Edmodo, which is a platform just for schools, which emulates the Facebook interface, would be another alternative. But I was thinking that they could discuss via the blog comments. Or another idea, which I added in a comment below, is to use VoiceThread. It's a really good tool for discussions around a document. Check out this example of students discussing a book:
Deletehttps://voicethread.com/share/310153/
Cindy, I like all of your suggestions for each of the scenarios. One of your suggestions really stood out to me because I never would have thought of it; using Excel (or similar spreadsheets) to map out the blueprint. It really would be quite simple to adjust the the width and height of the cells to the same value to create square units and then overlay quadrilaterals on top of them. I love the creative use of the application! I might use this very idea when teaching perimeter later this year! Thanks!
ReplyDeleteI have actually used it that way to plan a layout of my classroom, etc. Having come from a business background this is one of the tools that I have gone back to many times. (Another strategy for helping teachers use more tech, show them different uses of tech they are familiar with).
DeleteWe used Excel to create supply and demand curves in economics class. I had a student use it to create a crossword puzzle for the school newspaper. You can type in the letters to create the puzzle and then format the text to be the same color as the background so they are invisible, after you put borders around the cells that are used to create the crossword outline. Or you can even color in the cells that are not used to create the black and white pattern. Then screenprint the image and paste it into the document.
I had another idea come to me for the persuasive essay: Use VoiceThread to show passages and have the students record their arguments into the narration area of the VT.
ReplyDeleteMichael turned me onto blendspace.com last week. It is a great way to make the webquest more visual and gives the kids a variety of opportunities (websites, pdfs, demonstrations, simulations). I found if very user friendly and engaging.
ReplyDeleteVery cool! It sort of reminds me of Symbaloo.com which I used last year to do a webquest on Digital Citizenship sites. But it is more visual and inviting.
ReplyDeleteCindy,
ReplyDeleteI like the idea of a blog or webquest for the ELA scenario. I was trying to think of a creative solution to that. The webquest would allow for additional information about not only the texts but also the literary concepts being taught.
Persuasion Map is a great way to plan for a persuasive essay. For the last one I would use google sketch up for a 3-D modeling program and it is a lot of fun. Google sky looks neat!
ReplyDelete