Tech Plan

(1) What technology/technologies you would choose to use? Why do you choose to use the technology/technologies?

In my lesson I want to incorporate 5 different technologies which would be used in a unit plan that would span the entire school year. The students would be using blogs as a way of reporting findings they have for the lesson. They would use google earth to locate specific areas around the world that they may not be familiar with. A class Delicious site would also be created as a way for me to monitor the resources the students are using for research. The students would also be using google calendar in conjunction with a wiki space to create their final project for the unit. I choose these technologies because they are fairly easy to use for beginning students. Blogs are important for social reasons and help to encourage students to express their ideas. Google earth is helpful for content to life and allows students access to visual images of places they have never been nor heard of. Delicious is especially important because it gives students the practice for researching information while allowing the teacher to be in control of what information the students are accessing. Google calendar and wikis are great tools to help students organize information they find and share it with others in a concise way.

2) What specific content would you like to teach with the technology/technologies? What specific pedagogical goals would you like to achieve?

The main content topic for this unit plan is weather and weather patterns. The students will be using the technologies to record weather patterns and make weather predictions for various cities around the world. My goal is that students will begin to see how technology can help them gain access to information that they otherwise would not be able to find easily. Also, I want my students to see the importance of sharing information and how technology can be used to help them express information they find to anyone they want and not just someone in the same room. I would like to incorporate parents into the unit plan by encouraging them to read and respond to students’ posts so that the students can see how easily their ideas are shared. In terms of the content goals, I want students to understand the relationships between where a place is located and the weather that place experiences throughout the year. With the help of the technology, my goal is that the students will begin to notice patterns on their own so that they are building their own learning to make the information presented more meaningful.

(3) What is your specific lesson or unit plan?

This specific unit plan will take place over the course of the entire year. The students will be using the internet to track weather conditions for a particular city in the world from the first couple weeks of school to the last few weeks. The students will be split into 5 groups. Although each student will have a different city, all of their cities will have similar weather conditions. The students will use google earth to locate their cities and record the location. The groups are separated into 5 groups so that as the teacher I can meet with one group each day (groups meet once per week) to help them with their weather recordings. The students will each have a blog where they post the weather conditions for the week and predict the weather conditions for the following week. Parents will be encouraged to read the blogs and share information with their students. Toward the end of the first semester and into the second semester, the students will begin to research things to do in their city through the resources provided on the class Delicious page. Information that the students find important will also be recorded on their blog. During the last few weeks of the year, the students will look back over their weather conditions from the year to determine when the best time would be to plan a day vacation. The students will make a google calendar to highlight the day that they chose and record what the expected weather conditions would be for that day. Each group will make a wiki page with a page dedicated to each of the different cities. The groups will meet and talk about the similarities in weather and what they noticed about weather conditions. On each of their pages, the students will add pictures and information about what the vacationer can do during their day in the city. Each group will share their wiki page and the class will vote on where would be the best city to vacation based on the things to do and the weather conditions. A wrap up will be completed by the teacher that will help the students to notice patterns in weather conditions between all of the cities and the students will begin to understand how the location of a city affects the weather conditions throughout the year.

podcasting

This mini-lesson is designed for a fourth grade class. The GLCEs that are met include:

Describe ways in which the United States can be divided into different regions (i.e. political regions, economic regions, landform regions, vegetation regions). (Michigan Grade Level Content Expectations, 4-G 2.0.1)

Use a case study or story about migration within or to the United States to identify push and pull factors (why they left, why they came) that influenced the migration. (Michigan Grade Level Content Expectations, 4-G 4.0.1)

Explain probable consequences of an absence of government and of rules and laws. (Michigan Grade Level Content Expectations, 4-C 1.0.1)

The lesson will progress by having the students first listen to the audio introduction and then watch the Michigan History Video.

Podcasting is a very beneficial tool to use in the classroom. Students can use podcasting to enhance powerpoint presentations by adding an audio aspect. By having the students record their voice, some of the anxieties of oral presentations are taken away. Also, students who don't have access to a video camera but have a regular digital camera can make movies using their voices in order to create a video with the pictures in photostory3. Students can use podcasting to summarize what they learned from a fieldtrip and they can also be used to complete jigsaw presentations of class content. Podcasting can also be utilized by teachers to create informational videos from information that they want to include. Many times teachers find videos about class content that cover too much or too little about the information they wish to cover. However, with podcasting, teachers can create their own audio/video presentations that they can tailor to their particular classrooms. Podcasting helps to personalize classroom content and can help teachers and students presenting learning in a fun and interactive way.